Friday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

The indictment of James Comey in the Eastern District of Virginia accuses him of lying to and obstructing Congress during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020. At the hearing, Senator Ted Crude asked Comey whether he had authorized someone at the F.B.I. “to be an anonymous source in news reports.” The indictment says that Comey misled the committee by saying that he had not done so.

Comey has not moved to dismiss the indictment, claiming that:

Count One seeks to punish Mr. Comey for responding to Senator Ted Cruz’s fundamentally ambiguous questions with literally true answers. As a matter of law, neither those questions nor those answers can serve as the basis for a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2). Thus, under longstanding principles of criminal law, Count One must be dismissed. If Count Two rests on the same allegedly false statements, it should be dismissed for the same reasons. And in any event, Count Two should be dismissed because it fails to give Mr. Comey adequate notice of the charges against him.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.582135/gov.uscourts.vaed.582135.105.0.pdf The indictment, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.582135/gov.uscourts.vaed.582135.1.0_2.pdf , conspicuously omits the allegedly false testimony given and fails describe the manner in which any testimony was false. The motion to dismiss recites:

On May 3, 2017, Mr. Comey voluntarily testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s annual FBI oversight hearing. See Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Hearing
Before the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 115th Cong. (May 3, 2017) (Statement of James B. Comey, Dir. FBI, at 44:00), http://bit.ly/3WdliN9. As relevant here, Mr. Comey engaged in the
following exchange with Senator Charles Grassley:

SEN. GRASSLEY: Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?
MR. COMEY: Never.
SEN. GRASSLEY: Question two on [sic] relatively related, have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?
MR. COMEY: No.

* * *

Three years later, on September 30, 2020, Mr. Comey voluntarily appeared before the same committee at a hearing on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. See Oversight of the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation: Day 3, Hearing Before the Sen. Comm. on the Judiciary, 116th Cong. (Sept. 30, 2020), http://bit.ly/4o2ekHb.1 As relevant here, Mr. Comey engaged in the following exchange with Senator Ted Cruz:

SEN. CRUZ: On May 3, 2017 in this committee, Chairman Grassley asked you point blank “have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?” You responded under oath “never.” He then asked you “have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton administration.” You responded again under oath, “no.”

Now, as you know, Mr. McCabe, who works for you, has publicly and repeatedly stated that he leaked information to The Wall Street Journal and that you were directly aware of it and that you directly authorized it. Now, what Mr. McCabe is saying and what you testified to this committee cannot both be true; one or the other is false. Who’s telling the truth?
MR. COMEY: I can only speak to my testimony. I stand by what, the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017.
MR CRUZ: So, your testimony is you’ve never authorized anyone to leak. And Mr. McCabe when if he says contrary is not telling the truth, is that correct?
MR. COMEY: Again, I’m not going to characterize Andy’s testimony, but mine is the same today.

See Exhibit A (“Oversight Hearing Video Clip”); Exhibit C to Mot. to Dismiss Indictment Based on Vindictive & Selective Prosecution, ECF No. 59-3 at 11 (“Oversight Hearing Transcript”).2
The colloquy thus reflects that Senator Cruz’s questions focused exclusively on an asserted contradiction between Mr. McCabe and Mr. Comey.

[Footnotes omitted.]

Inder Fourth Circuit precedent, to prove that a defendant
violated 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2), the government must establish that (1) the defendant made a false statement to a governmental agency, (2) the defendant acted knowingly or willfully, and (3) the false statement was material to a matter within the jurisdiction of the agency. United States v. Freitekh, 114 F.4th 292, 310 (4th Cir. 2024).

The answer to a fundamentally ambiguous question may not, as a matter of law, form the basis for a false statement. United
States v. Sarwari, 669 F.3d 401, 407 (4th Cir. 2012). A question is fundamentally ambiguous when it is not a phrase with a meaning about which men of ordinary intellect could agree, nor one which could be used with mutual understanding by a questioner and answerer unless it were defined at the time it were sought and offered as testimony. "The purpose of the rule of fundamental ambiguity is three-fold, namely, to (1) preclude convictions grounded on surmise or conjecture; (2) prevent witnesses from unfairly bearing the risks of inadequate examination; and (3) encourage witnesses to testify (or at least not discourage them from doing so)." United States v. Farmer, 137 F.3d 1265, 1269 (10th Cir. 1998).

[Mr. Bumble]

Vying for title of Defender of the Faith?

[not guilty]

Defender of the Faith? What does that have to do with anything?

I dislike James Comey. He deserved to be fired, for the reasons identified by Rod Rosenstein. But as to the false statement bullshit that the Trump DOJ has charged, Comey is stone cold innocent.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Comey is stone cold innocent."
In your opinion but yet to be determined.

[Martinned]

I think we should put Bumble on trial for murder. Of course, lots of people will say that he's innocent, but that's only an opinion. His true guilt is yet to be determined.

[Mr. Bumble]

Where's the body?

[Michael P]

Right up there, earlier in this thread: not guilty's pretense at rationality.

[Martinned]

You don't need a body to prosecute someone for murder.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well then, who is the victim?

[Martinned]

Andrew Kirkland

[Mr. Bumble]

??

[Voize of Reazon]

Arthur. It's been a while, hasn't it?

[Frank Drackman]

Like you don’t need a Brain to post shit?

[grb]

Frank Drackman : "Like you don’t need a Brain to post shit?"

Come on, Frank! You're proof positive you don't....

[apedad]

Thanks for that clarification Mr. Obvious!

[Mr. Bumble]

Think of it as an autopsy.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I only listen to Captain Obvious to obtain obvious information.

[wvattorney13]

I'm not sure how this motion is proper. There is no "summary judgment" in a criminal case. You let the government put on a case and then make a Rule 29 motion at the end of its case.

[David Nieporent]

It's not a motion for summary judgment; it's a motion to dismiss the indictment pursuant to Rule 12.

[not guilty]

Per Rule 7(c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure "The indictment or information must be a plain, concise, and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged and must be signed by an attorney for the government."

If the indictment fails to comport with those requirements, Rule 12(b)(3)(B) requires that any motion to dismiss be made prior to trial, whether the defect is lack of specificity, 12(b)(3)(B)(iii), or failure to state an offense. 12(b)(3)(B)(v).

Also, whether 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a) applies at all to the facts alleged in the indictment is a question of law capable of being determined prior to trial pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) ("A party may raise by pretrial motion any defense, objection, or request that the court can determine without a trial on the merits.") Section 1001(c) limits the scope of subsection (a)>

(c) With respect to any matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch, subsection (a) shall apply only to—

(1) administrative matters, including a claim for payment, a matter related to the procurement of property or services, personnel or employment practices, or support services, or a document required by law, rule, or regulation to be submitted to the Congress or any office or officer within the legislative branch; or
(2) any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission or office of the Congress, consistent with applicable rules of the House or Senate.

While subsection (c)(1) clearly does not apply, whether Senator Crude's question falls within the purview of § 1001(c)(2) is well within the purview of Rule 12(b)(1).

[John F. Carr]

The question is not quoted in the indictment. The questioner is not identified in the indictment. The court must presume that the government will present evidence supporting the charge.

The weakness of the case is a better argument to make in support of a motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution.

[David Nieporent]

The question is not quoted in the indictment. The questioner is not identified in the indictment.

Yes; that's one of the bases of Comey's motion: the indictment fails to give fair notice of the offense.

The government can't indict someone for murder by saying, "the defendant violated 18 USC § 1111 by killing someone," and then say, "The court must presume we'll identify the victim at trial."

[Life of Brian]

Wow. Just weeks ago I was patiently instructed by multiple Very Smart People around here that there was no available mechanism for Comey to move to dismiss on the actual merits of the indictment.

As Jim Davis once put it: “It's amazing what one can accomplish when one doesn't know what one can't do.”

[David Nieporent]

It's also amazing what one can say when one is willing to lie, as you evidently are, since you linked to the post proving you a liar. I said that one can’t move to dismiss an indictment on the grounds one is innocent. And that is indeed not the basis for Comey's motion.

[Life of Brian]

I guess trying to invent hairs to split between 1) moving to dismiss a criminal indictment on the merits of the charged behavior, and 2) "being innocent" of the charges in the indictment is about the best play you have. But the invective sure does detract from the tapdancing.

[David Nieporent]

If you think that the difference between "I didn't do that" and "This indictment is fatally flawed because it fails to provide adequate notice of the charges against me" is merely "splitting hairs," you should probably not comment on legal matters anymore.

[Life of Brian]

"This indictment is fatally flawed because it fails to provide adequate notice of the charges against me"

Weirdly, you've already acknowledged in this very discussion today that inadequate notice re count 2 was only one of the bases in the motion. In fact, it's less than 1 page out of the 20-page motion.

The rest of the motion argues in excruciating detail that specific statements recited in the indictment can't support the violation charged in count 1.

Maybe stop digging?

[wvattorney13]

But it does provide notice of what the charges are. We have been debating the merits of that. Comey's legal theory is that the allegations do not constitute the crime of lying to Congress.

How is the court to know that without hearing the evidence? Maybe the government has audio of Comey telling a subordinate, "I hereby authorize you to leak information and if Ted Cruz asks, I will lie to him."

[David Nieporent]

But it does provide notice of what the charges are.

A normal indictment for false statements/perjury/etc. quotes verbatim specific statements by the defendant that the government contends were false. The Comey indictment has two counts. One of them paraphrases a partial response by Comey to a question by Ted Cruz; the other doesn't cite any specific statement at all.

[Krayt]

In this subthread, people who spent 8 years faceting concern for rule of law directing the investigative and prosecutorial power of government against a political opponent qua opponent now find impropriety when it is turned against them.

They are correct...now. The lesson will not be learned, of course. None of this has anything to do with propriety and the spirit of the Constitution and everything to do with the power.

And why do they need the power? Nope, not 'cause they're good guys. That's patter to shine on the rubes. No, they need it for:

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.

"Corruption! But Trump..."

Yes, and? Take the plank out of thine own eye first.

If Wonder Woman's magic lasso existed, not a god damned one of you pols would touch it and answer the simple question: "Tell us all your corruptions." Remember, it's magic, and scythes through all the half truths lawyers and "from a certain point of views" politicians are so good at conjuring up.

[Kenneth Almquist]

Comey’s lawyers are trying all plausible defenses rather than settle on a few.

The literal truth defense seems unlikely to succeed. At this point it’s not established whether Comey’s testimony in 2017 was truthful; the literal truth defense argues that the truthfulness of the 2017 testimony doesn’t matter because Comey’s statements about standing by his earlier testimony just mean that he’s not changing his earlier testimony.

The ambiguous question defense seems intuitively correct. Cruz was suggesting that Comey had authorized Andy McCabe to leak information to the Wall Street Journal, and the gist of Comey’s response is that Comey had not. So it’s hard to see how Comey’s response was substantially misleading.

The third argument is that Count Two fails to provide adequate notice of the charges against Comey. Honestly, I think that applies to both counts, but a standard remedy for that is for the court to order the government to file a bill of particulars, and Comey has in fact filed a separate motion asking the court to do that.

Comey’s third filing yesterday was a request for the grand jury proceedings.

[Riva]

Well, you certainly brought the goods this Friday NG. No criminal defendant has ever filed a motion to dismiss before. I guess the government will have no choice but to concede and apologize. Or they may, among other things, point out that "longstanding principles" of criminal procedure provide that a motion to dismiss is not the proper venue to argue that the answers given by the scumbag,...er innocent until proven guilty scumbag were not false under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2).

[Randal]

Count One seeks to punish Mr. Comey for responding to Senator Ted Cruz’s fundamentally ambiguous questions with literally true answers.

I told all y'all Comey would make this argument and you thought I was insane. Well, I guess I'm not the only one.

Mr. Comey can truthfully “stand by” prior testimony — even if the government were correct (and it is not) that the prior testimony was false. Accordingly, the statement that Mr. Comey “stand[s] by” his prior testimony cannot serve as the basis for a false statement charge.

[Dr. Ed 2]

This is hilarious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb__qs8D7Ug

Good bye Democrats.

[Krayt]

What am I missing?

[Mr. Bumble]

Not having Dr. Ed's non-existent sense of humor?

[Life of Brian]

Apparently it was a clip from yesterday's Greg Gutfeld show, discussing this report:

Democrats have badly weakened their party with left-leaning ideas and rhetoric, growing only with self-described “white liberals” while losing ground with other voters, according to a new center-left group’s report shared first with Semafor.

The group, called Welcome, consulted hundreds of thousands of voters over six months for its broad findings, including that 70% of voters think the Democratic Party is “out of touch.” Most voters, the group found, believe the party over-prioritizes issues like “protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans,” and “fighting climate change” while not caring about “securing the border” or “lowering the rate of crime.”

[Dr. Ed 2]

Exactly, and they included the percentages increases and decreases of certain words.

And Bill Gates no longer believes in climate change...

[not guilty]

Earlier this week, President Trump wrote on Truth Social:

The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115460423936412555

Never mind that other countries in fact are not doing nuclear weapons testing, what good can come of a return to a Cold War mentality? https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/us/politics/trump-nuclear-testing-cold-war.html

[Martinned]

If you're Donald Trump, doing things 1950s style is already pretty modern. His usual MO is at least 50 years further back.

[Frank Drackman]

Says the guy who’s ruled by a boy buggerer King.

[Don Nico]

ng,
As for the question of test detonations of actual nuclear devices, that is not needed for the U.S. to have a reliable and credible deterrent.
Although neither Russia nor China have conducted nuclear tests for many years, both are modernizing their tests sites to permit new tests. Both are conducting flight tests of a new generation of strategic delivery systems which significantly to dramatically enhanced capabilities. Putin just announced a successful test of a nuclear reactor powered hypersonic cruise missile (this seems to have triggered Mr Trump). China is building 200 new ICBM silos and deploying an additional 200 nuclear weapons every year, and declines to participate in any nuclear arms control negotiations.
It would be irresponsible for Mr Trump not to react to the nuclear nuclear force build-up of potential adversaries. The US is in the early stages of modernizing its nuclear forces at a price tag approaching $1T. That program has been the consistent US nuclear posture since GW Bush.
I am afraid that Russia and China are deep into the Cold war mentality. In the sense of its underlying thrust, the NYT article is deeply misleading

[Mr. Bumble]

"In the sense of its underlying thrust, the NYT article is deeply misleading."
Tell us something we don't know.

[grb]

Nothing in Nico's comment explains why "the NYT article is deeply misleading". He says the Chinese and Russians are developing new weapons, including nuclear ones. So are we. He says they're "conducting flight tests of a new generation of strategic delivery systems". So are we. He says, "It would be irresponsible for Mr Trump not to react to the nuclear nuclear force build-up", which is damn near meaningless. There hasn't been a president in the last eighty years where that statement wasn't true and acted upon.

The only thing new is his litany of the obvious is the actual substance of the NYT article : The Stunt President wanting the ultimate stunt of a very big BOOM. There I give Nico credit, because he readily admits the stunt is a stunt, having zero real value. But the fact remains Trump is destroying an understanding with the Russians & Chinese for no better reason than entertaining his base. If only his jokey parade hadn't been such a fiasco we probably wouldn't be here.

[Joe_dallas]

As i noted a few days ago with the whooping cough story by npr, it is the omission of facts that hides the full context that makes the story misleading.

[grb]

What omission of facts? As I pointed out, nothing in Don Nico's spiel qualifies. Bumble didn't provide any nor do you. I get it : You're determined to always remain ignorant and the NYT is an obstacle to that life goal. But there were no facts omitted in the Time's article (which I read). Moscow hasn't tested in 35yrs. Beijing hasn't tested in 29yrs. There's no purpose or value in the tests, as even gawdforsaken Nico admits. Nico's "stance" that tests are necessary because Russia & the Chinese are still developing weapons is pure inadvertent comedy.

