Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[Dr. Ed 2]

Pipe bomb question:

Is there any legal distinction between, well, homemade fireworks that would suck to be within 6 feet of when they detonated and the ANFO bomb that took down the Murrah Building in OK City?

No, I'm not planning on building any pipe bombs but what was the worst case scenario in DC? A few broken windows -- or a few missing buildings?

[Michael P]

any legal distinction between, well, homemade fireworks that would suck to be within 6 feet of when they detonated

There probably is, but it will depend on the specifics. The law isn't so gullible as to categorize a pipe bomb as "homemade fireworks": there are significant differences in choices of material, design, size, use of fuze vs fuse, mode of deployment, whether one says they "detonate" or "go off", and so on. Trying to be cute by calling an improvised explosive device "homemade fireworks" will do little except undermine one's legal defense.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I, who know nothing about explosives, was trying to verify the potential threat poised by the "pipe bombs" left outside the DNC & RNC on Jan 6th. I support Bondi, Patel, & Bongino but not blindly -- while it is clear that Brandon's FBI didn't pursue this case, the potential lethality of these "pipebombs" is quite relevant.

In other words, the more serious these "pipebombs" were, the more serious Brandon's FBI's failure was. So how serious were they?

[Michael P]

If you wanted to know about the potential threat posed by the pipe bombs, it would probably help to ask a question about that threat, rather than about "any legal distinction between, well, homemade fireworks that would suck to be within 6 feet of when they detonated and the ANFO bomb that took down the Murrah Building in OK City".

As a question of facts, I don't know whether the pipe bombs were viable explosive devices. Legally, the usual thresholds for various criminal charges are based on intention to kill and actually killing -- an attempt that was doomed to fail, for example because a bomb was weaker than intended, seldom saves one from charges like attempted murder. See also The Simpsons on "attempted murder" vs "attempted chemistry".

[Magister]

Sean Gallagher of the Capitol Police testified before Congress that "It is my understanding that both of these devices were
fully functional and viable pipe bombs."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Which again raises the question of what IS a "pipe bomb."

There is a definition of an automatic weapon -- second round fired without second pull of the trigger.
There is a definition of sawed off shotgun -- barrel length below specified minimum number of inches.
There is a definition of maximum caliber -- half an inch (.50).

[Stella Link's Ghost]

According to the great information superhighway intertubes (so it must be true:

"A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device (IED) that uses a tightly sealed section of pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple low explosives can be used to produce a relatively large explosion due to the containment causing increased pressure. The fragmentation of the pipe itself creates potentially lethal shrapnel. "

So, a pipe bomb is just a very low-tech version of a frag grenade.

[Brett Bellmore]

Here's the best picture I could find.

I mean, I can't absolutely rule out that it was functional, but seriously, alligator clips? A paper clip attached to an egg timer using hot melt glue? Did this guy have a ratty old copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook? (Which I would only advise somebody to use if I wanted them to blow themselves up before they could hurt somebody else.)

It is MY understanding that bomb squads typically take these sorts of bombs and "disrupt" them with external explosives to render them safe, at which point you don't really know if they'd have worked or not. And reasonably so, because handling a real bomb is insanely dangerous.

[Armchair]

Yes.

Among other items, there is a size discrepancy.

https://www.atf.gov/explosives/tools-services-explosives-industry/current-licensees/table-distances

[hobie]

The MAGA rationalization continues...

'Them trafficked teens were just horny, mature 15 year old sluts'
'Them MAGA pipe bombs were just festive fireworks'

[Dr. Ed 2]

Forgive me Hobie, but I think that sex with a 5 year old is a wee bit worse than sex with a 15 year old. You don't?

[hobie]

I suppose. It's the 'trafficked' part that ruins the fantasy

[Bwaaah]

"I think that sex with a 5 year old is a wee bit worse than sex with a 15 year old. You don't?"

There better be, or, well, never mind.

[Bunny495]

Hobie you are really too ignorant to comment about the age of consent. In the EU many jurisdictions set the age of consent at 14, and as many as 15. America is the exception with it nominally being 18 (as an aside one EU country does set it at 18).

[hobie]

Can one give consent when trafficked?

[Michael P]

According to the US government, "Exploitation of a minor for commercial sex is human trafficking, regardless of whether any form of force, fraud, or coercion was used." For adults or for other-than-sex work, trafficking implies non-consent.

https://www.dhs.gov/human-trafficking-quick-facts

[Stella Link's Ghost]

" America is the exception "

Yes, American exceptionalism.

Lots of differences between how the Europeans do their laws and how we exceptional Americans do ours. Death penalty, for example. If they don't like how we do it, fuck 'em. If you don't like how the states do their laws about the age of consent, you're free to advocate for the child molesters and NAMBLA priests if you care to. If you do, expect nothing but opprobrium in response.

[hobie]

Yesterday I asserted that the pipe bomber will be auto-pardoned. It would look extremely odd for there to be one single person convicted for J6.

However, this morning I see a photo of the suspect. Well, looks like you're gonna be the first after all, buddy.

[Dr. Ed 2]

That's not fair, Hobie.

Trump 45 pardoned/commuted quite a few BLACK prisoners who got caught up in long sentences for drug offenses. Alice Marie Johnson is one such example.

[hobie]

That may have been the case for Trump 45. But this time around MAGA's gone full supremacy. The South and it monuments are ascendant. Neegroes can't be trusted fly planes (Kirk the humanitarian) or control air traffic. Slavery is getting memory holed in red states. Black war heroes erased from military museums. Black guy for the half time show? Boycott. If you care to look, this report here documents over 15,000 ways the Trump administration has tried to erase blacks from public memory.
https://blackoutreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Blackout_Report_Final_10_25.pdf

So...yeah...this poor nigga is toast

[Dr. Ed 2]

It was a White woman flying the Helo, and she wasn't where she was supposed to be, and was TOLD that she wasn't where she was supposed to be.

It was an Air Traffic Controller whose race hasn't been determined who should have said something when she continued to close on the plane but didn't. He sounded Black, but everyone down there does...

In both cases, the issue is QUALIFICATION -- not race or sex but being put into the position BECAUSE OF race or sex instead of qualifications.

As to the VRA -- read the late Abby Thernstrom's Voting Rights and Wrongs -- she predicted this decision about 20 years ago, and explained how the then-mandated "majority minority" districts were a violation of not only the 14th Amendment but also another portion of the VRA itself.

[Stella Link's Ghost]

"In both cases, the issue is QUALIFICATION -- not race or sex but being put into the position BECAUSE OF race or sex instead of qualifications."

Other than race or sex, what is your reason for questioning the qualifications of these people? Where is your evidence that women helicopter pilots don't meet the same standards as male pilots? Where is your evidence that black ATCs don't meet the exact same standards as white ATCs?

[Dr. Ed 2]

If you were driving on the wrong side of the road, why might I question your competence as a driver?

[Stella Link's Ghost]

As I'm neither black nor Asian, you wouldn't.

[hobie]

OMG, now that I think about it, I hope MAGA nails this guy to the wall. This will be hilarious. Imagine how awesome the optics will be that only one J6er got convicted: the black guy.

[John F. Carr]

Once a device becomes federally regulated as an explosive or destructive device size doesn't matter. Death resulting, as in Oklahoma City, does matter.

Using a pipe bomb for political reasons is to be sentenced as terrorism with a presumptive 30 year sentence under the guidelines. (Subject to any applicable statutory maximum.)

[not guilty]

"Is there any legal distinction between, well, homemade fireworks that would suck to be within 6 feet of when they detonated and the ANFO bomb that took down the Murrah Building in OK City?"

Do you mean any distinction other than that one killed 167 people, injured 684, and destroyed more than a third of the building, which had to be demolished?

But "explosive" is defined in the statute which the pipe bomber is charged with violating as:

(j) For the purposes of subsections (d), (e), (f), (g), (h), and (i) of this section and section 842(p), the term “explosive” means gunpowders, powders used for blasting, all forms of high explosives, blasting materials, fuzes (other than electric circuit breakers), detonators, and other detonating agents, smokeless powders, other explosive or incendiary devices within the meaning of paragraph (5) of section 232 of this title , and any chemical compounds, mechanical mixture, or device that contains any oxidizing and combustible units, or other ingredients, in such proportions, quantities, or packing that ignition by fire, by friction, by concussion, by percussion, or by detonation of the compound, mixture, or device or any part thereof may cause an explosion.

So either bomb would meet that definition. Where personal injury and/or death results, however, the applicable penalty is enhanced by 18 U.S.C. § 844(d):

(d) Whoever transports or receives, or attempts to transport or receive, in interstate or foreign commerce any explosive with the knowledge or intent that it will be used to kill, injure, or intimidate any individual or unlawfully to damage or destroy any building, vehicle, or other real or personal property, shall be imprisoned for not more than ten years, or fined under this title, or both; and if personal injury results to any person, including any public safety officer performing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be imprisoned for not more than twenty years or fined under this title, or both; and if death results to any person, including any public safety officer performing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be subject to imprisonment for any term of years, or to the death penalty or to life imprisonment.

As I have said here time and again, there is no substitute for original source materials.

[Armchair]

Or you could just answer the question.

Is there a legal difference between the two types of explosives? Yes or no?

[not guilty]

I answered the question, doofus.

Each of the two falls within the operative definition of "explosive" at 18 U.S.C. § 844(j). To that extent they are similar.

The use to which the explosives were put differentiates the penalties according to subsection 844(d), which does, in my opinion, constitute "a legal difference between the two."

One of the most important rules of parsing statutes or other legal authorities, Armchair, is don't do so with your head up your ass. You would do well to heed that rule.

[Bwaaah]

Jeez. Your answers are painful to read. Especially, your wisdom.

[Commenter_XY]

I know we are a colorblind society, but this takes the cake.

https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2025/12/04/jake-tapper-misidentifies-d-c-pipe-bomb-suspect-brian-cole-as-a-30-year-old-white-man/

And people wonder why they call it Fake News. And don't trust legacy media.

Nice going, Jake. Good job.

[Michael P]

One does have to wonder why the Biden FBI wasn't able to follow the same evidence that allowed the Trump FBI to identify the guy.

I guess the Biden FBI had other priorities, like chasing down grannies who protested a rotten election.

[Sarcastr0]

It took the steely leadership of Patel no doubt.

[Michael P]

(Moved. Apparently-drunk Gaslight0 gutted and replaced his comment without admitting it.)

[Sarcastr0]

I mistakenly replied here to the post below. What is this intimation of skullduggery in moving my comment where it belongs?

[Michael P]

Usually people will just replace their comment with something like (moved), not with an entirely different comment.

I already responded to the original version of the comment, but your undisclosed edit made it look like I was the one who responded to the wrong comment; so I explained that when I moved the substance of that response.

Don't complain to me just because I pointed out that you tried to cover up your mistake.

[grb]

Frigg'n hilarious.

Rightwing tin-foil-hat loony-tunes conspiratorial thinking taken to the most absurd degree imaginable. They just can't help themselves. Their brains have faulty wiring.

[Bwaaah]

Sarc plays his first "that's another [right wing] conspiracy theory" card of the day. And grb above is either a parrot or an original thinker; take it however you want.

[grb]

Sarcastr0 replied in the wrong spot and moved it to the right place. Even granting every rightwinger's brain is maggoty with conspiracy gibberish, how can you make something of that ?!?

[Sarcastr0]

LOL you clearly didn't read the comment I was replying to

I'm not your posting nemesis, you're just a weird dude.

[Bwaaah]

"What is this intimation of skullduggery?"

[Michael P]

LOL at your LOL, given what started this entire thread.

[Joe_dallas]

Possible that the Biden did not want to find the suspect since they likely knew who the suspect was?

[Sarcastr0]

I presume this is the right wing's usual 'if he isn't a leftist trans Muslim Biden super fan, then why do I keep insisting he is?'

[Joe_dallas]

Another stupid comment with zero substance

[Sarcastr0]

LOL.
So what is your theory of why Biden wanted to do a cover up?

[Joe_dallas]

Dumbo - think about it -

oops - never mind - you have never shown the ability to have any comprehension on any topic

[Stella Link's Ghost]

"Possible that the Biden did not want to find the suspect since they likely knew who the suspect was?"

"Another stupid comment with zero substance"

[Armchair]

Finding the 75 year old grandmother who walked peacefully into the capitol was a more important use of resources.

[not guilty]

"One does have to wonder why the Biden FBI wasn't able to follow the same evidence that allowed the Trump FBI to identify the guy."

The affidavit in support of the arrest warrant does not identify when the FBI (much of) the information used to identify the accused. https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/media/1420196/dl?inline

I surmise that he has been charged now because the period of limitation for commencing prosecution expires next month.

[Michael P]

You would do well to not comment with your head so far up your ass.

“Let me be clear: There was no new tip, there was no new witness. Just good diligent police work and prosecutorial work,” Bondi said.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fbi-arrest-jan-6-pipe-bombs-b2878088.html

The Trump administration made tracking this guy down a high priority. The Biden administration was chasing peaceful grandmothers instead.

[Malika la Maize]

Didn’t a few folks here claim it was a false flag set up by the FBI?

[SRG2]

Just as some Muslims claimed that 9/11 was simultaneously a great victory and an Israeli op, so too do some cultists claim that 1/6 was an inside job but also a peaceful protest by patriots.

[Brett Bellmore]

I can't recall, personally, anybody who made BOTH claims.

[SRG2]

They don't make the claims at the same time but I have definitely seen the same people make both. It's not surprising - and indeed it's a minor feature of conspiracy thinking that these contradictory positions can be held at once because the major feature is that the mainstream narrative is false.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think a lot of things were going on, on January 6th, at the same time. An insurrectionist plot planned by a group half of whose leadership were FBI informants. A peaceful political rally at the Mall. And a lot of things in between.

Some of the people who entered the Capitol building were in on the plot. Some of them were just idiots drawn in by the excitement, or even not particularly observant people who came by after the barricades had been pushed out of the way, and who thought the Capitol was open to tourists that day.

The one thing I'm certain of is that Trump didn't have anything legally relevant to do with the break in, because there is no way in Hell that the Biden DOJ would have sat on proof of that, and they had the people who were responsible under intense surveillance for months before January 6th.

My main conclusion is that the FBI should do a lot less giving people rope in the hope they'll hang themselves, and a lot more normal law enforcement. Handing out the rope backfires way too often.

[Sarcastr0]

::1 hour later, Brett makes both claims::

[Magister]

Brett making the simultaneous claims he couldn't recall anyone else making.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm pointing out that a lot of different things happened on January 6th at the same time. Not that the same thing was two different things.