That said, our Stunt President is very fond of making grand statements until the inevitable TACO retreat. How many times has he bellowed threats against Putin over Ukraine, with every one forgotten and ignored minutes later? In this case, he instructed the DOD to resume tests “immediately”, but then added “on an equal basis” with U.S. rivals. But U.S. rivals aren't testing, so who knows what that means? Given Trump's advanced state of cognitive decay, I doubt even he does.

On the other hand, Trump bragged for days about being able to distinguish between a 'a tiger, an elephant, a giraffe' on his (suddenly scheduled) dementia test, so I offer my kudos for that.

[Mr. Bumble]

My comment was about the quality of NYT reporting in general. Not this specific story.

[Magister]

In the Wednesday Open Thread, joe_dallas was wrong about the whooping cough story from NPR. The story was about the slowness of the Louisiana Department of Health in encouraging vaccination in response to a substantial increase in whooping cough cases, and the story included the information that the infant who died was not eligible for vaccination, which did not "undercut the major premise of the story".

[Joe_dallas]

A - Yes NPR omitted significant facts and presented other facts out of context.
B - I wouldnt have expected you to pick up on the omitted facts. Nor would I have expected grb to have picked up on the omitted facts in the NYT story.

[grb]

Joe_dallas : " ....picked up on the omitted facts in the NYT story."

What omitted facts? Nico provided none. Bumble provided none. You provide none. Instead we get the rightwing braindead belief that evoking the NYT's name as a talisman of evil allows you to ignore any fact and live in your own reality.

If you want to do so, please go ahead. Find a planet in some distant galaxy and reside there in your own mind. Just don't expect serious people to take you seriously.

[David Nieporent]

Handwaving about how people got their facts wrong or omitted them without ever specifying a single incorrect or omitted fact is basically bookkeeper_joe's trademark at this point.

[Moderation4ever]

All of this overlooks whether a nuclear war is really possible or just an end for civilization. Nuclear weapons are a trap. They are powerful but cannot really be used except with a willingness to end civilization as we know it.

[Frank Drackman]

They worked pretty well against Japan.

[Moderation4ever]

And I am sure they will work as well against an adversary that cannot response in kind.

[Frank Drackman]

Sort of the point.

[Bob from Ohio]

Limited nuclear war is great, well depending on your point of view!

[not guilty]

Limited nuclear war between adversaries who then each had nuclear weapons has never occurred.

[Don Nico]

Unfortunately the leaders of the nuclear weapons states that own 10,000 nuclear weapons don't buy that argument.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"As for the question of test detonations of actual nuclear devices, that is not needed for the U.S. to have a reliable and credible deterrent."

No.

We *think* they are still radioactive enough to go "bang" but we aren't sure.

[Moderation4ever]

Well you don't need to detonate the bombs, you need to re-assay the fissionable core.

[Nelson]

I’m pretty sure that’s a known factor. I believe half lives of radioactive materials is longer than human history.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Given thermonuclear weapons, nuclear war fighting "victories," are unattainable. No one can win a thermonuclear war.

Thus, the only useful purpose to stockpile nuclear weapons is to achieve deterrence against any other nation which may have them. The U.S. already has many times the number of warheads and delivery systems necessary to assure deterrence against any conceivable threat from any nation, or combination of nations, now or in the future.

The only way that could change would be the seemingly impossible task to build means to destroy with a surprise attack almost the entire capacity to deliver U.S. nuclear weapons. Given naval nuclear weapons systems, including submarines, nobody supposes an adversary capable of rational decisions would make that attempt.

Accidental or irrational causes of nuclear destruction are another matter. More weapons, or more capable weapons, only multiply the risks of those.

Accidental or irrational hazards cannot be deterred, only increased, or reduced, by choosing more, or less, weapons and delivery systems to deploy—or by engineering to make the weapons systems at least theoretically more resistant to explosions caused by irrational or accidental circumstances.

Alas, means to accomplish such safety-enhancing designs are inherently dependent on unknowable future failure modes. Those include failures initiated by human factors, or physical factors, or operational happenstance. Such factors can be, and have been, unexpectedly induced or overlooked by designers of new nuclear weapons engineering, including engineering undertaken with an eye to enhance safety.

Experience has demonstrated little-publicized but nevertheless horrifying examples to show all those failure modes have already happened, in multiple cases, during real-world management of nuclear weapons systems. Sheer luck has in some instances been the only reason nuclear catastrophe was averted.

Of course insights such as those above are not based on my own direct experience. What I wrote summarizes conclusions published over many years by nuclear weapons design insiders themselves, by strategic war planning experts, and by authors who have interviewed the experts. Thus, anyone can find all that information in any research library on a major university campus, or even by canvassing local libraries and book sellers.

Unfortunately, throughout the cold war, and right down until the present, political leaders of many nations have acted without fully availing themselves of any such insights. There has been a mismatch between characteristic political behavior—however well informed—and a set of circumstances novel to the politicians. The politicians made the world profoundly more dangerous as a result of that mismatch. Insufficient political means to coordinate decisions among political rivals has proved especially daunting.

The leaders who thus failed the world included statesmen of undoubted good intentions, and extraordinary political capacity. The political leaders struggled despite efforts famously made by the experts best-positioned to inform the political decisions about real-world changes in the context necessary for consideration.

Knowing that should give pause to anyone contemplating future outcomes likely to result from decisions a reading-averse, advice-averse POTUS may make if left unconstrained by others in government. If despite those historical blunders by others, President Trump really means to restart the nuclear arms race, and to do it on the basis of unchecked personal authority his office does not confer, then Congress and the Supreme Court must stop him.

[Frank Drackman]

Nuke-ular war wouldn’t be as horrible as your neverending posts.

[Don Nico]

Stephen,
There is no indication reason to assume that Mr Trump or and public official wishes to restart the nuclear arms race. Trump's outburst has nothing to do with "unchecked personal authority" and is a consequence of Russian and Chinese efforts to do just that. You do know about the Russian reactor powered torpedo with a multi-megaton warhead that is design to lie in wait off the coasts to trigger tsunamis ? Do you know about the Sarmat missile with enough range to fly over the South pole to attach America from our southern border? That is what a new arms race looks like. In contrast the US modernization program is an effort to replace weapons that are well beyond their design lifetime with items of similar design.

Having said all that, the US and Russia should be reducing their nuclear arsenal.

Regarding safety, there is no known instance of an deployed nuclear device having given any detectable nuclear yield.

[Moderation4ever]

Interesting look at the weaponry, but consider the following. Almost any country even without a delivery system could wreck devastation on the world. This not my field so I can not address specifics. But consider a small nuclear armed nation, North Korea or Iran, could bury nuclear weapons at shallow depths within there own country. Once detonated the particulate matter thrown into the atmosphere could throw the world into a nuclear winter or worse. I would ask you to consider the effects of significant solar heat loss for multiple years. Imagine the loss of 30 to 50% of planet life and the resulting effects.

[Bob from Ohio]

"nuclear winter"

Still beating that horse?

[Don Nico]

It is not a dead horse. There is a 150 page report by the US National Academies about the topic issued just this year

[Moderation4ever]

Tell it to the dinosaurs.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico — You are arguing like JFK, before he got elected. At current armaments levels, thermonuclear dis-parity does not signify. Only deterrence signifies. The U.S. will remain secure in its capability to deter nuclear aggression from any nation on earth.

I do not take your carefully qualified remarks about the safety of nuclear weapons as entirely forthright. I think they show you quoting the PR explanations issued following dangerous incidents, while slighting contrary reports which insisted real dangers were disclosed in multiple cases.

[Don Nico]

"about the safety of nuclear weapons as entirely forthright. I think they show you quoting the PR explanations issued following dangerous incidents"
No, I am NOT parroting PR reports. Nuclear weapons have been dropped accidentally, they have gone to the bottom of the sea. BUT there is NO evidence whatsoever of any accidental detonation of over a nuclear weapon of any country that produced any nuclear yield. The US safety standard is less than 2 kg of nuclear yield.
I challenge you to find such a report.

I don't understand what you mean concerning JFK or what you mean by "signify."
As for "The US will remain..." the security of the deterrent force is what the Dirctors of all three weapons labs certify to POTUS and the Congress every year.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico — Politics, if not history, has proved unkind to directors of weapons labs, unless they steadily expressed anxiety about the adequacy of current deterrence. Famously, politicians—in cahoots with the egregiously ambitious Edward Teller—for the sin of contradicting that anxiety, arranged to exclude Robert Oppenheimer from the nuclear weapons debate.

Oppenheimer's judgment on the folly to stake world security on proliferation of thermonuclear weapons was supported by nearly all of the world's leading nuclear physicists, except those with careers tied to developing the weapons. Physicists as prestigious as Bohr, Fermi, Bethe, and Einstein were similarly—if less humiliatingly—excluded.

Alas, outside the physics community—during the 1950s when that exclusionary tendency became locked into policy—other decision makers were demonstrably incompetent to understand consequences which physicists were urgently trying to warn them about, only to be rebuffed.

The uninformed outsiders, of course, controlled the budgets, and ultimately made the decisions. For their part, they supposed the physicists ignorant about vital matters suitable only for the the expertise of military men, or of statesmen. The military men and the statesmen proved wrong about that.

Thus, physics outsiders decided instead on the basis of expertise in politics, or in business, or in propaganda, or whatever else they knew, what to do with a technology with implications which were beyond their capacity to grasp, but which affected all of their fields. That has worked out badly for both the physical safety of the world, and for its prosperity.

In retrospect, experience also shows that personal ambitions, among physicists, among military men, among political interest groups, and among politicians themselves, have all distorted nuclear weapons defense policies in irrational ways. That has been done to the detriment of the U.S., and it has endangered the world needlessly. Some of the ambitious military men shared a delusion that the world would be best served by preemptive nuclear war, urged that course on American politicians, and ordered military missions against the Soviet Union calculated to deliver provocations which might start such a war. JFK, while struggling in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis, was acutely aware that he was advised by generals who had capacity he could not control to trigger a nuclear war, and who were pressing him hard to start such a war on purpose.

More generally, one problem was that too many politicians, weapons developers, military men, and business people recognized as a personal career advantage no one could challenge their own personal access to control of nuclear weapons policy. That insight delivered not only a ruthless scramble for insider status, but also a tendency to exclude from access to information even people with the most urgent need to know—including even U.S. presidents.

For years, top generals of the Strategic Air Command kept other military men, and all civilians with nominal powers of oversight, in the dark about SAC's war plans. As a result, nobody, within SAC or outside it, knew what the overall attack plan of the U.S. was. The ignorance extended to particular targets, and even more so to the overall scale of the attack plan.

SAC had military rivals making their own plans. When attack plan obscurity was finally breached, the facts disclosed were shocking even to planners who thought of themselves as full participants.

Competing services were planning to attack with thermonuclear weapons the same targets simultaneously. Not only would that have uselessly increased world-girdling radiation consequences, it would also have resulted in attacks which interfered with each other, potentially even permitting targets to escape unscathed.

Except for the interference, multiplication of destructive capacity was many times what would assure utter, complete, and reliable destruction of an astonishingly long list of targets, ranging downward toward the trivial. Tens of thousands of nuclear detonations were planned, potentially to be delivered, on purpose, against combatant nations and non-combatant nations alike. SAC's generals scorned as ideologically senseless any notion that a nuclear answer to Soviet aggression would not be widened to destroy China in any case.

Possibility was implicated of a years-long nuclear winter, with general life-extinguishing global consequences. And all of that had been put together by a tiny coterie of people acting in deepest secrecy. Secrecy so profound that it may be the case that members of that select group were all at least partly keeping each other in the dark. That anyway, is a conclusion suggested by defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who was himself such an insider.

On the plus side, the secrecy policy which made possible what would have been mankind's worst-ever self-inflicted horror, and risked actual extinction of life on earth, had enabled a vast-but-profitable oversupply of weapons and delivery systems for folks who backed it. Not to mention the aforementioned career advantages.

Neither the authors of that public policy debacle, nor their similarly-placed successors now, ought to be relied upon without full openness on all the questions previously kept under wraps. That openness will never be delivered.

But Nico, you seem to suppose it is okay to continue as before, and also to accept at face value self-serving descriptions of accidents and events for which contrary evidence from well-placed expert sources is now well known.

For instance, there is no question that so-called one-point safety is an inadequate standard. It presumes a one-in-a-million chance of nuclear yield if the high-explosive component of a nuclear weapon is somehow triggered at one location, instead of simultaneously to deliver a designed implosion. Problem is, it is known that some warhead designs in service failed that standard, and were eventually removed. And other warhead designs failed during testing.

Most tellingly, estimates of the operational frequency of accidents, measured across the entire nuclear arsenal, and over long time intervals, suggests higher danger. After all, the nation as a whole is at risk of an accidental nuclear detonation, with thousands of warheads deployed, with the one-in-a-million standard applied to each. The aggregate expectation is probably beyond reasonable estimate, because no one can predict what risks of one-point detonation will happen to each warhead, but implications for overall national safety are mathematically far worse than one-in-a-million, and get worse the longer that standard is relied upon.

Beyond that, it is well known that fully assembled nuclear weapons have repeatedly, in many instances, been by accident put into fully armed status, through handling errors and training failures. At times, crews training in nuclear capable aircraft inadvertently went aloft without knowing they had nukes aboard.

That is before you even consider the extensive, and likely not fully disclosed, catalogue of nuclear weapons accidents involving loss or dynamic destruction of a nuclear weapon in fires and crashes, with uncontrollable resulting consequences to any safety systems involved. One such example, in Goldsboro, NC, resulted in the crash of a B-52 bomber carrying two 3+ megaton hydrogen bombs. Those were ejected from the plane as it broke up before the crash. The bombs began arming as they separated from the plane, and plunged to earth, activating at least some of their redundant arming systems. One was discovered afterward with every arming system but one ready to fire. Here from the Wikipedia description, is an excerpt of the discovery and analysis of the other:

The bomb had become deeply buried in mud, and it required three days of excavation to recover its MC-772 Arm/Safe Switch. In 2013, Lt. Jack ReVelle, an EOD officer on the scene, recalled the moment: "Until my death I will never forget hearing my sergeant say, 'Lieutenant, we found the arm/safe switch.' And I said, 'Great.' He said, 'Not great. It's on arm.'"[39] Another EOD officer recalled: "The arm safety switch was on, armed and functioning. . . . ."

A representative of the Atomic Energy Commission noted that after the discovery of the Arm/Safe Switch in the "Armed" position, and the arming rods having been pulled out, he and his colleagues "wondered why bomb No. 2 had been a dud." An immediate analysis showed that the Arm/Safe Switch was "electrically... neither in armed nor safe position."[41] The switch and other components were shipped to Sandia for further "post-mortem" analysis, and it was determined that while the switch's indicator drum had rotated to the "Arm" position, it had disconnected from its contacts, and was never electrically "armed." They concluded that this was damage caused by the impact shock of the bomb hitting the ground, which also damaged the switch to such an extent that the circuit could not have closed even if it were in the "Arm" position.

Taking the post-recovery report as trustworthy, that is thermonuclear safety delivered by pure happenstance. With large thermonuclear arsenals in continuous deployment, luck like that will not continue perpetually.

Far fewer weapons than this nation now has will guarantee deterrence. Parity with other nations is not necessary to deter them. Only assurance that others cannot launch an almost perfectly successful strike on this nation's retaliatory capacity is necessary. We have that for now. No loss of that status is currently threatened. Even imagination is challenged to conjure a scenario which might deliver such assurance.

Thus, further reduction in the U.S. nuclear arsenal is the most logical course to encourage other nations not to attempt any costly and unreliable adventure to threaten U.S. retaliatory capacity. Reduced costs for the U.S., and reduced danger from accidental nuclear mishaps of all kinds would be additional benefits.

[David Nieporent]

That's an incredibly long-winded (well, not incredible for you) way of saying, "The government was right and the alarmists were wrong." (Why would one think a nuclear physicist would have any insight into either military strategy or geopolitics?)