[Magister]

Totally unrelated? The one thing you make inconsistent claims about is people entering the Capitol; those peaceful tourists would have to be Mr. Magoo to enter the building amidst the broken windows and doors and the attacks on the police there. And the Biden administration did indict Donald Trump for the insurrection; I'm not sure how you missed that, it was all over the news.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I can make both Brett -- if you screw up your crowd control, you're going to have problems -- anyone remember the 1979 WHO concert disaster in Cincinnati?

If you deliberately screw it up, even without Agent Provocateurs, you will have problems -- and I still want to know how the people who broke the windows knew where the 10% that hadn't been replaced with unbreakable ones actually were.

One of the retired Capitol Police chiefs was succinct the next day -- "a lot of time and money had been spent to prevent exactly that sort of thing from happening." Other police officials -- folks who know something about policing and had been to the Capitol for other things in the past, asked "where were all the cops?"

And the left loves to infiltrate conservative events to cause trouble, as do the Anarchists, although they just want to disrupt *everything.*

But there's one third thing here -- sometimes our government is both competent and honorable, and there are dangerous criminal organizations that sometimes are being pursued. Think arsonists -- you actually have to catch them lighting a fire before you can prosecute them.

So think a half dozen different fire departments all having a sting in the same national park, on the same (windy) day and while any one of the arsonist's fires could be quickly extinguished, all six quickly combine into a major conflagration that can't be.

Could a half dozen FBI field offices not compare notes and manage to all have their suspicious group show up on the same day at what was a well-publicized protest?

[Magister]

I still want to know how the people who broke the windows knew where the 10% that hadn't been replaced with unbreakable ones actually were.

For the third time, the window frames were different.

And the left loves to infiltrate conservative events to cause trouble

Seems more a right thing to do (and to baselessly accuse others of in the usual every accusation is a confession way).

Think arsonists -- you actually have to catch them lighting a fire before you can prosecute them.

To be an arsonist I suppose one would have had to light a fire, but you don't really have to catch them doing it if you can find sufficient evidence later. (Otherwise the pipe bomb guy could not be prosecuted now, right?)

Could a half dozen FBI field offices not compare notes and manage to all have their suspicious group show up on the same day at what was a well-publicized protest?

Simpler for them to have turned up because Trump asked them to show up to and encouraged them to fight.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And the left loves to infiltrate conservative events to cause trouble
Seems more a right thing to do (and to baselessly accuse others of in the usual every accusation is a confession way).

I've had to advise conservative groups how to deal with this -- as I wasn't advising leftist groups, I can't speak to that beyond having making it known to the groups I was advising that they'd better not be doing it.

Think arsonists -- you actually have to catch them lighting a fire before you can prosecute them.
To be an arsonist I suppose one would have had to light a fire, but you don't really have to catch them doing it if you can find sufficient evidence later.

A retired fire chief told me that yes, "you gotta catch them doing it" and that their arson divisions didn't coordinate with other departments and what I suggested could happen.

[bernard11]

Think arsonists -- you actually have to catch them lighting a fire before you can prosecute them.

What????

Is there some prize for stupidity you're trying to win?

[David Nieporent]

I mean, the award is named after him.

The Dr. Ed Memorial "It's In My Dissertation!" Award.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, yeah, mainly because it was so starkly absurd that they "couldn't find" the guy, after tracking him for miles, and identifying both the subway pass he used, and the car that picked him up.

And, surprise, turns out they had the evidence they needed to find him, all along.

[Sarcastr0]

So by your appeal to incredulity it can't be incompetence of some impediment unknown to us, it must be another conspiracy of the evil liberal Biden FBI?

[Brett Bellmore]

When you change administrations, and suddenly an insoluble problem turns out to have been perfectly soluble, you do reasonably suspect that somebody just didn't WANT to solve it.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "...somebody just didn't WANT to solve it."

Every other week I see a news report on some old crime solved after years or decades. Very frequently people see that the answer was right there all along. So, three questions:

1. Does your "theory" apply to all those to?

2. Shouldn't you at least try to come up with some wacko "motive" to justify your statement before wrapping your head tightly with tin foil?

3. Don't you ever get tired of looking so damn ridiculous with this conspiracy nonsense?

( Thank you for your attention to this matter )

[Dr. Ed 2]

Brett, not knowing what a "pipe bomb" actually is, the reason I question the seriousness of them because I know that grannies peacefully walking into the Capitol were not a credible threat to the US government.

IF the "pipe bombs" were essentially harmless, I can see a rational decision not to allocate resources to pursue it. I think fairness requires we rule that out.

[Magister]

Ten months later is not really "suddenly".

[Sarcastr0]

Your threshold for what's reasonable to suspect continues to amaze with how low it is.

What even is the motive behind this newly born conspiracy theory?

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "...somebody just didn't WANT to solve it."

Over at the National Review website, Jim Geraghty writes about what a mundane little criminal the Washington pipe bomber turned out to be vs all the elaborate (and hysterical) theories before the arrest. He says the quote below about the conspiracy-addled. It's a general point, but I swear he might have had Brett's photo pinned-up at his workstation while typing:

"The answer is simple, and unpleasant: A certain chunk of the audiences out there want to hear lies. They love it when someone tells them something false. The truth is usually comparably boring. The conspiracy theory narratives can get convoluted in their details but almost always amount to one simple and exciting storyline: Shadowy and malevolent figures at the top of society are fooling most of the public and getting away with terrible deeds by framing or using some hapless patsy. And you, the theory believer, get to be a minor hero in the story; you’re the one who’s not so easily fooled, the who can see through their lies."

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-boring-truth-emerges-about-the-j6-pipebomber-displacing-exciting-lies/

[ducksalad]

you do reasonably suspect that somebody just didn't WANT to solve it.

I could buy that they weren't particularly interested in finding him.

But if it was an intentional cover-up, the Biden DoJ had four years to dispose of the files and evidence. Leaving all that for their successors indicates they weren't strongly against finding him either.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, agree, it likely wasn't an intentional coverup, just a total lack of interest.

But a lack of interest in finding somebody who actually planted bombs in D.C. is a bit strange.

[Life of Brian]

But if it was an intentional cover-up, the Biden DoJ had four years to dispose of the files and evidence. Leaving all that for their successors indicates they weren't strongly against finding him either.

I'm not suggesting this one was intentional, but just pointing out that after the fiasco with the burn bags of Russiagate docs, I don't know that the above logic holds.

From what I've seen so far, the best explanation appears to be that all the information they're now relying on was indeed in plain sight, but as part of a mountain of data. That it looks like an obvious pattern post-hoc doesn't mean there was a straightforward way to glean that pattern from the mountain of data they were working with.

[Michael P]

What's the big difference between a "double tap" drone strike on 2 Sep 2025 and when Obama oversaw many of them? A guy who researched them in Pakistan has one answer:

“Outside the western world, when Obama did it, there was outrage,” Qadri told us. “I think the difference [now] is there is less outrage outside the U.S. It’s become much more normalized.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/taibbi/p/democrats-press-gloss-over-original

(Another difference is that people like Sen. Angus King were strongly in favor of Obama blowing up Pakistani rescuers, whereas he opposes blowing up narcoterrorists. No Kings!)

[Sarcastr0]

Our reliance in drone strikes was terrible. Which at the time only the left had an issue with. I was against it tactically, but far too sanguine morally at the time.

But neither you nor Taibi understand how blowing up a boat and coming back at survivors is not the same as doing 2 strikes on land?!

[Michael P]

Are you drunk already? You originally replied to the wrong comment.