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent — In this case, we are talking about what has already happened. We need not speculate. To me it seems self-evident that the anti-proliferation physicists were correct, and the people who empowered Curtis LeMay's attempts to start a thermonuclear war were wrong.

In a context more mundane, the cost of cold war nuclear proliferation between 1950 and 1960 approximated the entire national debt incurred during that interval, with the Cuban Missile Crisis the best-remembered payoff for that expense.

If there is a group which finds those results almost ideal, I am not among those who would have taken either trend even slightly farther.

[David Nieporent]

In this case, we are talking about what has already happened. We need not speculate.

Yes, and that cuts against your position. We know there were no accidental nuclear detonations, let alone actual nuclear war.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent — What makes you think maintaining parity with whatever a crazy nuclear-armed adversary does (or claims to do) is wiser than reliance on deterrence using a smaller stockpile of warheads?

Experience has taught folks who manage nuclear weapons to be rightly fearful of the danger each one of them poses to the nation which maintains it. Why do you suppose both the U.S. and the Soviet Union chose to reduce warhead stockpiles instead of maintain them at previously much higher levels? Why do you suppose the U.S. has steadily decreased the yield of the warheads in its stockpile? Even conceding advances in accuracy which enable an attacker to destroy more with less, why not choose instead use the accuracy to destroy more with more, unless there is some offsetting advantage?

[Kazinski]

Trump is coming back from his Asian trip, with an interim trade deal with China:

"Mr. Trump said he agreed to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods by 10%, which he said would bring the rate from 57% to 47%. The president told reporters he expects to sign an agreement on trade "pretty soon," although he also said he's likely to renegotiate it in future years.

The president said he's easing tariffs because China pledged to work with him on the deadly fentanyl crisis. China is the world's largest exporter of the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl, which has been a longstanding complaint of the president. Levying 47% tariffs on Chinese imports would still mean China has one of the highest tariff rates."

"Mr. Trump said Beijing would delay its recently announced export restrictions on rare-earth minerals for one year, a delay he expects to be routinely extended. Mr. Trump claimed the rare earth issue has been "settled."

Hopefully the rare earth deal has some substance, but we should know tomorrow morning when the market opens.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/heres-what-trump-says-he-and-xi-agreed-to-in-their-meeting/

[Mr. Bumble]

...and after a whirlwind trip through Asia Trump was back at the White House (currently minus the East Wing) handing out Halloween candy.

[Mr. Bumble]

Meant to add the link.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15244399/trump-halloween-white-house-event.html

[Commenter_XY]

I shudder to think how The Cauliflower and his crackerjack team would have handled this negotiation.

The markets are focused on earnings. For the CAPE10 afficionados, it is the second highest point since 1999. Before you go nuts, keep in mind that CAPE7 is much more predictive of markets than CAPE10 (which is not predictive at all).

[Martinned]

You mean the negotiation where Trump put a tax on Americans, took a foreign trip, and then slightly reduced his tax on Americans? Yeah, that's definitely a tough negotiation. I can see how it would take the "author" of the Art of the Deal to pull that one off.

[Mr. Bumble]

You forgot to mention the crown he received in South Korea.
By the way, how did your elections shake out?

[Martinned]

The Koreans gave Trump a shiny gift? Wow, it's almost as if they've met him before!

And our elections turned out fine. Collectively the far right got about the same number of votes as before, but they're more fragmented. In the centre the party of which I am a member came out as the largest faction, meaning that the party leader will probably get to be prime minister. But that's still months away. First there's lots of compromising to do.

[Frank Drackman]

Who won the election for King?

[CountmontyC]

The pedophile incumbent.

[Bob from Ohio]

"still months away"

Fragmented winners due to proportional representation gives power to unelected bureaucrats and takes it away from the people.

In the superior single district first past the post in the UK, the winner takes over the next day so can implement the voter approved manifesto.

[Randal]

You forgot to mention the crown he received in South Korea.

Wow really? Were the Koreans trolling him and he didn't understand?

[Kazinski]

Beijing mist be somewhat frustrated by a trip like the one Trump just finished.

Why was Trump at the ASEAN summit, not Xi? And why was it Trump brokering the Cambodian-Thai ceasefire not Xi?

Cambodia is almost a Chinese client state and it doesn't appear China provided even moral support for Cambodia against Thailand. To be sure China has extensive ties with Thailand too, but Thailand is also much more integrated into Western markets than Cambodia is. China needs good relations with Thailand a lot more than it needs Cambodia, so they didn't want to exert any influence to help, if it would cause any friction with the Thais.

But but they can be happy seeing the US exerting its influence right in their backyard.

[Martinned]

Either that or they think that they can do whatever TF they like in "their backyard" anyway, and don't need to flatter Trump or arrange to be flattered. By now Trump has forgotten all about Cambodia, and the Cambodians are still stuck dealing with the Chinese.

[Kazinski]

Sure China can do anything they want in their backyard, but they certainly don't want someone from across town coming in and crapping in their backyard.

[David Nieporent]

I shudder to think how The Cauliflower and his crackerjack team would have handled this negotiation.

They wouldn't have started an insane trade war in the first place, so there wouldn't have been any need for "negotiation."

[bernard11]

I'm not familiar with the CAPE7. Is it just like the CAPE10, but with only seven years of data?

If so, then it ought to be roughly as predictive as the CAPE10, which is to say not predictive at all, according to you.

[apedad]

Autopsies!

(I’ll post an annual comment about autopsies near Halloween.)

As an Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFSOI) Special Agent stationed overseas, I had the opportunity to attend several autopsies.

I note that the deceased were relatively “healthy” in the autopsies I attended in that there was not a lot of outward, physical trauma, e.g., one drowned, one had a heart attack, etc..

Not sure of the policy now but back in the 1990s, the Air Force had a policy that all unattended deaths, i.e., not under medical care, in overseas locations required an autopsy (so to be able to tell the family back in the US what happened to their son or daughter).

My first autopsy was for an airman who died at his off-base residence. He was found lying on the floor near his bed with no other unusual circumstances or signs of a disturbance, e.g., no broken furniture, etc.. During an autopsy, the forensic doctor removes all the organs. In this case, he also sliced open the lungs and gently squeeze on one side, and you could see the mucus in the lungs ooze out. The doctor listed the cause of death as asthma and the manner of death as Natural, i.e., death due solely to natural disease.

It was my first autopsy and I was awed at the structure and layout of the human body – from the inside!

As an investigator, you also have to photograph and fingerprint the deceased. Fingerprinting live suspects is not easy because they’re reluctant or it’s simply difficult to roll a person’s finger to get a legally-acceptable fingerprint.

However, fingerprinting corpses is easy since they’re (usually) stiff and you simply roll the fingerprint card around the finger (vice rolling the finger on the card).

The one drowning victim was difficult to fingerprint though since their skin had become wrinkled (like when you’re in the water too long).

Happy Halloween!

[Mr. Bumble]

Well, wasn't that special.

[Michael P]

When I was a kid, my father -- an ear, nose and throat surgeon -- would occasionally bring home stories of notable cases. One of them came with pictures of a patient who (as I recall) had consented to be a case study for a talk at a medical conference: a woman from rural north Florida with an enormous, symmetric goiter. The "before" showed a goiter similar in size to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kone_med_stor_struma.jpg , but from the front. "After" her thyroidectomy, she had an alarming number of staples in her neck but with an enormous smile. And "during" the radical neck dissection was very seasonal to Halloween.

The growth was so large that it was technically tricky to remove it without damaging various nerves, blood vessels or other nearby body parts; that was why it was of interest for a conference. But the woman was very happy to have it removed, and I think my father thought that was the bigger reason it was a good case.

[ThePublius]

Your father must have been a brilliant surgeon. I'm sure he was proud of what he accomplished in this case, and I'm sure in other cases. The lady's smile says it all.

[Bwaaah]

Reminds me of another case: https://youtu.be/FOADw-KI1BU?t=473

[apedad]

You got me.

I was expecting the Seinfeld show with goiter.

[Bwaaah]

goy-duh! nyuh - nyuh - nyuh

[Swede425]

In Combat Medic school at Ft. Sam Houston (Texas), in July with no air conditioning, I watched a (purposely) black and white film on childbirth right after eating spaghetti for lunch. I don't even remember passing out, I just woke up on the floor with 20 other guys looking at me. That never happened to me again, and I saw much worse overseas.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Heat exhaustion?

[Frank Drackman]

Vasovagal Syncope in his case, Terminal Stupidity in yours.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Did you examine him?
Did you even look at the facts in evidence?

My guess is that Combat Medical School is a fairly strenuous curriculum, it was hot, he had just eaten, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY it never happened again even though he saw worse.

Can you rule out dehydration, electrolytes, etc as contributing?

[Frank Drackman]

OK, there's an element of uncertainty in his Diagnosis.
You just confirmed yours beyond all reasonable doubt.

[John F. Carr]

The opening montage of the TV show Quincy had people passing out watching an autopsy.

[Frank Drackman]

Loved that part.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

That show was amusing. Quincy was always yelling, as was another guy who was Oscar's poker buddy on The Odd Couple. I never could quite believe either one of them in their roles.

[Ridgeway]

Gary Wahlberg I think -- Lt. Monaghan in Quincy and Speed in the Odd Couple.

Quincy ran out of interesting story ideas pretty fast, and ended up preaching on various social issues of the time, but the good episodes were very good.

Odd Couple still holds up.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I don't recall the storylines as such, except there was one where the difference between state and federal jurisdiction/double jeopardy came up. Also, there was a good one where they find a bone and figure out who it belonged to.

Quincy and Lt. Monaghan (to be fair, police on those shows tend to yell a lot) were a bit ridiculous.

[John F. Carr]

The jurisdiction case involved a ransom demand that required the state prosecutor to lose the case against the kidnapper. Compare the case of Harry Aleman, who was retried and convicted after a corrupt judge acquitted him. But Team Quincy did not need such a creative solution to overcoming acquittal. The kidnapping was also a federal crime.

Another episode had the bad guy apparently winning because the statute of limitations to sue him had just expired a few minutes ago when the courts in LA closed. The courts in Hawaii were still open for a few more hours so the good guy filed the case there.

[Frank Drackman]

and like "Jim" on Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom" Sam back in the lab did all the hard work.

[Brett Bellmore]

My 2nd major was human biology, that stuff never bothered me. I can eat while watching surgical videos just fine.

[apedad]

We'd go eat ribs after autopsies.

[David Nieporent]

As long as you didn't do it during autopsies. And that they didn't belong to the subject.

[Mr. Bumble]

Not liver with fava beans?

[Frank Drackman]

Nothing like an Autopsy to remind you where we all end up.

[Bwaaah]

We often describe ourselves as being at "the top of the food chain." If maggots could laugh, the sound would be deafening.

[John F. Carr]

I am wearing a shirt that shows a circular food chain.

[apedad]

Lots of conversations lately about immigrants so I looked at the opposite – Americans living outside the US.

There’s approx. 8 million US citizens living outside the US.

Top 10 Countries, # of expats, % of total expats

Mexico, 823,502, 28.15%
United Kingdom, 243,570, 8.33%
Germany, 152,501, 5.21%
Puerto Rico, 144,149, 4.93%
Australia, 114,202, 3.9%
Israel, 97,258, 3.32%
Spain, 68,613, 2.35%
Japan, 62,509, 2.14%
Bangladesh, 61,983, 2.12%
China, 60,434, 2 2.07%

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/american-expats-by-country

What’s up with Bangladesh in the Top 10?

Above France, Italy, Switzerland, Ireland?!?

[Mr. Bumble]

Puerto Rico is a country?
It's a strange list but could probably be explained by a deeper dive into who these people are.
I would suspect that many are foriegn born who became US citizens and then returned to their home country (for whatever reason).

[Michael P]

Many of them could also be children of US citizens: as long as at least one parent is a US citizen who lived in the US for the right duration at the right ages, a child born abroad is a US citizen at birth. (There are also other ways for a child to get citizenship from a parent. Those vary depending on when the child was born, whether the parents were married at the time of birth [if the mother was not a US-citizen parent], whether the child is legally present in or a resident of the US when seeking to establish citizenship, and more.)

[Moderation4ever]

Sorry Bumbles, you and I were thinking the same. Should have read yours more closely before writing.

[Moderation4ever]

I want a deeper dive here. I suspect that many Americans living aboard may be returning to a home country. So, immigrate to America, become a citizen and then retire back to your own country. Also Puerto Rico is part of America not a foreign country.

[Brett Bellmore]

If you're relatively poor and yet healthy, SS goes a long ways in a third world country.

[apedad]

Here's an answer why Bangladesh is an expat destination:

https://www.expatarrivals.com/asia-pacific/bangladesh/moving-bangladesh

[Armchair]

I suspect those numbers are in error.

1. Canada's missing from the list
2. PR isn't a couuntry
3. Bangladesh but not India?

This list strikes me as more accurate.

1. Mexico
2. Canada
3. UK
4. Israel
5. Germany
6. Australia
7. South Korea
8. France
9. Japan
10. Spain.

https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-with-the-most-americans-living-abroad#1-mexico-an-estimated-1-182-346-us-citizens-10

[Jmaie]

Canada isn’t that easy to settle in as an expat. Among other things, they don’t want Americans coming there and over using the healthcare system that hasn’t been paid into.

[Frank Drackman]

Saw an (Anglo) Vet in his 40's in El Centro CA last year, drove from his home in Baja CA with his Mexican Wife and 3 kids from a little town near the Coast, said he had a bigger house than he did in Murietta and his Property Tax was $200. Everything else was cheaper, Schools were better, and as long as you weren't selling drugs, safer.
Even had some kind of pass where he could skip the long line at the border.

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

I've heard both versions about the drugs in Mexico, that the violence is limited to those involved -- and that it isn't.

[Frank Drackman]

Sort of like here, funny how that works.

[apedad]

That sounds like the lyrics to an Espen Lind song.

[Bunny495]

Not sure what you mean by some kind of pass. In addition to a passport you can also get a card, the U.S. Passport Card.

U.S. Passport Card: This is an alternative to the passport book for U.S. citizens. It is a credit card-sized document that can be used for land and sea travel into the United States from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda.

It is often applied for at the same time as the standard U.S. Passport Book, using the same forms (DS-11 or DS-82).

Important Note: The Passport Card cannot be used for international air travel. You must have the traditional passport book for air travel.

[Kazinski]

There is a SENTRI pass:

What it is: A program for expedited clearance at southern land borders via dedicated lanes.

[Malika la Maize]

Have Halloween Decorations Become Too Scary?

Cabot Phillips, 31, a reporter on a conservative news podcast who lives in a suburb of Nashville, has started walking two blocks out of his way to get to the playground with his 18-month-old son to avoid one house.

“There is an inflatable four-foot-long demo zombie baby with blood all over his face and creepy veins, and it looks possessed,” he said. “Initially, I would walk next to the stroller so my son couldn’t see it, but now I am taking a different path.”

He said he thought his homeowner’s association should take up a discussion about the décor. “People in the neighborhood can decide together what is too far for them,” he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/style/halloween-decorations-scary.html

[Krayt]

Sounds like a parent doing his job.

But...decades ago, we were driving to a Whole Foods with our kids. Anti-abortion protesters were holding up signs, my wife called the police, they were holding signs of ripped up babies. The police said they couldn't do anything about it because of free speech. This was Ann Arbor.

So...good luck getting fun horror banned if gruesome ripped up babies cannot be banned. A homeowner association would have more luck, maybe.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Do you object to ripping up babies, or would you simply prefer that babies get ripped up without the public knowing the details?

[Kazinski]

Is your wife's name Karen?