But yes, I explained how the cases differ, if you read to the end of my rather short comment: "people like Sen. Angus King were strongly in favor of Obama blowing up Pakistani rescuers, whereas he opposes [Trump] blowing up narcoterrorists." The targets of Obama's double tap drone strikes on land were often new arrivals who came to help, not the original targets of the first attack.

[Michael P]

Another obvious difference is that so far we have one Trump double-tap attack, whereas Obama had so many that Pakistan prohibited Mr. Qadri from traveling to northern Waziristan to investigate the large number of them because of the danger.

[Sarcastr0]

Try again. You and Taibi are making a category error. Address that and quit with the handwaiving fake outrage.

I don't buy your crocodile tears regarding drone strikes and collateral damage.

[Michael P]

As usual, you don't spell out your actual argument because you know it sucks; you just assert your conclusion and call names. Yawn.

[Sarcastr0]

I made the argument above!

To make it very very simple: the land has attributes that make it not the same as the sea.

[Michael P]

If someone was arguing that the land and sea were substantively the same, then -- depending on the substance being claimed and the underlying point being made -- those differences might matter. Nobody has made that kind of argument.

I will thus revise my earlier statement: As usual, you don't spell out your actual argument because you haven't thought it through enough to realize it sucks.

[Armchair]

Thinking it through and writing it down gives people opportunities to criticize it and destroy the logic.

By being ambiguous, you can't criticize it.

"Those who don't try, never look foolish,"

[Sarcastr0]

Surely it's not you failing to read or being dumb. it's gotta be a communication strategy I'm using!

To repeat myself:
"blowing up a boat and coming back at survivors is not the same as doing 2 strikes on land"

[Michael P]

Surely it's not you failing to read or being dumb. it's gotta be a communication strategy I'm using!

Expressing this sarcastically doesn't change that it is literally true.

To repeat myself:
"blowing up a boat and coming back at survivors is not the same as doing 2 strikes on land"

If anyone was making that argument, you might have a point. Nobody said they were the same. My very first comment pointed out relevant differences -- and you brought in that invented argument (it's not even a straw man) because the differences make it worse for Obama.

[Magister]

My very first comment pointed out relevant differences

The only differences you pointed out were shifts in attitude.

[Michael P]

Magister should learn to read: "Obama blowing up Pakistani rescuers" versus "[Trump] blowing up narcoterrorists".

[Sarcastr0]

Boats are not the same as buildings or trucks.

Boats float. When blown up, they no longer float.
This means those on boats become helpless when the boat is severely damaged.
This renders them hors de combat, and you cannot come back to target them for killing.

This is not the same as people standing on land. When you damage something, who is helpless and who is not is not as immediate and clear. Buildings don't sink. That means the damage threshold required to surely render a building inoperable is higher than for a boat.

All these mean a double tap at sea is returning to execute nonthreatening survivors, while coming back on land is substantially more murky.
---------------------
To be clear, this is not meant to be a moral absolution of the Obama droning regime.
The collateral damage was unneeded to the point of the whole thing possibly being counterproductive. In addition to the whole recklessness with human lives being a moral abomination. Done in our name as citizens of the US of A.

The contrast here is stark, though - this whole Trump/Hegseth double tap thing blew up because of the clarity of the facts of what this admin has done. Obama's drone program sucked, but did not suck in the same starkly 'you're just doing a murder for shits and giggles' way.

[Michael P]

... in which Gaslight0 explains that is okay to kill everyone on a boat, but only if you do it with your first strike, whereas it's okay to blow up first responders on the ground because of the fog of war. (Presumably he also means: unless you're Israel.)

[Bob from Ohio]

Do you have any authority for this incredible statement:

"This means those on boats become helpless when the boat is severely damaged.
This renders them hors de combat, and you cannot come back to target them for killing."

Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions defines a person as hors de combat if:[1]
(a) he is in the power of an adverse Party;
(b) he clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or
(c) he has been rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds or sickness, and therefore is incapable of defending himself;
provided that in any of these cases he abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape.

a and b do not apply, why is a disabled boat or ship meet c?

[Sarcastr0]

I don't think it is an incredible statement that bobbing in the sea by or even on parts of a wrecked boat makes one incapable of defending oneself from an aerial attack.

[Michael P]

I wish my boss would believe that a wrecked boat means "rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds or sickness". I'd buy a boat and wreck it just to get off work.

(I wouldn't really, but I trust Bob's point is clear.)

[Magister]

Michael P is a buffoon. He asked:

What's the big difference between a "double tap" drone strike on 2 Sep 2025 and when Obama oversaw many of them?

But I'm pretty sure he was not asking for the differences that were already evident in that sentence (year, president, nationality and affiliations of targets); he was looking for big differences. The two he suggested were different level of outrage outside the US, and whether Angus King approved or not. Those are shifts in attitudes to the events, as I said.

[TwelveInchPianist]

It's not quite as clearcut as Sarcastro claims.

In practice, it may not be easy for the adversary to see or know, based on its own observations, whether a crew whose ship has been damaged or disabled has ceased hostilities and is shipwrecked. In such cases, the safest way for a crew to ensure it is not attacked may be to make clear to the adversary that it is shipwrecked or even to surrender (e.g. by striking the colours). If, however, the factual circumstances are obvious and allow the adversary to conclude that the crew is shipwrecked, an act of surrender must not be considered necessary for protection. Even if a ship’s weapons are still operable, if it is taking on water and the crew clearly refrain from further hostilities, then they must be considered to be shipwrecked.

But given the facts we know, it sure seems like these guys were shipwrecked.

[bernard11]

Bob,

Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions defines a person as hors de combat ...

Too bad you didn't bother to look at Convention II, Article 12, which begins:

(1) Members of the armed forces and other persons mentioned in the following Article, who are at sea and who are wounded, sick or shipwrecked, shall be respected and protected in all circumstances, it being understood that the term “shipwreck” means shipwreck from any cause and includes forced landings at sea by or from aircraft..

(Emphasis added.)

[Bwaaah]

Sarc's argument: "the land has attributes that make it not the same as the sea"

I agree.

That's an argument?

[Sarcastr0]

People are denying that, so yeah.

You again didn't read the thread, just a comment of mine so you could insult me on the Internet.
That doesn't work well to anyone who actually does read the thread.
I had to go into how a boat is not like a building as well.

[Michael P]

Again, asshole, no one is arguing that the land and sea are substantively the same. It doesn't matter how much you wish they were.

[Armchair]

"What's the big difference "
Trump

[Bob from Ohio]

Like 99,99% of other issues with the lib herd

[Bwaaah]

Yeah. Trump. And the way the story gets told.

But despite requisite cries of "foul!" from the left, nobody much cared about the bad guys when Obama went after them. Today, the left pretends it really does care about the bad guys, which it does, very slightly. But about Trump? TOTALLY.

Now, they concoct How-do-you-know-they're-bad-guys? theories and rail against the immorality of denied due process. The left now has a perennial non-answer to crime: "Loosen the enforcement; it's inhumane."

And what of horrors of victims of crime, many times the bodies of the perpetrators? "Meh."

(Cue some genuine momentary feelings of concern for victims, and then get back on point.)

[Sarcastr0]

Bwaaah is just a disaffected liberal, not MAGA at all.

[Bwaaah]

Queenie?

[Riva]

Didn’t Obama target American citizens? And there’s also Biden, who targeted innocents.