[Malika la Maize]

The best Stephen King novels chosen by NPR listeners

The Stand
11/22/63
Dark Tower series
IT
The Shining
Salem’s Lot

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/03/1239855818/best-stephen-king

[Frank Drackman]

Never could get into the Dark Tower, but you gotta put "The Dead Zone" on there, that scene where Stillson sprays ammonia in the Dogs eyes......still creeps me out.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I always considered the Dead Zone sad -- he lost the girl he loved and otherwise would have married. And the ending is really interesting.

I was lobstering the summer this book came out and I remember King being interviewed and how he said that this book raised "interesting issues" and that was back in the 1970s. I can't imagine what the reception (and response) would be today...

[hobie]

I agree with the Stand. It was a fun read

[David Nieporent]

The original from the 1970s or the substantially revised and expanded one from the 1990s? (I only read the latter, and it was indeed a fun read — almost all King works are — but it may have benefitted from a bit more selectiveness.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

King really only has about three plots which he has kept using over and over -- I'm reminded of hat the editor of what was then Maine's largest newspaper once wrote -- King could write the history of the Dover-Foxcroft Water Company and it would be a best seller.

And he was never really the same after he got hit by the car.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Stephen King went to the University of Maine at Orono and then taught at Hampden Academy, which by then had become a four-town regional high school. Hence a lot of his books are set in the Greater Bangor (ME) area, with Bangor being "Derry" in his books.

Much of Salem's Lot was set in Durham, next to Freeport (aka Beanport) where he'd lived as a teenager before going to college.

Hence if you are familiar with these areas, as I was, these books were even more intense. I read Salem's Lot in a tent, by flashlight and around Midnight the way teenaged boys will, in fog so think that it was dripping out of the spruce trees -- when a bird fell out of a tree. It happens sometimes, they roosted on a dead branch and the bark & lichens come loose -- I've never found a dead bird afterwards so I guess they wake up and start flying.

Downtown Bangor is literally set IN the Kenduskeag Stream about a half mile from where it joins the Penobscot River. Even though the ocean is 70 miles away, both are still tidal at this point -- there is upwards of 13 feet of difference between low and high tide, so at high tide the ocean is higher than the river and hence the river flows backwards (i.e. uphill). (Down East in Nova Scotia, where they have much higher tides, there are "tidal bores" where a wave of water literally goes upstream.)

What I call "Downtown Bangor" is literally built IN the Kenduskeag -- it's essentially a confluence of roads that form a square that was made one-way in a counter-clockwise direction and the roads cross on bridges (one of which Charlie Howard was tossed off, he drowned in three feet of water as it was low tide in a dry summer).

The buildings are built into the water with it going underneath and between them so -- outside of a couple weeks in April, there is accessible space that kids can get into, and that is where IT is set. Before sewerage treatment, Bangor's sewers dumped into the Penobscot, but the overflows dumped into the Kenduskeag and that is what is referenced in the book. The Dalton Gang shootout actually happened, the old standpipe is a historical landmark (the current one is on a hill about 10 miles north) and what is now Bangor International Airport was Dow Air Force Base -- used during WWII to ferry planes to Europe, then a Nuke Strategic Air Command base until it was closed in the late 1960s and even now everything military going east that doesn't land at BIA is refueled by the Maine ANG out over the Gulf of Maine. There were also missile bases (Bomart, Nike?) in or near Bangor.

The "roadhouse" often mentioned in King's books is the Oronoka, which started post-WWII as a "fine dining" establishment when there were a lot of Air Force officers (and USAF) money around, which there was in the 1950s -- and remember that there were a half dozen other bases in Maine, from Brunswick NAS to Loring AFB in Limestone.

As the USAF money started to dry up, first Houlton and Presque Isle closing, and then Dow in 1968(?) -- and the University of Maine a few miles up the road expanded -- the Oronoka transitioned into more of an off-campus student honkeytonk. Food and drinks were cheap, the health inspectors routinely had fits over violations (although I don't recall any serious food poisoning outbreaks) and the country club across the street had a continuing issue with the straight sewer pipe that ran under their 8th hole and dumped into the Penobscot river beyond.

Orono had an actual town dump back then, and in King's time (early '70s) it was still routinely burned every Saturday.

King taught English in the late '70s, when Maine teacher pay was so low that almost anyone could get hired, and before Hampden started becoming a bedroom community of Bangor, and before Bangor started becoming a city in more than name.

Hence when King says "If Hampden isn't the asshole of America, it's at least within farting distance", he isn't talking about the (quite wealthy) Hampden of today.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Best King Books:
Salem's Lot
Shining
Dead Zone
Firestarter
Pet Semetary
Thinner
It
Colorado Kid
Storm of the Century
Shawshank Redemption

[Moderation4ever]

Happy Halloween. I start passing out candy at 17:00 if any of you want to stop by for a treat. I noted a couple of interesting newspaper articles. First was in my local news paper, The Wisconsin State Journal, in an article on a Happier Halloween under safe pumpkin carving. The article suggests parent do the carving and let kid participate by doing the seed scooping. Right, because the seed scoping is really fun part. Parents should help children but carving is the fun part and cut on the finger is not the worst injury any real child should get. I also use candles in my pumpkins as the flickers lights give a nice effect. Another safety no-no. The second article was in the New York Times about how outdoor displays are sometimes going overboard on ghoulish effects. Lots of skeletons and dismembered body parts. I love to see the displays, especially ones with wit. But I don't really think that making your front lawn look like the Manson Family's visit to Sharon Tate's house as really necessary.

[Brett Bellmore]

If you're going to get cut, young is the time to do it, you heal better. And the lesson is valuable.

[Mr. Bumble]

Are you talking about pumpkin carving or circumcision?

[David Nieporent]

Heh. That was my thought too when I read what Brett posted.

[Frank Drackman]

Tell that to Judy Myers.

[Krayt]

A nearby house has a little projector making stylized ghosts fly all over the front of the house.

[Swede425]

This is our first Halloween as empty nesters. It's also the middle of bow season in Michigan so we're actually heading up north a little later this afternoon. Which means this will be our first time not handing out candy on Halloween. From a selfish perspective I'm torn because we always have extra candy left, which means I always have candy. Not this year.

[Moderation4ever]

Good luck on the hunt. I think that "Trick or Treat" is dying. I expect it to last my lifetime but not much longer.

[Bunny495]

I just returned from an event put on by the Chinese Archery Program. Mainly they use some flavor of horse bows. While I do own a few I still tend to favor Yumi bows. What flavor of bow do you use.

[Zarniwoop]

Are you in Madisonland, preferably on the East side, and more preferably near East HS?

Shoot me an street (and an address range if it’s a long one) and I’ll visit in a green dinosaur onesie.

[Nelson]

Another non-political topic for Halloween. I carved our pumpkins (using a stencil because I have no artistic ability whatsoever). We toasted the seeds, but threw out the guts. Do you carve pumpkins or leave them whole? If you carve them, do you use the seeds or the guts in a recipie or do you just throw them out?

And, most importantly, is pumpkin pie the most delicious pie that doesn’t include chocolate?

[Mr. Bumble]

"And, most importantly, is pumpkin pie the most delicious pie that doesn’t include chocolate?"
Absolutely!

[Krayt]

Are there pies with chocolate? You can have a kind of pudding mousse thing, and I love chocolate, but calling pudding great because it's in a half-shell doesn't track for me.

Now chocolate cakes are out of this world, especially a good double shtorten dopples torten chocolate layer cake.

[Mr. Bumble]

Flourless chocolate cake.

[Life of Brian]

Nearly flourless molten chocolate lava cake is a winner too.

[Nelson]

Absolutely. We make a chocolate mousse pie that is the closest thing to heaven in a crust there is. You can infuse the cream with lavender before you whip it if you’re into that kind of thing (we are) and it’s even better.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course there are pies with chocolate.

Chocolate pecan pie, for instance.

[Brett Bellmore]

We toast them.

Pumpkin pie was the first pie I ever baked as a child; Didn't want to waste the jack o lantern after Halloween.

There are lots of delicious pies that lack chocolate. But I will admit it ranks up there. My favorite recipe for it is just baked pumpkin, evaporated milk, pumpkin pie spice mix with extra nutmeg, vanilla extract, and enough eggs you don't feel guilty eating it for breakfast.

[Nelson]

“ enough eggs you don't feel guilty eating it for breakfast.”

LOL!

[hobie]

I always buy pie pumpkins and leave them whole. Towards thanksgiving I'll lop them in half and bake them. This year I am going to make loaves of pumpkin bread out of them...instead of pie

[Moderation4ever]

You do realize that carving pumpkins and pie pumpkins are different?

[hobie]

I do realize that. That is why I bought pie pumpkins. One will be in for a rude awakening if they try and make food out of regular pumpkins

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, that first pumpkin pie I made as a child had a texture similar to rice pudding.

But regular pumpkins aren't bad for eating, they're just not desert grade.

[ThePublius]

I'm sure you mean dessert grade. 🙂

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, I've always had trouble remembering which is which...

[David Nieporent]

The easy way to remember is that you want more dessert. Not more desert. Unless, I guess, you're a camel.

[Brett Bellmore]

A way of remembering it that relies entirely on first remembering it seems somewhat redundant...

[David Nieporent]

You have trouble remembering that you want more dessert?

[David Nieporent]

Your comment is the equivalent of "Mnemonics are useless because you have to remember what they mean."

[Moderation4ever]

I always carve pumpkins, save the seeds, roast them, and there is nothing that compares to fresh cherry pie. Apple pie is a close second.

[Jmaie]

You roast the young?!?

[ducksalad]

is pumpkin pie the most delicious pie

Are you kidding us? It started out as a trick to make people eat a vegetable. It is a squash, people. A large, cheap, less desirable squash. Perhaps pumpkins were developed as cattle or hog feed. Probably if you studied the old records you'd find 19th century prisons in Maine fed convicts on pumpkins.

[ThePublius]

Actually, they ate lobster.

"In the 19th century, Maine prisoners primarily ate lobsters because they were abundant and considered low-status food, often served as part of a poor diet that also included stews with meat and vegetables, and bread. Prisoners in some cases had enough of it that they sometimes complained, with stories suggesting that eating it more than a few times a week was seen as inhumane. The mid-19th century saw a shift, with lobster becoming a delicacy due to the development of canning, which preserved the meat, and the expansion of railroads, which allowed lobster to be shipped to other parts of the country where it was not considered a common food."

[Life of Brian]

LOL -- it's like the flank steak of the ocean.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Canning lobster would have exterminated the fishery had it not killed so many people as well.

It's now FROZEN canned lobster.

[Frank Drackman]

I think you’re right, Pumpkin Soup is a Haitian delicacy (along with Beagles)

Frank

[bernard11]

I'm with ducksalad. Pumpkin pie is at the bottom of my list.

I'm stodgy enough to really like apple pie.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The local bakery has a great apple crumb.

[Sarcastr0]

I find pie crust salty and off-putting.

Give me a crisp or a crumble or a cobbler or a betty or a buckle or a grunt!

[Nelson]

My partner is with you on this one. She prefers a cherry pie with a crumble top. Cobbler is a close second for her.

And topped with fresh whipped cream with a little almond extract. Goes great with cherry.

[Sarcastr0]

I had a paleo diet friend who made a nut-based pie crust I did enjoy quite a bit.

[Jmaie]

Use less salt?

[Brett Bellmore]

You don't actually have to put any set amount of salt in a pie crust. I don't add it at all if I'm baking a desert pie, as opposed to something like a quiche or chicken pot pie.

[David Nieporent]

When the kids were little we carved pumpkins with them. Now that they're in high school and are a bit more interested in the party-with-friends aspect of Halloween, we just Sharpie™ them. (The pumpkins, not the kids.)

And both chocolate and pumpkin pies are terrible. Apple, lemon meringue, cherry, blueberry, key lime. Those are what pies are supposed to be.

[Commenter_XY]

LOL = ...we just Sharpie™ them. (The pumpkins, not the kids.)

[Bunny495]

Nothing compares to real authentic Key Lime Pie.

[Paladin_44]

Amen!

[Kazinski]

Roast the pumpkin seeds.

[Armchair]

And in today's fun topic: Tapping geothermal Energy by mining with a microwave laser (Maser).

Short version: Geothermal energy is perhaps the ultimate in cheap, renewable energy. Use the natural heat of the earth to heat up water, drive a turbine, then pump it back down. Works 24/7, 365, doesn't give native wildlife, and bam. The one problem with geothermal energy is that it only "works" where there's a geothermal pocket close enough to the surface for us to reach with conventional (or no) drilling. In most places, the heat necessary is far too deep.

See, the problem with conventional drilling is that the cost goes up exponentially as you get deeper. You lose energy to torque down a miles long drive shaft. Drill bits wear out faster, the deeper and hotter it gets. And every time you need to replace a drill bit, you need to remove the entire miles worth of piping...takes days.

Enter "drilling with high powered masers". Instead of using a conventional drill bit, you use a maser (originally designed for nuclear fusion experiments), and vaporize the rock. Vaporized rock is just blown out of the hole. No drill bit means no wearing out. No spinning the drill bit means no torque lost. Concept is, you drill a couple of 12 mile deep holes, and you can have geothermal energy "anywhere". The technology is still in its experimental stage (see the video below). But it is in the field, and worth keeping an eye on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfIo68aE5hQ

[Joe_dallas]

Armchair " Short version: Geothermal energy is perhaps the ultimate in cheap, renewable energy. " " The one problem with geothermal energy is that it only "works" where there's a geothermal pocket close enough to the surface for us to reach with conventional (or no) drilling. In most places, the heat necessary is far too deep."

Adding to Armchair's comment - quite a few renewable advocates brag about the countries that have very high percentage of electric generation from renewables. They omit from their discussion that those countries high on the list have high levels of hydro or high levels of geothermal which is very limited by geography or the country has very low per capita electric usage.

[Krayt]

Dams are limited by the corruption impulse to get in the way here. The Hoover dam would not have been built had the pocket-lining lawyers been around with this enabled back then.

The Three Gorges dam is 70x the size of the Hoover dam. They are building another 3x the size of that.

The local empire has turned to corruption and getting in the way of progress, the opposite of keeping the trade routes open for the benefit of all. And no, I am not talking of internstional trade, though that is part of it. Just politicians getting in the way of initiatives until kickbacks, sometimes just prophylactic, occur.

[Joe_dallas]

Corruption or no corruption dams are still limited by geography

[Brett Bellmore]

Geothermal has several problems.

1. Outside of volcanically active areas, you need to go REALLY deep to get much heat.

2. Rock not being terribly heat conductive, your closed loop geothermal well cools off after a while. Eventually it stabilizes at the average of about 65mw of heat per square meter, which is not terribly high.

3. If you circumvent this by a combination of fracking and running the water through the rock, you bring up water that is full of minerals and wants to fill your heat exchanger full of rock.

That said, I think the potential to use geothermal for home heating either as ground source heat pump or by running heat pipes down to a depth where the rock is merely warmer than room temperature is under exploited.

[Armchair]

1. True. That's why the technology is fascinating.

[Brett Bellmore]

I did see a proposal to use geothermal for sanitary waste processing, by putting a closed loop down to extreme depths, and just pumping the sewage through it.

On the way down the sewage heats up, eventually reaching temperatures which first sterilize, and then pyrolyze, the wastes, but you never get boiling because the pressure is rising from the weight of the water above. On the way back up it cools again, and out come sterile water with simple hydrocarbons that are useful.

It actually relies on the heat being at extreme depths, to keep the sewage from ever boiling.

[CountmontyC]

Sure, wake up the Morlocks and Chuds. It be on your head.

[SRG2]

I was thinking more of Balrogs

[Magister]

And the Sheeple!

[Moderation4ever]

Hope it pans out. One thing is for sure the world energy demands have nowhere to go but up.

[Michael P]

Los Angeles and California really put the DIE in DIE, by pulling firefighters from a smoldering burn site over warnings, leading to 12 deaths and thousands of homes burned: https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2025/10/30/bombshell-texts-reveal-la-fire-brass-knew-fire-that-burned-down-palisades-wasnt-out-n4945428

[Life of Brian]

Here's the actual LAFD after-action review report linked in the article.

It has a ton of jargon and isn't the clearest writing overall, but a huge number of really basic unforced errors still shine through, e.g.:

- "Task Forces should be led by the most qualified individual, rather than merely replacing Captain Is with Captain IIs based solely on rank. Some Captain IIs replaced Captain Is with the necessary qualifications for multi-day operations."

- " Members lacked understanding of their roles in the EOC/DOC and were unwilling to assist others when their own responsibilities had lulls. This caused conflicts during activation when members were assigned tasks outside their usual responsibilities."

- "The initial response dispatched to the Palisades incident lacked the appropriate resources for the weather conditions typically associated with Red Flag conditions that the Department would normally respond with. Requesting engines specifically rather than the closest available resources delays the response time of arriving to the incident."

- "The staging location was positioned directly in the path of the evacuation route for residents of Highland Palisades and lower elevation communities. Without clear direction in the early stages of the incident regarding evacuation, residents acted spontaneously and attempted to drive south and west. As the fire front advanced, it obstructed resources from reaching their assignments, prompting law enforcement to instruct residents to abandon their vehicles and evacuate on foot. Within just 30 minutes of the initial dispatch, the fire front consumed the staging area."

- "Resources that utilized pools for supplemental water sources were highly effective in structure defense. However, some resources require additional training on acquiring water from alternative sources, rather than relying solely on the hydrant system. All members should continue to train on the procedures for acquiring water from an alternative source to combat fires when hydrants are non-operational. Multiple pools remained filled following the containment of the Palisades fire. Although this tactic may not have saved every residence, it would have significantly improved the situation within the affected area."

And on and on. Hopefully they can clean house and get back to the rather novel idea of a firefighting organization that is actually competent at fighting fires, before the rest of the state goes up in flames.

[Joe_dallas]

But But But - "climate change made the fire much worse!

[Estragon]

Yes, that and the “large faucet”

[Dr. Ed 2]

" some resources require additional training on acquiring water from alternative source"

They didn't know how to draft?!?

That's what the two black hoses on the side of the truch are for.
And they had a whole ocean as well....

[Poxigah146]

CNN has a headline about how Trump is calling for an "unprecedented" move for the Senate to go nuclear and eliminate the filibuster to pass a spending bill.

Back in 2013, when Harry Reid eliminated the filibuster for cabinet nominees and lower court judges, I said that that was the end of the filibuster. There was no principled distinction between eliminating it for that and eliminating it for Supreme Court judges (which came later) and eliminating it for normal legislation.

So it's not "unprecedented." It was unprecedented when Harry Reid did it. It's not unprecedented now.

[Voize of Reazon]

By that logic there was no principled distinction between using the nuclear option to override other inconvenient Senate rules in the 90's and Reid using it to override the cloture rule.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"There was no principled distinction between eliminating it for that and eliminating it for Supreme Court judges (which came later) and eliminating it for normal legislation."

Of course not. But if the parties want to continue a version of the filibuster after they nuke some of it, they will find a new point of equilibrium. IIRC Ried was told in advice that the Republicans would eliminate it for SCOTUS justices if Ried did it for lower court judges.

So the Dems got the lower guys, the Repubs got Gorsuch, and we still have the filibuster for most things.

[Brett Bellmore]

"IIRC Ried was told in advice that the Republicans would eliminate it for SCOTUS justices if Ried did it for lower court judges."

It's actually stupider than that: In 2016, when Democrats assumed that Clinton was going to win, they came right out and announced that THEY were going to eliminate it for SCOTUS!

A Democratic Senate Might Need to Curtail Filibuster, Harry Reid Says

Democrats in 2017 were complaining that Republicans had done to them what they had said they were going to do to Republicans...

[Sarcastr0]

This is just you indulging in Murc's law.

The GOP did a thing; they make their own choices. Dems were not responsible for it.

Your linked statement is a pretty deep cut, and it's wild you think that's what dictated the GOP's actions.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"The GOP did a thing;"

Um, they did a couple of things that locked in a conversative majority on the court for a generation. And those things were made easier by the Dem's bungling.

Please try to keep up.

[DDHarriman]

So what's the Lefty narrative on Artic Frost? I'm not seeing anything on reddit, so what's being pushed to the Democrat Dogmatics here?

[Longtobefree]

It never happened, and it was a good thing.

[Moderation4ever]

Sounds about right.

[ThePublius]

It never happened? What? What planet are you on?

[David Nieporent]

The sane person narrative on Arctic Frost is that MAGA believes in magic words, so they think that if they use the term "whistleblower" a lot when information is publicized and then slap the word "scandal" after a topic it actually transmogrifies into one.

So far, there's nothing to show that it wasn't a 100% legitimate criminal investigation.

[LawTalkingGuy]

https://x.com/mrddmia/status/1983690297839366483?s=46&t=swfuX8A13L7H9PAYSakPtA

Here’s former Supreme Court clerk Mike Davis insinuating the DOJ needs probable cause to issue subpoenas.

Getting into sov-cit territory of using legal terms as talismanic phrases to delegitimize things.

[David Nieporent]

Ahem. That's "former Supreme Court clerk/current grifter Mike Davis."

[LawTalkingGuy]

How inter-personally terrible is that guy that he still didn’t manage to land an admin spot despite a combo of traditional credentials and pro-admin shit-posting?!

[loki13]

American Right: WE HATE TRANS, GAYS, MUSLIMS, BLACKS, PROGRESSIVES, POORS, MEXICANS, DEMOCRATS, THE ENVIRONMENT, LAWYERS, UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, AND ALL THE CULTURE THIS COUNTRY MAKES!

American Right-Wing Jews: Whooo! Yeah! You tell them!

American Right: BUT ESPECIALLY JEWS!

American Right-Wing Jews: ....wait, wut?

(h/t popehat)

You've already begun to see the subtle shift here on the VC. That's right.... do you think it's a coincidence that Josh "I am the only person who can tell you who is a REAL JEW" Blackman has just started changing his posts in the last week from "THE LEFTISTS ARE WORSE ANTI-SEMITES THAN HAMAS AND THE SPANISH INQUISITION COMBINED!" to .... "Uh, we should start paying a little attention to anti-Semitism on the right WHICH ISN'T NEARLY AS BAD AS THE MARXIST MAMDANI SOCIAL JUSTICE DEMOCRATS!!!"

Nope.

Look, I want to say I told you so. Because I did. I want to say I feel a satisfying sense of schadenfreude (I do, but it isn't satisfying). I want to enjoy watching you get bit by all those fleas that you're now noticing are on the dogs that you laid down with.

Nope. Because this is a little too important. Instead, I just will again remind people of this. If you have been revelling in hate recently because it's been directed at the "right targets," I want to remind you of something.

Once hate is normalized and unleased, it always escalates. And unfortunately, there is a really long and proven history of who eventually gets the brunt of that hate. And ... let's just say that authoritarian, nativist, and nationalist movements do not have a good history of protecting the rights of the Chosen People.

If you've been joining in with glee because, hey, you think this time it will be different... look around right now. It's not going to be different. As people get more and more comfortable openly expressing exactly what they believe now that they have both power and they have normalized the ability to openly express their hatred (see, e.g., Vance stating that he wishes his wife would convert and would understand why people wouldn't live next door to people that aren't like them ... or, you know, LAST NIGHT) ... you can either understand what the rest of us already know, or you can keep letting your cognitive dissonance control your life.

The choice is yours.

[Poxigah146]

This post is stupid, even for you.

[Joe_dallas]

Loki's comment - "you can either understand what the rest of us already know, or you can keep letting your cognitive dissonance control your life."

Pot meet kettle!

[ThePublius]

"American Right: WE HATE TRANS, GAYS, MUSLIMS, BLACKS, PROGRESSIVES, POORS, MEXICANS, DEMOCRATS, THE ENVIRONMENT, LAWYERS, UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, AND ALL THE CULTURE THIS COUNTRY MAKES!

American Right-Wing Jews: Whooo! Yeah! You tell them!

American Right: BUT ESPECIALLY JEWS!

American Right-Wing Jews: ....wait, wut?"

That's absolute bullshit, and you know it.

[Mr. Bumble]

and thus:
We're not gonna take it
No, we ain't gonna take it
We're not gonna take it anymore

We've got the right to choose, and
There ain't no way we'll lose it
This is our life, this is our song
We'll fight the powers that be, just
Don't pick our destiny, 'cause
You don't know us, you don't belong

We're not gonna take it
No, we ain't gonna take it
We're not gonna take it anymore

Oh, you're so condescending
Your gall is never ending
We don't want nothing, not a thing from you
Your life is trite and jaded
Boring and confiscated

Woah-oh-oh
Woah-oh-oh
We're right (Yeah)
We're free (Yeah)
We'll fight (Yeah)
You'll see, woah-woah (Yeah)
We're not gonna take it
No, we ain't gonna take it
We're not gonna take it anymore
We're not gonna take it
No, we ain't gonna take it
We're not gonna take it anymore
No way

[Frank Drackman]

Twisted Sister?!?!?!
What is that?!
A “Twisted Sister” pin? On your Uniform!!!!!?????
I carried an M-16 and you play that Electric Twanger, what kind of man are you, you’re worthless and weak,
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFe?!?!?!?!?!!!!!
“I wanna rock!l” (A power chord)

[SRG2]

You're all worthless and weak

[Bwaaah]

And you, soulless and party-pooping.

[SRG2]

You didn't get the reference.

[Longtobefree]

More like "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

[Joe_dallas]

correct - absolute bulls----. Unfortunately as loki comments "cognitive dissonance " has become a feature of the left.

[Randal]

That's absolute bullshit, and you know it.

Which part?

[ThePublius]

The part I quoted.

[Randal]

You think that whole thing is bullshit? Lots of it is obviously true, and the rest is presumptively true.

Obviously true: the American right hates trans, Muslims, progressives, Democrats, lawyers, universities, and modern culture. And proud of it.

[Joe_dallas]

Did you read the highlighted parts he copied?

[hobie]

'Look, I want to say I told you so.'

Not so fast there, Loki. It is I - Hobie - that have been done doing all the finger pointing outing. I will however grant you second place

[Estragon]

The glib certainty some people around here have that this movement isn’t coming for them eventually continues to stun. For example, I know there are at least two regular commenters around here who have foreign-born spouses. I wonder how those two ladies are feeling after hearing the Usha Vance comments yesterday. Or JB and DB, when they see someone like Paul Ingrassia nominated, and then when that failed, retained as an employee in this administration. Like you, I don’t take a ton of pleasure in having been right about this. But right, we were.

[Kazinski]

Bunch of mouth breathers.

But do you know someone else who is prominent in MAGA who has a foreign born spouse?

[Estragon]

Glib glib glib. I’m sure if your spouse gets kavanaugh stopped she can point to your worthy deeds here in service of the regime as mitigation.

Eventually these movements consume their own, most sycophantic members— and I hate to break it to you— Mrs Kaz ain’t Melania. You are whistling past the graveyard my guy.

[not guilty]

Immigrants, when the money is right, will often do things that most Americans find distasteful.

Two of them even married Donald Trump.

[Brett Bellmore]

"I wonder how those two ladies are feeling after hearing the Usha Vance comments yesterday."

I'm pretty sure my wife can distinguish me from Vance. For one thing, he has more hair...

[Estragon]

Sort of a sad deflection. And glib! A twofer

[Brett Bellmore]

I've been happily married to her for 19 years now, and, as I said, she can distinguish me from Vance, so I sincerely doubt there is anything Vance could say that would mess with our relationship.

Why would you even think something Vance said could have that effect? It makes no sense whatsoever!

[Bob from Ohio]

"(h/t popehat)"

LOL An actual insane person.

I don't usually respond to loki because I believe he has long blocked me*, but citing popehat for anything is so funny I broke my rule.

*Plus he's the biggest prick here.

[Mr. Bumble]

Doesn't a popehat look like a big dick?

[Frank Drackman]

See them a lot do you?

[Mr. Bumble]

Only my own.

[Mr. Hook]

VC commentariat reading Martin Niemöller's "First They Came": LOL. Cool story, you woke commie.

[TwelveInchPianist]

This guy sounds like he's making a lot of sense!...

And don't get me started on the Masons!...

Hey!...

From here.

[LawTalkingGuy]

https://www.propublica.org/article/paul-newby-north-carolina-supreme-court

There’s something so funny about the combination of religiously inspired megalomania and absolutely mid-tier ambition. God called him to be Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court.

[loki13]

I wish God had called him to service at an Arby's.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Or the more traditional aesthetic lifestyle. Make Stylites Great Again.

[loki13]

True, but if God had called him to Arby's, at least I'd know with a certainty I'd never encounter him.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Ha!

*bows head in shame*

I like Arby’s…

The Jamocha Shake is really good tbh.

[loki13]

No worries! I'm not going to kink shame.

[Frank Drackman]

Or me you, I enjoy the occasional Arby’s (that Wagu burger they had was really good) usually when I’m in West Dog Patch Ark-N-Saw and the only alternatives are the Dexter Lake Club and Bobs Country Bunker.

Frank

[Drewski]

Are you trying to write "ascetic?"

[Bob from Ohio]

Thanks for the article, it was great reading. Classic of innuendo pretending to be valid accusations of wrongdoing. The whining by various Dems was delicious. Newby seems great.

Of interest to some of the VC:

"They made the trip to attend a conference organized by George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, which megadonors like Leo have turned into a crucial pipeline and convener for the conservative legal movement."

[LawTalkingGuy]

“Newby seems great.“

Newby thinks you’re going to be dammed for all eternity.

[Bob from Ohio]

Who cares. He doesn't decide that.

You just hate believers. Christianity is a Jewish heresy but I don't hold that against them!

Lots of Christians think HaShem called them to do something or be something, its harmless, but again, you hate believers.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I don’t hate believers, why do you think that? I just think people should be extremely wary of religiously zealous public officials who believe that they are on a divine mission and that most of their fellow humans are bound for an eternity of torture (and that thats a good thing because God wills it).

Plus I’m always going to be highly skeptical of American evangelicalism because I was raised Roman Catholic and still have a cultural affinity for the Church. Big fan of the Jesuits!

[JoeFromtheBronx]

"his tendency to see people as either with him or against God"

Why are you against God?

[David Nieporent]

What has God ever done for us? (Besides the aqueducts?)

[Ska]

People called Romans, they go the house?

[Michael P]

Do you have a source that doesn't have a history consisting mostly of unhinged distortions and misrepresentations?

[LawTalkingGuy]

A source that you think isn’t unhinged wouldn’t do a profile of this person. And even if it did, you would likely decide that the source was now unhinged due to its profile of him. There’s therefore no point in even bothering to humor you.

[Kazinski]

Speaking of sources, I'm going to need a ruling from Sarcastro on whether CBS is still an accepted source.

I posted CBS link above, and I didn't feel dirty.

[Mr. Bumble]

Of course not now that the news division is being run by a closet conservative lesbian multi-millionaire, with no experience in the news business.

[Sarcastr0]

Does it have a fact checking department? Does it have published rules of journalist integrity? What to they say about single sources?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-publishing-principles/

You make it seem subjective, because you're hostile to the idea of credibility standards that aren't 'does it agree with what I want it to say?'
That's why your typical source is Comer's latest bullshit exercise.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Does it have a fact checking department? Does it have published rules of journalist integrity?"
Obviously they haven't in a long, long time.

[ThePublius]

Gotta love the tolerant left....

University of Minnesota Duluth TPUSA chapter reports multiple death threats

"Nathan McIntyre, the president of Turning Point USA at the University of Minnesota Duluth, alleges that the group received two death threats while hosting campus tabling events.

The first incident occurred when the president of the school’s chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of America approached the table on April 7 and threatened the lives of the group’s members, Northern News Now reported.