[not guilty]

President Obama targeted Anwar al-Alwaki, an American citizen, after having been advised by the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel that such a measure was authorized under the September 18, 2001 Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB529-Anwar-al-Awlaki-File/documents/16)%20OLC%20Barron-Lederman%20July%202010%20Awlaki%20memo.pdf

https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf

As Justice Robert Jackson opined, concurring in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635 (1952), "When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate."

[ducksalad]

Sorry, ng, but this is not convincing.

The core question is whether it amounted to a summary execution without trial. It's not about which branch can order summary executions without trial, no branch should have that power.

I'm very sure that if we scroll back to 2020 comments there were people warning that if you approve of Obama doing this, someday a president you don't like would use it in a way you don't like.

It was wrong then when Obama did it and it is wrong now that Trump is doing it.

====
And Bwaaah, if you are here keeping score, Riva was doing a bad whatabout, because he absolutely favors what Trump did. I am doing one of your good whatabouts.

[Bwaaah]

And we know the difference, right? But indeed, I think we do.

[ducksalad]

OK, so I accidentally let out the secret. Let's see if you can guess which ones are the six sockpuppets and which is the "real" one.

[not guilty]

"The core question is whether it amounted to a summary execution without trial."

WTF? How is there any question there as to the boat strikes?

Whether there was an execution? (The strikes left no survivors.)

Was there a trial of any kind? (There was not.)

As to the drone strike against Anwar al-Alwaki, Congressional authorization does make a difference. Congress is authorized by Article I, § 8 of the Constitution:

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

The Necessary and Proper clause applies not only to the Congressional powers listed above in § 8, but also to powers vested every official of the other branches of government. That includes the President acting as commander-in-chief pursuant to Article II, § 2.

The September 18, 2001 AUMF did not distinguish between American citizens and non-citizens. Anwar al-Alwaki accordingly stood in the same position as any other persons whom the President determined to have planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, irrespective of citizenship.

As the OLC opinion recited:

Based upon the facts represented to us, moreover, the target of the contemplated operation has engaged in conduct as part of that organization that brings him within the scope of the AUMF. High-level government officials have concluded, on the basis of al-Aulaqi's activities in Yemen, that al-Aulaqi is a leader of AQAP whose activities in Yemen pose a "continued and imminent threat" of violence to United States persons and interests. Indeed, the facts represented to us indicate that aI-Aulaqi has been involved, through his operational and leadership roles within AQAP, in an abortive attack within the United States and continues to plot attacks intended to kill Americans from his base of operations in Yemen. The contemplated DoD operation, therefore, would be carried out against someone who is within the core of individuals against whom Congress has authorized the use of necessary and appropriate force.

[Bwaaah]

"WTF? How is there any question there as to the boat strikes?"

No, no, no. This not the right type of whatabout.

[ducksalad]

ng, when I said the question was whether it was summary execution, I was talking specifically about the Al-Alwaki strike. And yes, I was familiar with the justification, it was discussed at length at the time.
It's not complete nonsense, but many people were not convinced then and nothing has changed.

To summarize a few of the flaws: we were not at war with Yemen, the AUMF was not a declaration of war (and why not, huh?), US citizen hanging around someplace accused of planning is not exactly like a US citizen charging at us from the enemy trenches, and most of all, we'd been fed almost a decade of continuous lies and no longer trusted the "determinations" of Bush II and Obama.

[hobie]

I didn't know you MAGA were so sensitive about missile strikes on unarmed civilians.

[Malika la Maize]

The story has shifted.
1. Fake news.
2. Floating in water still totes threats.
3. Obama!!!!

[hobie]

Them floating torsos were just more antisemitic marxist tranny dem hoax crisis actors [BOOM! I nailed all the pejoratives in one sentence!]

[bernard11]

The latest Administration lie is (was) that the survivors had radios and were calling in help to let them escape with their cargo, or what was left of it.

Sadly, Bradley has now explained that this is not true, and that there was no sign of radios or other communications devices.

Is this the eighth lie to go down? The tenth? I lose track. Should have bought a scorecard when the whole thing began.

[not guilty]

"What's the big difference between a "double tap" drone strike on 2 Sep 2025 and when Obama oversaw many of them?"

Michael P, can you identify any occasion as to which President Obama and/or those under his command targeted civilian noncombatants for death, and then ordered a second strike in order to kill the civilians who survived the first strike?

[not guilty]

It is also germane that Congress had specifically authorized the President "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf

Whether Al Qaeda operatives were located in Pakistan or elsewhere, military strikes against them were Congressionally authorized. That is not so for the recent lethal strikes on civilian noncombatants in the Caribbean Sea.

As the Sesame Street jingle goes, one of these things is not like the others.

[Michael P]

As I mentioned in my first comment, Obama and/or those under his command targeted civilian noncombatants for death, and regularly ordered second strikes in order to kill the civilians who showed up to render aid to those who survived the first strike -- as well as any survivors of the first attack. That's worse than even the WaPoo's discredited accusations against the Trump administration.

The link to a NYT story about this is in the first paragraph of what I linked to -- far before the paywall. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/world/asia/us-drone-strikes-are-said-to-target-rescuers.html

There is a longer report that was published later, detailing multiple follow-up strikes against rescuers: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/ASA33/013/2013/en/

[David Nieporent]

Sigh. Setting aside the pathetic vicarious tough guy wannabes who use phrases like "double tap" to make themselves seem like actual fighters, the difference is obvious to anyone with a brain: there are no rules against "double taps" and this issue has nothing to do with "double taps." It has to do with people rendered hors de combat who are being illegally targeted.

Another difference is that Obama had congressional authorization and Trump doesn't.

(The implication, however, that nobody objected to drone warfare by Obama is just stupid, though.)

[Michael P]

The implication, however, that nobody objected to drone warfare by Obama is just stupid, though.

Arguing against a straw man is one way to try to defend blatant hypocrisy like the example I cited in my original comment. It's far from convincing, but you tried.

[Malika la Maize]

For two decades, Muhammad Abdulrahman, 58, lived with his wife and his beehives on a remote hillside in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

But in May, Israeli settlers set up camp about 200 yards away and took control of the road leading to Mr. Abdulrahman’s home, blocking him from returning, he said. Israeli soldiers then evicted him and his wife, Suha Abdulrahman, the couple said.

The Israeli military said that Mr. Abdulrahman left voluntarily, but he said that he has still been unable to return home. Last month, a video shared by an Israeli lawmaker on social media showed his house had been turned into a space for religious study by the settlers.

The Abdulrahmans were among the first Palestinians affected by an Israeli government decision in May to redraw the map of the West Bank by turning more Palestinian areas into Jewish settlements.

In the most extensive expansion in decades, the government approved 22 villages and neighborhoods for settlements across the territory, including one called Beit Horon North, near where Mr. Abdulrahman and his wife lived, west of the Palestinian city of Ramallah. It was part of a broader and decades-long push by Israel to entrench its control over the West Bank.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/world/middleeast/israel-west-bank-settlements-palestinians.html

[hobie]

At least his home still stands. Normally the settlers just burn entire villages to the ground and murder the men.

It seems a bit lawless to me that property deeds or ownership have little force in Israel. Eminent domain on steroids

[Dr. Ed 2]

Lose a war, lose your land.
I'm sure the Loyalists who fled Boston 250 years ago next March could explain this to you.

[hobie]

Oh? Did that 58 year old beekeeper and the family engage in combat?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Did my great grandmother's grandmother's family?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Settlements and Palestinians isolated in enclaves, needing to negotiate a bunch of checkpoints, is not very helpful regarding long-term peace in the area.

[Bwaaah]

That story, if true as told, reflects some of the horribleness of conflict in the area.

Displaced residents, prevented from returning to their homes for being on the wrong side of an [essentially] ethnic conflict, is a significant fact of the state of Israel, most dramatically and tragically at the founding of the country. I avoid using the word "wrongly" as a convenience to my sense of self-preservation. Certainly, at a person-by-person level, it was very, very wrong. And as described above, it is wrong now.

I'll add a note that you don't see any comments of glee from Zionist sympathizers. Antisemitic regulars may chime in with that sentiment. But war is ugly, and life is dangerous around there. Wanting for the security of Israelis does not imply wanting for the ill treatment of others. Hamas is an enemy. Mr. Abdulrahman sounds like a collateral victim of a larger conflict.

[Brett Bellmore]

Indeed, I would never claim that Israel is behaving nicely. Just, as nicely as is survivable in a nasty neighborhood. Drop Israel next to Luxemburg, and their behavior would be inexcusable. But, drop them next to Luxemburg, and they wouldn't have any cause to behave like this, now, would they?

Ongoing genocides in other Middle Eastern countries get less press in the West than one guy having trouble reaching his home does in Israel. I'm not alone in thinking the reasons for that aren't good.

[Malika la Maize]

Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia said on Thursday that they were boycotting next year’s Eurovision Song Contest because Israel would continue to be allowed in the competition.

Many Eurovision fans have agonized over Israel’s participation since its military began an incursion into Gaza after the Hamas-led attacks two years ago. As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepened, several member countries said Israel should no longer take part in the musical event.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/arts/music/eurovision-israel-boycott.html

[Frank Drackman]

Are they boycotting the World Cup?
How about the UN? World Health Organization?
UNESCO? (whatever that is)
Apparently The Eurovision Song Contest is more important.

[Brett Bellmore]

They don't seem to have a problem with other countries participating despite being involved in wars, or having extremely bad human rights violations. (Azerbaijan, for instance.) Just Israel.

[SRG2]

Yup. Ireland is notoriously anti-Semitic, Netherlands apparently became more so recently.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I'm hearing that Ireland is rapidly becoming an Islamic state.

[Malika la Maize]

What’s Azerbaijan’s military’s kill count this year?

[Brett Bellmore]

I said "being involved in wars" OR "having extremely bad human rights violations". Azerbaijan was an example of the latter. Ukraine is the former.

I get that a lot of people in Europe don't like that Israel didn't continue to lay back and take it, after October 7th. Apparently their failure to do so means they can't sing?

[Malika la Maize]

I know you struggle with context but you don’t struggle with numbers, do you? Maybe before accusations of hypocrisy or worse you might consider some ways the two situations are actually different. I think it’s a complex situation and the context of October 7th can’t be ignored but the sheer number of people killed by the IDF in response is so much higher than anything Azerbaijan has done lately that it’s startling to just say “well, both have been in wars lately so what hypocrisy!” You might as well say “sure, honey, my brother shit on the floor when he stayed here last, but your brother left a towel on the floor, so don’t be hypocritical in saying we shouldn’t invite the former back only!”

[Brett Bellmore]

Do you have any idea how many more Japanese we killed in WWII than Americans died at Pearl Harbor?

No country should be expected to respond to something like October 7th with less than total war. No country besides Israel WOULD be expected to.

[Magister]

Imperial Japan killed many times the number of Japanese we killed, even with that possibly gratuitous second atomic bomb.

[Frank Drackman]

"Gratutitous"?? the Japs didn't surrender until after the second bomb, and if they had known we didn't have any more ready to go they probably wouldn't have surrendered at all.

[Krayt]

So the story goes. But a good chunk of European bombers had been transferred, I think some 20,000, and the plan, once Okinowa was taken, was to move from a few bombing runs a week to two-a-days. People who think the US was about to lead with its chin in an invasion, instead of flattening what was left of the cities, are on crack.

This would have lead to millions more civilian casualties. It's not US soldiers dead vs. Japanese civilians, it's 200,000 Japanese civilians vs. 2,000,000 by December.

[hobie]

Its the approximately 30,000 dead Palestinian children that's probably animating them.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Hobie, if you hide behind children, it makes the children a legitimate military target. Not to mention that many of these "children" actually were carrying automatic weapons. And war tends to disrupt society to the detriment of vulnerable populations.

However, that 30,000 figure comes from the data provided by the Palestinians and it was mathematically proven that they were fabricating those numbers. Something about the ratio of women killed to children killed needing to resemble the ratio of women to children within statistical variance and it didn't. On some days the Evil Israelis would only bomb women, on other they'd only bomb children, and and the children were *with* the women, this would be impossible. (I am greatly oversimplifying this.)

But I come back to one simple thing -- who started it?!?
Who went into the other's backyard to bayonet babies and rape hippies? The Evil Israelis? (Israel would prosecute its citizens for doing something like this...)

[hobie]

I think the numbers come from the doctors at Médecins Sans Frontières

Also, your little explanation reminds me of that killer scene in Sicario where Benecio del Toro wastes the children before popping the boss dad. It's kinda like that, yes?

[hobie]

Mass child death is a lot more fun when the dads are meanies

[jb]

The MAGA pretend equivalence thing really works in all contexts, apparently.

[Frank Drackman]

That's stupid even by your standards.

[Malika la Maize]

Nothing makes Frank yelp like criticizing the IDF. We need better edgelord wannabes.

[Frank Drackman]

Nothing makes Queenie yelp like criticizing the Ham-Ass. We need better edgelord wannabes.

[Malika la Maize]

No one has even mentioned Hamas here, dolt. Keep crying and trying.

[Frank Drackman]

You sure waste a lot of time responding to a fictional character, sort of how like in Junior High (OK, and High Screwel, College, Medical) I spent lots of time jerking off to fictional characters. Remember those old Sears Catalog "Wishbooks"??? over a 1,000 pages, everything from Rifles to Socks, but also a Women's Underwear section, Hey Now!!!!!!!!!
Hey, it was 1974, what were you gonna jerk off to? National Geographic??

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

Forget Jewish Space Lasers -- Israel should put up a satellite to broadcast the concert to the boycotting states.

I'd say call it "Radio Free Israel" except Europe has already forgotten the 50 years war.

[Bob from Ohio]

"because Israel would continue to be allowed in the competition"

The larger story is a decisive majority of Europe rejects Jew hatred.

There are always malcontents.

[Bwaaah]

Interesting point. The unsaid part.

[dwb68]

Ive decided we've swapped 30 years of apocalyptic climate alarmism for 30 years of Trump apocalyptic alarmism from the Democrats. Al Gore's fake hockey stick of temperature causing the polar ice caps to melt in 2007 right on schedule has been replaced with the fake hockey stick of imminent fascism. 21 more years to go!

[Moderation4ever]

The good news is that chemistry and physics don't care what you or President Trump thinks. Climate change is happening because there are natural laws that can not be changed by people.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right, and climate change is relatively minor because there are natural laws that aren't susceptible to moral panics and aren't motivated to exaggerate things.

[Moderation4ever]

I would say that climate change moves at a rate defined by natural laws rather than minor. Climate change like the national debt doesn't worry many people because they assume they will be dead before the real problems start occurring. Trump attitude perfectly reflects this with regard to both problems. "Why do I care I will be dead before the s*** hits the fan."