McIntyre accused the YDSA president of saying something similar to “I’ll line all you motherf****** up against the wall and shoot you.”"

https://www.campusreform.org/article/university-minnesota-duluth-tpusa-chapter-reports-multiple-death-threats/28852

[Randal]

Um... you think he was seriously threatening to line them all up against the wall and shoot them?

You may need to get yourself checked out for Derangement Syndrome.

[hobie]

Let's coin 'LDS' Left Derangement Syndrome. And patient zero can be our Publius here.

[ThePublius]

Don't you recall that the founder of TPUSA was assassinated on September 10th? And this threat is against TPUSA members? Get real.

[hobie]

What's so wrong with threatening members of a neonazi hate group?

[Michael P]

Leftists have, in fact, lined their ideological opponents up against a wall and shot them. In living memory, even. We've seen political assassinations from the left both completed and attempted in the last 18 months -- including one assassination on a college campus. Other leftists have engaged in armed insurrections, organized attacks on government buildings, and used automobiles to interfere with federal law enforcement.

Yes, threats like that need to be taken seriously.

[Dr. Ed 2]

FBI just busted up a plot -- hopefully a real one.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Um... you think he was seriously threatening to line them all up against the wall and shoot them?"

Um, given that the said he said he was going to line all those motherfuckers up against the wall and shoot them, it's a distinct possibility. Is there any context to suggest that the statement was not serious?

[Randal]

Do you even know what "lined up against the wall" refers to?

Idiomatically it means being put into a difficult, compromised position by your foe. "The Miami Dolphins really had us up against the wall in the first quarter" is something no one will ever say, for instance.

It comes from, obviously, mass executions of perceived i.e. political enemies. You've heard The Wall, right?

Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
Get 'em up against the wall
Now there's one in the spotlight, he don't look right to me
Get him up against the wall
And that one looks Jewish, and that one's a coon
Who let all this riffraff into the room?
There's one smokin' a joint and another with spots
If I had my way, I'd have all of 'em shot!

Or The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy describes the Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as: "A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."

Curiously, an edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica which fell through a rift in the time-space continuum from 1000 years in the future describes the Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as: "A bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."

Here, it's a threat to enact a policy of persecuting one's political enemies to death upon coming into power. Not much different from threatening to apply the death penalty to a class of criminals as policy, or to mow down Venezuelan drug smugglers without trial.

In other words, it's putting TPUSA on notice that they're a despicable political enemy of the kind that vicious regimes would wantonly execute by lining them up against the wall and shooting them, and that the Democratic Socialists sure would like to be in the position of such a vicious regime.

Do you think when the right threatens the death penalty against abortion providers it should be taken as a murder threat?

[TwelveInchPianist]

That's the defense? Wow!

So you've convinced me, it was totally a true threat.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you think when the right threatens the death penalty against abortion providers it should be taken as a murder threat?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Huh? Depends on the context. It could be.

[Randal]

Pro-life student leader to visiting abortion doctor: "I'll throw the switch myself you motherfucker!"

[TwelveInchPianist]

Sounds like a lot of conditions have to happen before throwing the switch is to have an effect. I'd say not a true threat.

I'd think that a pro-life student leader threatening to line abortion providers up against the wall and shoot them would usually be a true threat, if that helps.

[Randal]

I'd think that a similar set of conditions, more unlikely ones actually, have to occur before the pro-lifers are gonna be in a position to summarily execute abortion providers with a firing squad.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Who said anything about summary executions or firing squads?

[Randal]

Who said anything about summary executions or firing squads?

That's what "lined up against the wall and shot" means little pianist.

Did you think it was just some overly-elaborate ritualized murder scenario, like, "I'll put you motherfuckers into YMCA dance poses in front of the public library and shoot you!“ No, as I explained, it has an actual meaning. Kind of like how "throw the switch" doesn't just mean to hurl a dimmer at someone with lethal force.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Lol you get that you can line people up against the wall and shoot them without a firing squad, right?

[ThePublius]

I don't think so, Randal, with the attempted and successful assassination attempts so far in the last year or so, this should be taken seriously.

You may want to get yourself checked out.

[Kazinski]

Making threats and attackIng TPUSA is gateway behavior.

A week after overturning a TPUSA table on campus, a now former graduate assistant at ISU has been arrested for making threats at President Trump.

https://www.wane.com/news/updated-former-isu-teacher-assistant-charged-for-alleged-threats-against-trump/

[Sarcastr0]

Gateway behavior!

Criminalizing speech requires leaning on some old and busted war on drugs bullshit, I guess.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Huh? Making threats, even against TPUSA, is a crime whether it's gateway behavior or not.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm pretty sure you know it's not a true threat, but you wanna persecute some liberals for shittalking.

You used to be just a conservative guy who was down to debate.

Now you're all about contracting free speech protections if it'll shut down those libs.
You don't much like civil disobedience either, as I recall.

Nor academic freedom. Nor free speech on campus.

And then there's your nonsense about trans people, with a great exemplar below.

Plus your debating tactics are no longer about meetings of the minds, they're about drawing false assumptions and sealioning to shut down anyone who disagrees with you.

What radicalized you, man?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I'm pretty sure you know it's not a true threat,"

Why would I know that? Assuming it's accurately reported the wording makes it a true threat unless there's evidence it's not meant seriously. Do you have an argument, or is it just vibes?

You used to be someone who thought assertions should be backed up with arguments.

[Randal]

Why would I know that?

You some kind of retard? A threat can't be true if it's clearly not within the capacity of the speaker. "I'll kick your ass to Mars and back" obviously isn't a true threat.

How do you expect the student to carry out this threat? "Ok guys, line up against the wall please, now stand still and say cheese..."

What are you imagining exactly?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"You don't much like civil disobedience either, as I recall."

Huh? Civil disobedience is fine if the cause is so just that it outweighs the harm done, which is rarely the case. Otherwise it should be punished severely.

"Nor academic freedom."

I think academic freedom for faculty is a value to be weighed against other goals of a university, not a fundamental right. I think the government speech doctrine should apply to public university faculty.

"Nor free speech on campus." Huh? I support free speech for public school students. You're the one who wants students punished for wearing 'There are two genders.' t-shirts, remember?

"And then there's your nonsense about trans people, with a great exemplar below."

What the fuck are you talking about?

"Plus your debating tactics are no longer about meetings of the minds, they're about drawing false assumptions and sealioning to shut down anyone who disagrees with you."

You're projecting.

[David Nieporent]

I like how it starts with "multiple," reveals that it's "two," and then further reveals that it was two random blowhards six months apart.

[ThePublius]

Oh, so under those circumstances we can just let it go, nothing to see here, eh?

[ThePublius]

Two is multiple, by definition.

Random blowhards? One was from the mouth of the President of the school’s chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of America.

To repeat:
"The first incident occurred when the president of the school’s chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of America approached the table on April 7 and threatened the lives of the group’s members, Northern News Now reported.

McIntyre accused the YDSA president of saying something similar to “I’ll line all you motherf****** up against the wall and shoot you.”

You libs/progs are so quick to excuse, brush off threats of violence from the left, you never condemn it. Go tell that to Kirk's widow.

[David Nieporent]

I think it's pretty hard to get more blowhardy than the head of a college chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of America.

[ThePublius]

Oh, get lost, he's hardly a "random blow hard," as I said twice now, he's a high profile guy on campus, and the head of a student organization. Not random. Blowhard? Maybe, but these threats should be taken seriously. Someone should go talk to him - maybe FBI, or campus police, or college administration. And, he should be relieved of his position in that student group, as a minimum.

We should ask Prof. Volokh: was this a true threat?

[grb]

ThePublius : " .... he's a high profile guy on campus, and the head of a student organization."

Likewise me! I was the treasurer of my university chess club. I found I couldn't go anywhere without the blinding flash of paparazzi flashbulbs and women were continuously flinging themselves at my feet. Ultimately the burden of celebrity and fame grew too heavy, and I decided to withdraw to a private life.

So yeah; point taken....

[bernard11]

he's a high profile guy on campus, and the head of a student organization.

The enrollment at the U. of Minnesota - Duluth is just over 9000, of which about a third live in university housing. How many members does the YDSA have there? Ten? Thirty?

High profile guy! Sure.

[not guilty]

"We should ask Prof. Volokh: was this a true threat?"

Without more information, it is impossible to determine whether one of the comments is or is not a true threat. The other quite plainly is not. https://www.northernnewsnow.com/2025/10/17/umd-turning-point-usa-chapter-reports-death-threats-amid-rising-political-tensions/

Northern News Now reported:

During the most recent alleged threat, TPUSA President Nathan McIntyre said he was at a tabling event, “and then one person walked up to us and said I’m glad Charlie Kirk got shot and killed, and I hope you guys are next and then just kind of walked off.”

Mere schadenfreude is not a true threat, nor is merely hoping that harm befall someone. "True threats are 'serious expressions' conveying that a speaker means to 'commit an act of unlawful violence.'" Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66, ___, 143 S.Ct. 2106, 2114 (2023), quoting Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359 (2003).

According to this report, McIntyre also accused the YDSA president of saying something similar to “I’ll line all you motherf****** up against the wall and shoot you.” [Expurgation in original.] The absence of the exact language used, along with the absence of context and the apparent ability of the speaker to carry out his proposed action, renders it impossible to evaluate whether this constitutes a true threat.

Threatening statements directed at specific individuals may be entitled to First Amendment protection depending on the context in which the statements are spoken. "What is a threat must be distinguished from what is constitutionally protected speech." Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 707 (1969). The term "true" in "true threats" distinguishes jests, hyperbole, and other statements that, in context, do not convey a real possibility that violence will follow. Id., at 708.

For example, on April 21, 1969, Charles Evers gave a speech to several hundred people, in which he again called for a total boycott of all white-owned businesses in Claiborne County, Mississippi. Although this speech was not recorded, the chancellor found that Evers stated: "If we catch any of you going in any of them racist stores, we're gonna break your damn neck." NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Company, 458 U.S. 886, 902 (1982). The Supreme Court nevertheless concluded that Evers' addresses did not exceed the bounds of protected speech. Id., at 929.

In Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378 (1987), a deputy constable was fired for remarking to a co-worker, after hearing of an attempt on President Reagan's life, "if they go for him again, I hope they get him." Id., at 381. SCOTUS found this remark to be constitutionally protected speech. Id., at 392.

In the Eighth Circuit, to determine what constitutes a “true threat,” “[the fact-finder] must view the relevant facts to determine whether the recipient of the alleged threat could reasonably conclude that it expresses a determination or intent to injure presently or in the future.” United States v. Ivers, 967 F.3d 709, 718 (8th Cir. 2020); Doe v. Pulaski Cnty. Special Sch. Dist., 306 F.3d 616, 622 (8th Cir. 2002).Relevant factors include:

1) The reaction of those who heard the alleged threat; 2) whether the threat was conditional; 3) whether the person who made the alleged threat communicated it directly to the object of the threat; 4) whether the speaker had a history of making threats against the person purportedly threatened; and 5) whether the recipient had a reason to believe that the speaker had a propensity to engage in violence.

Pulaski Cnty. Special Sch. Dist., 306 F.3d at 623.

[Mr. Bumble]

"I think it's pretty hard to get more blowhardy than the head of a college chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of America."
Why? You do it here every day.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Tee-hee! Tee-hee!

[loki13]

So continuing in the travails of how this administration (and its agents) have normalized lying to the Courts.

I recommend reading this opinion-
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172853522/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172853522.64.0.pdf

It's long, but it's spectacular. It's just another brick in the wall of district courts coming around to the idea that every single thing this administration says is a lie.

This is the OPENING of the court's discussion of the procedural history of the case-

The Government has presented inconsistent positions about the basis for the initial stop, for the arrest, and for the charges against the Defendant. The sworn affidavit submitted in support of the Criminal Complaint in this matter tells a very different—and largely fictional—story.

It goes downhill from there. When the Court starts by saying that the government's sworn affidavit is "largely fictional" you know you're in for it.

(By the way, for all of those cheering on ICE ... this is what you are cheering on.)

[Estragon]

TY for this. Classic typo in the header on p. 34, really brings me back!

[JoeFromtheBronx]

"The Government has presented inconsistent positions about the basis for the initial stop, for the arrest, and for the charges against the Defendant.

The sworn affidavit submitted in support of the Criminal Complaint in this matter tells a very different—and largely fictional—story."

==

"You sit on a throne of lies."

Elf

[LawTalkingGuy]

And smells like beef and cheese.

[David Nieporent]

Or, as Patrick Jiacomo summarized it yesterday:

The gov't tried to send a man to prison for 20 years for "inflicting bodily injury" on a DHS agent.

How did the man do this?

According to the gov't, the man inflicted this injury because the agent scraped his arm when the agent decided to punch out a moving car's window.

https://x.com/pjaicomo/status/1983918592602071376

[John F. Carr]

This looks like routine lying at the level of the individual officer, not comparable to the administration's lies in bigger immigration cases. At the bond hearing the AUSA did not vouch for the officer's story.

I think it was procedurally improper for the judge to dismiss the indictment for lack of evidence. If the evidence at trial proves insufficient the judge can acquit the defendant at the close of the prosecution's case.

Under some state's procedures a judge can look at the evidence before trial. California has preliminary hearings. Massachusetts allows a judge to review evidence presented to the grand jury.

[David Nieporent]

This looks like routine lying at the level of the individual officer, not comparable to the administration's lies in bigger immigration cases.

The fish rots from the head down. You're right that an individual agent lying may just be an individual agent lying, but this is part of a pattern with this administration's immigration enforcement agents.

[loki13]

Ummmm.... but read down through the opinion.

The reason the government kept shifting positions is because ... someone (that's called the DOJ) chose to PROSECUTE despite knowing the lies.

Not to mention, if you happen to look back at the past, the administration also consistently lied about this case publicly.

So yeah, you do have the issue of individual officers lying. But you have the additional issue of a whole corrupt machine that seeks to punish (massively overpunish) anyone and everyone for disagreeing with the officer's lies, while at the same time disseminating the lies to a broad audience.

If it was an isolate incident, we might say it's one officer. But it's rinse repeat. Over and over and over again.

I could literally post an opinion a day from district courts mentioning someone in the DOJ lying.

[David Nieporent]

And this judge is not reflexively anti-enforcement;¹ he found very very dubious reasonable suspicion to be present to justify the stop.
​
​
¹He is a former Texas Supreme Court justice and was appointed to the federal bench by Bush. (No blue slip mumbo jumbo will convert him to a liberal.)

[Krayt]

Welp, I'll buy a bag of Hershey's mix, lil' bars, twixes, kit kats, and a bag of mini peanut butter cups, hand out maybe a quarter of them, being generous.

What to do with the rest?

Also, it has happened. The end times are here. Which is the densest calorie disc? A peanut butter cup, or an Oreo?

No matter. They are combined into one devil unit now!

[LawTalkingGuy]

You can use the peanut butter cups to make milkshakes/blizzards.

[Nelson]

We get between 200 and 300 trick-or-treaters every year. Possibly because we live down the street from an elementary school and our neighborhood is bordered on two sides by a creek, so there isn’t a lot of traffic. The first year we were taken by surprise, but over the last 24 years we’ve accepted it’s going to be that way each year.

Does anyone else get a lot of kids on Halloween?

[ThePublius]

Yes. I live in a nice neighborhood in a predominantly poorer city. People commute to my neighborhood to trick or treat. I spent $80 on candy. I hope it's enough.

But then, I enjoy it. I try to take pics of the kids that come by, and some parents ask for images.

[Drewski]

Two. I get two. One of them is probably too old now so maybe one this year.

[ducksalad]

We have not had a single trick-or-treater in 24 years. Well-lit reasonably maintained 3/2 house on a low-traffic street.

Seems to be binary, certain neighborhoods do it, others don't. There are lots of extra cars parked around the "do it" neighborhoods so I assume the kids are being hauled in from outside.