[Brett Bellmore]

I'll say this yet again: In a world where several times as many people die of cold than heat, the burden of proof is on people who say global warming is bad. Who say that it's going to cost, rather than save, lives.

I've never seen that burden met. They seem to just rely on the assumption than any change from whenever they picked as their baseline year has to be bad.

So, here's what you need to do to make me care:

1. Demonstrate that the climate changing is a net harm, rather than a net benefit. That the shit IS going to hit the fan, rather than be spread on the fields increasing agricultural yields.
2. Demonstrate that the cost of avoidance, is lower than the cost of that net harm, assuming you clear the first hurdle.

Do that and I'll care.

And none of this "precautionary principle" bullshit, either. That's knife that cuts on both ends: It applies as much to the costs of your proposed remedies, as to the costs of not acting.

[Mr. Bumble]

Wonder how those people alive 12,000 years ago felt about a warming planet?

[SRG2]

So you do agree with the consensus that it's happening, unlike the ignorant or malign fuckwits who deny it.

[Mr. Bumble]

There is no consensus, except in your bubble.

[Malika la Maize]

Bubble, indeed.

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

[Mr. Bumble]

Yes, wikipedia is a bubble.

[Malika la Maize]

All those scientists, publications and scientific organizations cited there too I guess.

[Bob from Ohio]

"All those scientists, publications and scientific organizations cited there too I guess."

Its all about the Benjamins.

No grants if you dissent.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“No grants if you dissent.”

This is idea is so absurdly stupid I don’t think you actually believe it.

If it was an issue of financial incentive the consensus would be anti-climate change because industries with much greater financial resources and stakes would have enormous leverage compared to “grants” from the NSF.

If you dissent you would be making way more as a consultant for Exxon than you ever could as an associate professor at the University of Illinois.

[Sarcastr0]

People here don't understand grants and don't want to learn. They would prefer to make up stuff and believe it. The truth might make them like some bit of government.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, yeah. You do know that we're technically in an ice age, right now, and just in one of the brief "interglacial periods", for only about 11K years at this point, don't you? If the planet were to stop warming it would actually be a bad sign.

In fact, there's substantial reason to suspect that human release of CO2 is the only thing that kept the glaciers from returning on schedule. We now know how much emissions have delayed the next glacial period

Much of the Western world could be under hundreds of feet of ice right now, if it weren't for climate change.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — Glacial advance probably correlates nicely with cooling climate. That tells you little or nothing about what causes glacial advance. It may be a warming trend that causes it, by increasing humidity in areas cold enough to continue making ice despite the warming.

Look around the world now and you can find plenty of examples of unglaciated areas which are far colder than many counter-examples of heavily glaciated areas which are warmer. The difference is always higher humidity in the heavily glaciated areas. For instance, the warmer Olympic Peninsula in Washington continues heavily glaciated, while the far colder Northern Rockies are losing the last of their tiny remnant of glaciation. The Northern Rockies are mostly dry.

[Joe_dallas]

The issue is not whether its happening, but what is the cause.
Climate scientists and the advocates do themselves no favors in the science and convincing the public of the validity of the science with their behavior.

[Bwaaah]

For me, the issue is not whether it's happening. And it's not about the cause. It's about what [if anything] is economically sensible to do given the context of all challenges to humanity.

Moderation4ever speaks of "natural laws" as if they are well known and understood within the context of climate. Everything we know about thermodynamics does little to resolve understanding at the scale of global climate. Any such "laws" that supposedly speak to what's going to happen are really just conjecture.

The false certainty of unconstrained beliefs.

[Sarcastr0]

the burden of proof is on people who say global warming is bad. Who say that it's going to cost, rather than save, lives.

I've never seen that burden met.

I'd say if you haven't seen risk analyses for global costs of climate change you haven't been looking.
And if you're sure there are going to be big benefits to outweigh those risk-discounted cost estimates, the burden is on you to find something reputable to offer that analysis.

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastro - "And if you're sure there are going to be big benefits to outweigh those risk-discounted cost estimates, the burden is on you to find something reputable to offer that analysis."

"Reputable " is a key word, if not, the Key word. Far too much of the projected damages from climate change are based on the Paul Ehrlich scientific method or the Trofim Lysenko scientific method. Perhaps you could develop the skill set to recognize good science vs agenda driven faux science. Just this morning for example, you failed that basic test this morning with your comments of the increase in the worldwide baby deaths.

[jb]

Climate change is just another example of Boomer politics: I don't care what happens to my kids as long as my life can be as nice as possible. Yet another mess that we'll have to get around to trying to fix once they finally age out of power.

[dwb68]

70 million years ago we had significantly more co2, no polar ice caps, and giant 20ft tall predatory birds stalking the planet. The dinosaurs were killed by a meteor not global warming.

Its hard to panic over something thats already happened. Literally.

Animals were all bigger, because there was more arable land and more plants to support them. Maybe all global warming will do is encourage a predator bigger then us, eventually.

[Malika la Maize]

Yeah, all those coastal populations will just evolve flamingo like giant legs!

[dwb68]

shrug. Venice is very nice. Maybe I'll take an airboat through New York City.

[Krayt]

Ironically, this may be a concern, but it will happen over 100-300 years. I think humanity can adapt on the slow boat at that. And meanwhile enjoy the full benefits of a powerful economy, which will make the tech situation far more different than today is vs. 1800.

In any case, corruption and plaguelike burdens on the economy, dragging down progress over decades, are massively mass murderous over AGW, which won't even produce sizeable deaths.

No, there's a reason this was picked up readily by the corruption, get-in-the-way crowd.

[Bwaaah]

Malika: "Yeah, all those coastal populations will just evolve flamingo like giant legs!"

No. They'll just wait for decades, standing at the water's edge, waiting to be subsumed by the ocean as it rises into their living rooms. But at least everything else in the world will remain pretty much unchanged.

[hobie]

About a hundred years ago there were tons of glaciers in Europe (been there for 20,000 years)...now only one, I believe.

[Brett Bellmore]

You believe a lot of things, don't you? I think you may be confusing Germany, (Which, yup, has only one glacier.) and "Europe", which has plenty of them, naturally mostly in Northern Europe.

Amazing Glaciers in Europe You Can’t Miss Visiting

[Stella Link's Ghost]

"You believe a lot of things, don't you?"

Amazing.

[Joe_dallas]

Agenda driven climate scientists point the massive retreat of glaciers beginning circa late 1800's as proof of accelerating global warming. Yet they fail to acknowledge the rapid advance of glaciers starting around the late 1500's, especially in Europe. The rapid advance of European glaciers (one of the few places on the planet with good contemporaneous written record), presents conflicting data with the paleo reconstructions. The conflicts in the data is just one of the many examples of the questionable 97% consensus.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"here are natural laws that can not be changed by people."

Like the natural cycle of the glaciers, which are still receding from the last Ice Age -- and at some point will start advancing again....

[Frank Drackman]

One of those is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, eventually the entire Universe will be like Minot North Dakota.

[Malika la Maize]

Consider a guy who supports Trump decrying *alarmism.* I mean, everything’s a national emergency existential crisis to the guy.

[Frank Drackman]

Its 24F in Minot ND right now, but it's gonna get up to a balmy 26.
Low tonight will be "One" (HT Dell Griffith)
So when does the Global Warming get here???

[hobie]

It's winter in North Dakota at the moment, Frankie.