[Michael P]

The only thing standing between the United States and its first Black female governor is a white leftist, formerly of the CIA and an Islamist school, who values DIE policies.

I hope Virginia makes the right choice on Tuesday and elects Winsome Earle-Sears.

[Mr. Bumble]

You mean the Johnny Winter look-a-like?

[Sarcastr0]

So DEI is bad but also good.

an Islamist school
And of course bigotry is always good.

[Michael P]

No, but a lot of DIE advocate are blatant hypocrites about what they really want.

One can judge the guy who got an SS tattoo and bragged to his friends about "my little totenkopf". One can judge a someone who taught at, and defended, a school that taught hardline Islamic fundamentalism. That's having morals and decency, not bigotry.

[Sarcastr0]

Your comment above was just you being a blatant hypocrite but like it was satire but also what you want to happen.

I think your Muslim-baiting is disgusting.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Your comment above was just you being a blatant hypocrite..."

It wasn't, but your response to it was you being an idiot.

[Bob from Ohio]

It was a Saudi government school. Islamist is factually correct.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Actually I think the thing standing in the way is voters. Especially black voters lol.

[Frank Drackman]

I forget, is she the one who cheated at West Point?

[Bob from Ohio]

No, she's in NJ.

It was Annapolis where she cheated. Now her twins can both cheat there, thanks to her!

[David Nieporent]

She is not accused of having cheated at Annapolis.

[Bob from Ohio]

Violating the honor code is cheating I didn't say academic cheating.

[David Nieporent]

She is not accused of any kind of cheating.

[Michael P]

Would you rather say that she is credibly accused of lying to Navy officials?

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/she-lied-mikie-sherrill-classmate-says-involvement-cheating-scandal-deeper-than-she-claims

[David Nieporent]

I wouldn't say that, no. A guy with admittedly no firsthand knowledge of what she did is guessing that she must have lied. I might call that credible speculation — made less so by the fact that the guy is a political adversary of hers (not in the sense of being a candidate, but in being an active member of the opposite political party) — but not a credible accusation.

[Bob from Ohio]

"any kind of cheating"

She knew about cheating and broke her oath by not reporting it.

Your pedantry continues to amaze.

[David Nieporent]

And your pretense that one can dispense with the need for factual accuracy by calling insistence on it "pedantry" continues to not amaze.

[Mr. Bumble]

She could resolve the issue by releasing her records.
By the way her former classmate and now husband was also involved in the cheating scandal.

[Frank Drackman]

Of course anyone who's been around Navy/Marine Corpse Aviators know their philosophy is "If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin" and "Its only cheating if you get caught". Even the great Nolan Ryan admitted he'd occasionally pitch from a foot in front of the rubber, adding 1-2mph to his already great fastball.

Frank

[Longtobefree]

And guess which one the NAACP endorses?

[Sarcastr0]

Blacks must vote black no matter what or else they're not blacking right!

[TwelveInchPianist]

Who said anything about how blacks must vote? We're talking about an association for the advancement of colored people. Please try to keep up.

[David Nieporent]

The one who supports the NAACP's agenda?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Anyone who supports the NAACP's agenda would support Sears. I mean, it's right there in the name.

[Michael P]

Their name is not their agenda. For example, Democrats don't support democracy; they prefer the Chinese model of government. The name is just a skin suit they wear.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I'm not a big pumpkin person. I like butternut squash. Yams are fine. Pumpkins aren't too exciting. They do have lots of Vitamin A.

I find it amusing that this time of year, there are so many pumpkin-related products, including pumpkin-flavored pasta.

There was a notice of a Halloween Day blood drive. I'm glad they found a safe way to provide blood to vampires.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't like squashes much at all. Or yams.
It's kind of tragic; I know I'm missing out on some joyful eating there.

Cabbages and tomatoes are my go-to veggies. For Thanksgiving my usual go-to is spinach souffle:
https://laurathegastronaut.com/julia-child/spinach-souffle

[JoeFromtheBronx]

"Yam" is funny to say.

[Sarcastr0]

In my house we call potatoes spuds for a similar reason.

[not guilty]

Yes. As Popeye the Sailor Man was wont to say, "I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam."

[John F. Carr]

Marine Le Pen's far right party won a vote in parliament calling on the government to denounce the 1968 treaty granting Algerians certain rights to live and work in France.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Talking vampires, Alicia Silverstone was in a film called Vamps. It wasn't that good, but there was some sense of nostalgia since Amy Heckerling directed, and Wallace Shawn was in it too (all three were connected to the much better Clueless). There is also an amusing Grant's Tomb joke.

To get a bit political, vampires popped up on an amusing story arc on the show The Wizards of Waverly Place (with Selena Gomez). The daughter vampire was played by an actress who is the niece of Christine Blasey Ford.

[loki13]

Bonus fun facts-

1. As far as we know, the Administration still has not provided any legal justification about the extra-judicial killings going on in international waters other than "trust us," (and we know they don't lie!).

2. As far as we know, the Administration has not provided any evidence that they knew the identities of the people they are killing before they killed them.

3. But to tie this up in a nice bow, do you know what the Administration has just said? That they can target people even if they are as "much as three hops away" from a known member of a targeted organization.

Three hops away? If we assume that a person knows a hundred people (that is likely an underestimate, with social media) ... the "three hops rule" means that every "known member" allows the Administration to target 1 million ... non-members.

So to reiterate-
They haven't given us any evidence of legality or identity, but they have asserted that if someone you know on facebook, knows someone on facebook, and that person knows someone who sells drugs...

You're fair game.

[Voize of Reazon]

When they expand that up to six hops I guess Kevin Bacon will go into hiding.

[loki13]

Good one. No notes. 🙂

[grb]

Voize of Reazon : " ...I guess Kevin Bacon will go into hiding."

Time to compare Kevin Bacon Scores : My separation is two people : The office manager at a firm I worked at years ago went to high school with Ed Harris. From there, Apollo 13.

Also : Is anyone else irritated at the hatchet job done to Jack Swigert in that movie? It wasn't Bacon's fault (who followed script and direction) but the poor guy had a hangdog look of inadequacy throughout half the film. I should be equally upset at the treatment given to Gus Grissom in the Right Stuff, but that was a much better film so I'm more tolerant.

[Magister]

If they raise the number to six, then they can kill anyone.

[loki13]

Effectively, they have already argued that.

Here, let me show you.

1. Do you use drugs? If so, you are fair game (because you are real close to someone who is a known target ... where do you get the drugs).

If not, go to 2.

2. You don't use drugs ... but do you know someone who uses drugs? If you do, then you're fair game. Because you are one step from (1), above.

If not, go to 3.

3. ....oh, my sweet summer child. Go back to 2. You don't really know much about your friends, do you?

[LawTalkingGuy]

They’re thrill kills. I’m dead serious on this.

We have a defense secretary who wants to LARP as a warrior and a President who just likes crass displays of dominance. But the country has scaled back its overseas troop deployments and there are much stronger legal and political hurdles to making war on its own citizenry. So they’re just going to order boats blown up and watch the snuff films to feed their insatiable need to feel something through violence.

[loki13]

Ugh. It's all just SO TRANSPARENTLY STUPID, too.

IIRC, after some members of the House were briefed ... yesterday? ... not only did we hear how deeply BS they thought it all was, but the administration actually said ... and I wish I was making this up ...

That as far as they knew, any and all drugs on any boat were cocaine, but cocaine is a precursor drug to fentanyl.

The lies are so bad you just have to shake your head. WTF is wrong with people?

That's probably only the second-worst blatant lie in the last day. The worst, as usual, goes to ICE Barbie, who stated, and I wish I was making this up ...

"No American citizens have been arrested or detained. We focus on those who are here illegally. And anything you would hear or report that would be different than that is simply not true and false reporting."

That's right! Don't believe your lying eyes, or court documents, or ... god forbid, what has been reported. Believe me, Kristi "Dog Killer" Noem!

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The term "extra-judicial killings" is one way to frame it.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-situation--murder-she-wrote

[grb]

I don't understand why anyone thinks this White House cares if the people they murdered were smuggling drugs or not. The stunt remains good entertainment for Trump's base whether true or not. When Trump sent scores of people to a El Salvadoran gulag, it didn't matter a whit if they were members of the Tren de Aragua gang. The briefest review by reporters using the little information released proved many weren't and the standard of evidence against all was almost nonexistent. But nobody in this White House cared. Trump needed warm bodies with brown skin to entertain his dupe followers; Noem needed bodies with brown skin packed tightly in a cage for her cosplay photo op.

Nothing from this White House has any value as truth. They didn't care the people they shipped off to prison weren't the gang members claimed. Why should they care if those they murder on the high seas aren't smuggling drugs? It's just another stunt from our Stunt President.

[Bunny495]

As a sometimes serious Indie moving picture maker, I have always relied heavily on DJI quadcopters. Truth be told they are not only far superior to anything for less than mid six figure products; way more than the DJI stuff costs. Currently some of their best ones have just emerged from a de facto ban by the US. Thing is not only is there a good chance come December the ban will no longer be de facto. Not only will this be a ban on sales of new products it possibly will include ones purchased months or even years ago. Seems like a taking to me.

While watching a Youtube vid on this topic I came across an off the wall court case. Seems the railroad union is trying to prevent management from flying quadcopters over railroad property to "observe" members of the union while they are working. Link for you linkers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed7p4aw0nyE

[loki13]

Further reading-

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-situation--james-comey-is-just-asking-questions

Look, I'm not going to say that this article isn't written from a specific perspective (it is, although I agree with it). But it has links to the flurry of motions filed by Comey's defense team that are worth reading.

I, too, look forward to the response. Here's the thing- most people will rightfully and truthfully tell you that these types of motions go nowhere, for the most part, in criminal cases. But ... the sheer number of self-inflicted wounds (HALLIGAN!) is breathtaking.

So far, the best protection we have is the incompetence of a number of Trump sycophants.

[grb]

loki13 : "So far, the best protection we have is the incompetence of a number of Trump sycophants."

That certain came in handy when Trump tried to steal the '20 election. If he wasn't such a clownish buffoon and his sycophants all leeches, losers, freaks, and lickspittles, the country might have faced much graver danger.

[Paladin_44]

"...the incompetence of a number of Trump sycophants..."
Well, that's encouraging (and somewhat predictable) at least.

[ReaderY]

Wednesday’s Supreme Court order in the Chicago National Guard case is extraordinary in several ways.

On the one hand, the immediate outcome is a win for the plaintiffs. The Justices not only declined to stay the injunction against the Trump Administration prohibiting deployment of the National Guard, they also provided for a relatively leisurely briefing schedule (as shadow docket briefs go), with a deadline of November 10, to address a supplemental question. This strongly suggests they do not buy the Administration’s argument that the situation in Chicago is an emergency requiring immediate action.

But on the other hand, the supplemental question is a stunner, with potential to so increase the cards in the President’s deck as to render everything that has happened up to this point, and the National Guard, Congress, and the States, all completely irrelevant.

The question is “whether the term ‘regular forces refers to the regular forces of the United States military…”

The question suggests that the President may have all along had the independent power as Commander in Chief to order regular military forces to do his bidding, without needing the National Guard at all, and hence without needing any authorization or permission from Congress, the States, or anyone else. Such a power would totally cut the wind out of the protestors’ sails, and render the various limitations that exist on the National Guard as antiquated and irrelevant as limitations on horses and buggies are in the age of the automobile.

It’s true that all the references to and limitations on the use of military forces for domestic matters in the Constitution refer to the militia and not the regular military. Congress has the power to to provide for calling out the militia to enforce federal law etc. The federal government has the power to call out the militia to suppress domestic violence only at a state’s request. Etc.

But since none of these limitations refer to the regular military, none of them (according to the argument) impose any limitations on it, or on the President’s power over it as Commander-In-Chief, the Constitution leaves the President’s power to use the regular military for these purposes completely unfettered.

Let me just say this. At the time of the founding, the militia WAS the regular military. The Framers limited appropriations for armies to two years because they didn’t want standing armies, they wanted only armies raised for and limited to special and temporary purposes. And the reason they didn’t want regular permanent standing armies is they so feared and abhored the idea of a President having the power to deploy a standing army against civilians at discretion, that they were concerned the very existence of such armies might give a future president the wrong ideas.

I think the Militia Act needs to be interpreted in light of that background.

[loki13]

Did you miss my actual series of posts on this?

I am not sure what you are talking about here. That is NOT why the Supreme Court asked for briefing on this issue. The reason that they asked for it was due to Lederman's Brief, which notes a specific statutory hook.

Read the brief, then get back to us. 🙂

[loki13]

Also, if you are a procedure nerd (I AM!) there is an additional procedural issue with the SCOTUS case.

So ... the case went to SCOTUS because the Liars... sorry, the Administration claimed that the TRO was going to do irreparable harm, blah blah blah.

Except .... the TRO? The one being appealed? It expired. Yep.

So in the lower court in a hearing on a possible extension to the TRO, the government argued that the TRO should just be ... extended indefinitely .... through final hearing. You know, because there's an appeal and there's no pressing need etc.

It doesn't take an attorney to understand the problem.

[Kazinski]

Speaking of procedure is a federal judge sua sponte ordering the Chicago head of ICE to appear in her court daily at 5:30pm normal?

[Mr. Bumble]

Stayed on appeal, I think.

[Zarniwoop]

Link to Prof Marty Lederman’s amicus brief on the subject:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25A443/380249/20251021211611551_25A443.amicus.msl.1021.pdf

[David Nieporent]

The question suggests that the President may have all along had the independent power as Commander in Chief to order regular military forces to do his bidding, without needing the National Guard at all, and hence without needing any authorization or permission from Congress, the States, or anyone else.

It does not. It has nothing to do with the president's purported constitutional power vis-à-vis the military. It's about the president's statutory authority to use the national guard.

[John F. Carr]

I like the interpretation that the National Guard can only be called up to supplement regular military forces. So Trump has to send in the Marines first, limited by the Posse Comitatus Act, and if they are not up to the task he can send the National Guard to help.

[ThePublius]

Did some film photography this week. It's very nostalgic, and kinda like writing yourself a letter and mailing it, as you don't see the results until you get the film processed, which could be quite a while.

One roll of 35mm Fujicolor Superia color negative film in my Miranda Sensorex, and one roll of 120 roll film Fuji Neopan Professional 400 ASA B&W negative in my Bronica S [1] medium format camera.

It's interesting, film seems really expensive, but adjusted for inflation it's cheaper than it was in the 1970's, although the selection if much more limited. Processing is much more these days, though. I may develop the B&W negative myself and 'digitize' the negatives with a light table and copy stand with my superb Canon 60mm macro lens and DSLR. I know, I could have just shot the pics with the Canon! Ha, ha. But what's the fun in that?

[1] I have both a Bronica S and an S2a. Both share the same excellent Nikon lenses. That Nikkor-P 75mm f/2.8 lens is great. I prefer the older model S. I like the focusing knob on the right side, rather than the S2a's helicoid lens mount.

[ThePublius]

Oh, yea, the Miranda meter is working perfectly, calibrated by me. For the Bronica I use a Minolta Auto Meter IVf, usually in incident light mode.

[grb]

I just took almost 3,000 pictures on an Italy vacation and was dismayed by the failure rate. I know it's not entirely fair, but I'm tempted to blame it all on the iPhone, convinced I would have done much better digging-out my old (broken) Nikon FM and getting it repaired.

On the other hand, I found a wonderful photo editing tool - SKRWT - that makes it easy to refine or rejigger any deficient composition. The problem? It's Apple-based, whereas my overall editing software, Affinity Photo 2, is on the PC. So I'm having to shift pictures back & forth from one platform to another. My ultimate goal is no better than saving 1/3 the pics as good solid photos. I did much better with the phone hiking in Sweden a few years back, but that was mainly outside with lots of light.

[Mr. Bumble]

3000 pictures.
Seems like you have to learn composition.
Act like it's film and not bits.

[ThePublius]

Yes, film makes you think about things more. 🙂

[grb]

I have no problem with "composition", shooting several dozen pics of (say) Brunelleschi's San Lorenzo in a single visit, using every every possible angle and trick. Of particular favor are oblique shots where vaults and domes are layered - foreground to background - in images that (a) show the structure's complexity, (b) are an arrangement of multiple textures, and (c) defeat the camera's natural tendency to distort. In a typical set of church photos, I'd shoot first down the nave in both directions, then do the diagonals, then do typical bays & details, then turn my camera up. Of course the most irksome thing with churches is their &%*# tendency to put stuff right under the main crossing. There's nothing I like more than a perfectly centered image looking up towards a dome. Damn altars are always getting in the way.

Given that, I made out like a bandit at St. Peter's. Of course there my layering was helped by all the Baroque & Rococo bling. My most egregious failure was the church I loved the most : Santo Spirito in Florence. There was once a design website called Archigasm & I always liked its name. Santo Spirito was a pure archigasm experience.

But it was one of three churches that forbade photography. Another was Palladio's Redentore in Venice, but there I had the entire church to myself and decided to risk my eternal soul regardless. The third was San Zaccaria (also in Venice) but I'm pretty sure that was just poor English signage and the real ban was the common one on flash photography.

Nah, the problem wasn't composition, but focus, lumination levels, and a coarse hard light in the finished image. I don't think a single pic from inside Santa Maria del Fiore is salvageable. Atop the dome or the facade outside, sure - but nothing from the very dim interior.

[ThePublius]

That sounds like a great trip, though.

[grb]

A lifelong desire.....

[ThePublius]

Nice. I've been to Italy many times. I think I could live there very happily.

[bernard11]

That is something we can agree on.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Why? The secret to taking good pictures is this.

[ThePublius]

?

[Mr. Bumble]

Take a lot and get lucky.

[ThePublius]

Interesting. I thought SKRWT was primarily for perspective correction.

For 'serious' photography I use a DSLR or my Panasonic DMC-LC1, which is an electronic viewfinder 5MP camera that resembles a rangefinder camera; but the optics are great.

I subscribe to Adobe Lightroom. I also use Canon's Digital Photo Pro, which is free for Canon customers, and actually better than Lightroom in a couple of aspects.

Editing tools can be frustrating, as you point out.

[grb]

SKRWT is primarily known for perspective correction, which is a wonderful thing for architects taking pictures of buildings. Their lines have a habit of converging upwardly towards the sky when committed to image. But the app also has a whole range of composition-adjustment features. I doubt any are that distinctive; probably all are buried in Affinity somewhere. But SKRWT is incredibly easy & intuitive in use, making editing in bulk numbers a breeze.

[ThePublius]

I'll check it out, thanks.

[grb]

Do you ever develop and/or print your own film? I did some way, way, back in college but not to any serious degree.

[ThePublius]

I was pretty serious about it for a long time. Even did color prints(!). My favorites were B&W and color slides (Kodak E4 and then E6 process). I got rid of all my stuff about 3 1/2 years ago with the divorce and move, and now I regret it! I may gear up again, but just for B&W negatives.

[grb]

I flash back on trying to thread the film into that reel, in the dark as a prelude to developing in the aluminum jar. My incompetencies started at the very beginning. I don't think we even discussed color printing as a possibility. As I understand it, that involves much tighter control.

[ThePublius]

Ha, ha. I got really good at that. I do it (sometimes wearing clean, white, cotton gloves) in a dark bag, rather than a dark room. [1] (Dark rooms are seldom really dark enough for sensitive films, although they are fine for photographic papers.). I started when I was about 12 or 13, and when I started H.S. at 13 I joined the photo staff. We used to practice loading those reels with scrap film, both 35mm and 120. We also did some 4x5 sheet film photography with an old Speed Graphic.

I am looking forward to getting back into just B&W film developing, and I'm experiencing excruciating regret for scrapping all of my great equipment 3 years ago or so with the divorce and move. 🙁

[1] Something I've done more than once is forget to put the developing tank and lid into the bag, and then once the film was loaded onto the real go, "Oh, damn. Now what?" 🙂

[ThePublius]

"... convinced I would have done much better digging-out my old (broken) Nikon FM and getting it repaired."

That may well be so, but it's expensive, and requires thoughtful composition and ...words escape me, but, you know, careful consideration of images to make as you are limited. A middle road would be a fairly inexpensive DSLR, as they are going out of favor with the emergence of mirrorless. You can get a great Canon DSLR cheap! In APS-C format, i.e., not full-frame sensor, and there are great lenses available. Even the cheap lenses are great compared to camera phones. I just bought another one, a Canon T1i (500D), with a very low shutter count of 5k, for only $99. I already have a bunch of lenses, but you can get the "kit lens," 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 STM IS, autofocus, image stabilized for well under $100. And, there are tons of great lenses available. Shoot raw mode with a 32GB SD card and get about 1,000 images. Spare batteries are cheap, but I never found the need. With the serial number you get Canon Digital Photo Pro software for free.

Just a thought.

[ThePublius]

Or, you could get a brand new, completely mechanical Leica rangefinder and lens for, I don't know, $12k or so (to start). 🙂

[grb]

ThePublius : "...careful consideration of images to make as you are limited"

To be sure. I often take multiple shots of a perfectly aligned pic, then repeat switching from vertical to horizontal format. I'd circle around a building and find myself lining-up the exact same shots after completing a couple of revolutions. That kind of self-indulgence isn't sustainable when you're on the hook to Fuji rather than random electrons & that day's phone charge.

[ThePublius]

Ha, ha, yes. 🙂

[ThePublius]

Well, for anyone who's still listening, I enjoyed this conversation, thank you. It's nice to be able to have a nice chat with folks with whom you usually disagree. 🙂

I shot some more medium format B&W today, and ordered a bunch of chemicals and other stuff to develop B&W and color 35mm and 120 film. I'll then digitize it using my DSLR and macro lens, and then "process" it in Lightroom with the Negative Lab Pro add-on.

See you tomorrow!

[loki13]

The good news!

After Usha realized the JD threw her and the kids under the bus again, she made him sleep on the couch.

The bad news?

....sleeping on the couch doesn't have the deterrent effect with JD that it would have on most husbands.

[ThePublius]

What are you talking about? Is any aspect of your post factual?

[grb]

1. Vance pandered to an audience of MAGA Christians by going on at length about his hope Usha will convert from her lifelong Hinduism to his faith . Whatever the theology involved, it was insensitive to use his spouse's beliefs for crowd fodder. But Vance is a shameless whore; he'll say anything to get (or keep) power. It's all very hilarious, because nobody is climbing up from the cesspool of Trump2 without a permanent revolting stench.

2. The kids were also dragged in for audience entertainment, but I can't remember exactly how.

3. The couch bit is (of course) the famous Vance Couch Meme. I don't think it's entirely factual, but has humor value regardless.

4. Of course, in the category of Pols Throwing Family Under the Bus, no one can beat Clarence Thomas. Back when he was just a young conservative on the make, he used his own sister as red meat for a rightwing crowd. She was a welfare leech, he sneered to the audience, always dependent on a handout. On and on, he belabored her deficiencies as the crowd cheered & cheered. The speech might have been the deciding factor when Reagan gave him an administration post a few months later.

And - truth be told - the sister did spend some time on welfare during a period caring for a sick relative, but was a upright productive citizen before and has been since. The irony? Thomas himself would prove to be the welfare leech, unable to live within his means without his palm out for freebies & handouts. But that's to rich people wanting to buy access to a SCOUS Justice.

[ThePublius]

O.K., I get it. Thanks. Yea, poor taste on his part.

[grb]

You do mean Vance, right?

[David Nieporent]

3. The couch bit is (of course) the famous Vance Couch Meme. I don't think it's entirely factual, but has humor value regardless.

Um, it's entirely fictional. It was a social media prank that for some reason stuck for a little while.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Given the strong evidence tests of some people here, who is to know if it is entirely fictional? We don't know what he does in the privacy of his own home and all.

It's a Catholic couch. He is okay with interfaith relationships, but has his limits.

[David Nieporent]

Given the strong evidence tests of some people here,

To be sure, yes, it actually has the same level of corroboration as many of the right-wing conspiracy theories here: the person who first tweeted about it cited to Vance's statements in his own book, but the book doesn't actually contain that. Similarly, the right-wingers around here will cite to various memos to "prove" that Clinton/Obama/Biden did some nefarious thing even though those memos don't say anything about it.

[not guilty]

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jd-vance-defends-wife-usha-convert-christianity/story?id=127068182

I have serious doubts about taking advice on matters of faith from a father of young children who, as an adult, voluntarily affiliated with the Roman Catholic Man-Boy Lust Association Church. I can understand Cradle Catholics adhering to their upbringing. I can't for the life of me, though, figure out why a parent not reared in that tradition would put his children in harm's way.

[hobie]

Usha should be the canary in the coal mine for Jewish hayseeds.

"But I'm your wife and bore your rotten children" sayeth the Hindu frog
"But I'm your favored Jew" sayeth the Jew Frog

Sayeth the scorpion, "But you knew I was a racist piece of shit Christian Nationalist when you agreed to give me a lift"

No sympathy here

[Poxigah146]

So now Democrat Party judges are ordering the administration to spend emergency money on SNAP. They're completely out of control.

[hobie]

Could claw back that $40B from Argentina. Mega-church pastors could donate their wealth. Elon or Bezos could write a small check.

[DDHarriman]

Why are healthcare premiums so high after Obamacare w/o the secret subsidies?

Is it because Democrat health care policy doesn't work? Or did they raise the premiums on purpose to hurt people and use it as leverage?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Who among us?

[grb]

Is there no end to the Rightwing freak show of ignorance & imbecility? From the Orlando Sentinel :

"Florida plans to end nearly a half-century of required childhood immunizations against diseases that have killed and maimed millions of children. Many critics of the decision, including doctors, are afraid to speak up against it. With the support of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Sept. 3 announced his plan to end all school-age vaccination mandates in the state. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” he told a cheering crowd of vaccination foes in Tallahassee."

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/10/30/doctors-muffled-as-florida-moves-to-end-decades-of-childhood-vaccination-mandates/

[Krayt]

I hope these politicians are executed in 10 years for mass deaths, as they richly will deserve.

[Michael P]

Speaking of ignorance and imbecility, look at the guy raging in response to pro-domination propaganda that lies straight out of the gate.

[grb]

Is there no end to the Rightwing freak show of ignorance & imbecility? From the New York Times :

"Gov. Ron DeSantis directed Florida education officials to “pull the plug” on the use of H-1B visas for foreign workers at the state’s universities, arguing that such jobs should go to Americans. At a news conference at the University of South Florida in Tampa on Wednesday, Mr. DeSantis rattled off a list of jobs at the state’s colleges that he said should be filled by Americans: public policy professor from China, graphic designer from Canada, assistant swim coach from Spain."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/us/florida-universities-h-1b-workers-desantis.html

[Michael P]

Speaking of ignorance and imbecility, look at the guy raging on demand from a pro-Great Replacement rag that doesn't have anything except bile to support its anger.

[grb]

Is there no end to the Rightwing freak show of ignorance & imbecility? Real Donald Trump, Truth Social:

"South Carerdddd”

https://trumpstruth.org/statuses/33487

People speculate Trump was trying to type-out "South Korea" but since his brain has rotted-down to mush, that's the best he could manage. Hopefully some aides were on hand to help with his focus and attend to any messy bathroom needs.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

King Charles III acted briskly — as briskly as a Windsor ever does — and rather ruthlessly in dealing with his embattled brother. The king declared he was stripping Andrew of his “prince” title and that he would soon be leaving his Windsor lodgings.

The Crown can be ruthless, including when family is involved.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/10/31/britain-royal-family-ruthless-prince-andrew/

(Covers events involving the king's brother, son, aunt, and grand-uncle.)

Meanwhile, Mike Johnson ...

[Mr. Bumble]

"The Crown can be ruthless, including when family is involved."
What would you expect from a king who wished he was a tampon?

[ThePublius]

Well, trick or treat is over. It went maybe 5:30 to 7:45, so 2:15. About 75 kids, total. About $50 worth of candy. I tried to take pics of every group. I blasted Halloween music; the kids loved it. Fun.

No older kids this year, which was good.

[Krayt]

Three groups, the last of which was two older teen boys.

Golly, I have a lot of peanut butter cups and "fun size" peanut M&Ms left. What to do?

[ThePublius]

What movie should I watch tonight?

I watched Back to the Future the other night. Maybe I'll watch II tonight? Any ideas?

[Krayt]

It's Halloween. Find an utterly crappy slasher, or go classic with some Universal monster movie from the 1930s.

[Bunny495]

Hard to find something better than "Hobo With A Shotgun" to watch.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9prtp0

[Michael P]

Michelle Goldberg either is an absolute idiot or she thinks her readers are absolute idiots.

Platner’s antifa-inflected online history cuts against the idea that he would knowingly sport a Nazi tattoo. As Platner tells it, he first learned that his skull and crossbones had Nazi associations this month.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/opinion/graham-platner-democrats.html

She spent how many paragraphs claiming that he has opposed neo-Nazis and other fascists for almost 30 years, and we are supposed to believe he didn't recognize a totenkopf?

Goldberg is veering close to the levels of the leftist commenters here in terms of inane gaslighting.

[Kenneth Almquist]

It may surprise you to learn that some people oppose fascism for reason other than the artistic merits of Nazi symbols. See the Wikipedia titled Criticism of Fascism.

[Michael P]

I didn't suggest anyone's opposition to fascism has anything to do with the artistic merits (or lack thereof) of Nazi symbols, but thanks for making a Gaslight0-grade straw man.

It is curious how Graham Platner went chose a Nazi symbol for his tattoo, just like Joe Biden built a Nazi-looking stage upon which to denounce his political opponents.

[Sarcastr0]

Biden is a secret Nazi?

[Michael P]

Your reading ability is as awful as ever. But who knows? Dementia brings out a lot of unexpected traits.

[Sarcastr0]

So Biden was invoking Nazi-looking stuff in your scenario just 'cause.

It seems like you're just throwing Nazi bullshit at the wall to try and deflect from your side's recent Nazi issues.

[David Nieporent]

Don't even know what that's supposed to refer to. CPAC, not Biden, was previously accused of building a stage in the shape of a Nazi symbol.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Appeals court overturns verdict against Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in Kowalski case"

Judges continue to condone the abuse of children by the medical establishment and social workers.

[David Nieporent]

WTF are you talking about? I would call your statement bad faith, but it's also a delusional description.

[Bunny495]

This is interesting. Florida is suing California over how multistate commerce is taxed.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/florida-sues-california-over-unconstitutional-business-taxation-rules-at-supreme-court/ar-AA1PAq1J?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ASTS&cvid=018e398682a947888cd4157c0961f049&ei=7

[Michael P]

I look forward to Ilya Somin denouncing California for fighting against foot voting.

[Michael P]

You heard it from Vogue ... well, if not first, then maybe 38th: healthy social relationships "feel Republican", and Democrats are the party of waspish spinsters who cluck about seeing the manager while toting extra-large purses that smell of cat urine.

https://www.vogue.com/article/is-having-a-boyfriend-embarrassing-now

[Sarcastr0]

Thanks for keeping up on the latest in Vogue.

Incredible content

On the Delusional Diaries podcast, fronted by two New York-based influencers, Halley and Jaz, they discuss whether having a boyfriend is “lame” now.

When author and British Vogue contributor Stephanie Yeboah hard-launched her boyfriend on social media, she lost hundreds of followers

Where being single was once a cautionary tale (you’ll end up a “spinster” with loads of cats), it is now becoming a desirable and coveted status—another nail in the coffin of a centuries-old heterosexual fairytale that never really benefited women to begin with.

Not nutpicking at all, this is incredible content from a true leader in leftist thinking. Thanks for digging it up!