[Frank Drackman]

All those years of Prison seem to have affected your sense of Time Reverend, on the "Outside" Winter (Northern Hemisphere) still starts December 21.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's a balmy 12 degrees F in Boston right now -- and only the 5th of December.

[Moderation4ever]

The Gates foundation has released a report that first the first time this century child deaths are expected to rise. I am sick and tired of hearing the whiny about birth rates from people who care little about the children we already have in this world.

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2025-report/#WeCantStopAtAlmost

[Michael P]

And how, pray tell, have you determined "who care[s] little about the children we already have in this world"? Do you have a mind-reading device, dowsing rod or crystal ball to tell you? Are these people in the room with us now?

Turn down the outrage, stop being led around by your emotions, and learn how to think.

[SRG2]

Turn down the outrage, stop being led around by your emotions, and learn how to think.

Yeah, you should try it sometime.

[Michael P]

You should try growing up sometime. Most of us grew out of "I know you are but what am I" retorts before ten years of age.

[hobie]

Michael, you have yet to prove you've outgrown yours from as recently as yesterday.

[Michael P]

hobie the hallucinator continues posting fiction.

[Bwaaah]

You're up against a style I call Faux Humanitarianism. It's vacuous.

I used to be a liberal. Now I like seeing children die.

[not guilty]

"And how, pray tell, have you determined 'who care[s] little about the children we already have in this world'? Do you have a mind-reading device, dowsing rod or crystal ball to tell you? Are these people in the room with us now?"

George Carlin had a good rant about one category of such people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZdRMBTF-hQ

[Brett Bellmore]

So, I'm assuming you read this. WHERE are they dying, exactly? Where are things getting worse, rather than better?

[Michael P]

Judging from that web site, the kids are probably dying from repetitive stress injury or spending too much time scrolling through cutest animation effects on web pages before they can get to the point.

[jb]

Too many of them in the US, at least relative to our peers: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/us-kids-dying-higher-rates-wealthy-countries-why-rcna159757

[Brett Bellmore]

From that link: "Guns are a leading cause of death among U.S. children and teens. Most of these deaths are homicides."

Riiight. Just as long as you define "teens" as including people old enough to vote. The report is on deaths ages 0-19; From newborns to old enough to vote. Why would you report them together, when causes of death vary enormously across that age span?

Homicide is very high among criminals generally, and gang members specifically, so it shoots up for "kids" old enough to join a criminal gang.

Though the raw data is available by age in years, it's almost always reported to the public in coarse bins, so that people will think that little kids are dying of things that are actually killing "children" old enough to join the army.

The Six Leading Causes of Death
caused by unintentional injury in 2023

See, the death rate, once you're past early mortality, stays incredibly low for "children" young enough to actually be regarded by most people as "children".

[jb]

Of course, infant mortality is way higher in the US than in our peer countries as well. I actually chose to post about child mortality instead of infant mortality to show that the problem is broade

But if you have some data that shows the US is worse than our peers in both infant mortality and late teen mortality but somehow better in all the in between years, I'd be interested to see it. That's not the intuitive conclusion I'd get to based on the data we do have, though.

P.S. So much for the idea that people manage to kill each other or themselves just as well if they don't have guns and are stuck using knives or poison or whatever, I guess?

[Bunny495]

jb you really need to get up to speed on this. America defines infant mortality differently than many other countries including the EU. In America if a child is born takes a breath and dies ten minutes later it is included in infant mortality data. In the EU any child who dies within a week of it's death is classified as still born and not included in infant mortality. One definition gets higher infant mortality and the other gets higher stillborn.

[wvattorney13]

Your support for this is a fundraising website from the Gates Foundation? The one that praises Nigeria for its cutting edge medical work?

[Armchair]

1) Statistical year to year variation
2) population increase.

1) If deaths as a % of the population are constant year to year, statistically you would expect some years to be slightly up, and others
2) If overall population in a group is increased, one would expect deaths in that group to also increase, even if the death rate is constant.

[Joe_dallas]

Armchair - do you expect any leftist to have the ability to grasp and understand data and understand any statistical analysis of data?

[Sarcastr0]

Consider, given the effects you lay out, why the absolute number has been going down since 2000 until this year.

[Joe_dallas]

Wonder if you noticed the report was worldwide
Were you implying that Trump is somehow at fault with your comment - "why the absolute number has been going down since 2000 until this year."

[Sarcastr0]

USAID, you fuckhead.

[Joe_dallas]

First - that is a complete asshole comment - of course its coming from an asshole.

Second - A cut in USaid has absolutely nothing to do with the change in trend.

Finally - you have repetitively shown that you have zero analytical skills. Your comment shows a complete lack of basic knowledge.

[Sarcastr0]

A cut in USaid has absolutely nothing to do with the change in trend.
You really need to bone up on what USAID did. I'd start with how to spell it.

you have repetitively shown that you have zero analytical skills. Your comment shows a complete lack of basic knowledge.
Just make a macro for this tiresome childish tantrumming; you retreat to it so often.

[Joe_dallas]

Your reply continues to show you zero comprehension

Care to explain how and why a cut in US Aid would have any impact

Come back when demonstrate a basic grasp of the topic - or any topic for that matter.

[Sarcastr0]

Why would the main source of foreign aid funding for vaccines and disease treatment to Africa have an impact?

OK you're cut off. I know this isn't sealioning and you are this ignorant, but I can't with you any more today.

[Joe_dallas]

Are there bonus points for showcasing your stupidity and inability to grasp a basic understanding of data? If so, you would be winning the contest running away.

The report is an advocacy piece. If you had basic knowledge and rudimentary analytical skills you would have picked up on the lack of robust data in the projection.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Child mortality a century ago was 1:4 -- one out of four children died.
A century before that, OVER HALF died, along with a lot of women in childbirth.

A lot of childhood mortality today is the result of maternal lifestyle choices. Drinking and drug use during pregnancy, diabetes, smoking, etc, etc, etc.

If we locked fertile women up in a facility and controlled every aspect of their lives, we could eliminate much of this -- but at what cost???

[Life of Brian]

The Gates foundation has released a report that first the first time this century child deaths are expected to rise.

And, if you actually look at their whizbang animated graph at the top of your linked piece, 2025 is the ONLY year under ANY of the various doomsday scenarios where year-over-year under-5 mortality is expected to increase at all.

I don't have time to look at the underlying data right now,* but that sort of sizeable, one-shot anomaly is a pretty sizeable red flag that one of the data sources started keeping score on something differently in 2025, not that any actual underlying mortality trend changed.

* I do see at a glance, though, that they say their primary partner is IHME, whose outrageously wrong-headed modeling of COVID deaths back in the day should have torched any credibility they pretended to have but I suppose was the perfect audition for untestable doom-and-gloom projections like these.

[jb]

"I don't have time to look at the underlying data right now,* but that sort of sizeable, one-shot anomaly is a pretty sizeable red flag that one of the data sources started keeping score on something differently in 2025, not that any actual underlying mortality trend changed."

Outliers definitely deserve special scrutiny, but also sometimes significant changes in trend tell you that something important actually changed. Agreed that it's hard to tell off of a single data point, though.

[Life of Brian]

Looking at it just a bit more, 1) as far as I can tell it's all just black-box projections so there's nothing meaningful to review, 2) the baseline "2024 funding" curve doesn't show any sort of jump in 2025 at all so it seems clear enough they're not factoring in actual deaths in any way, 3) the "20% reduction" projection jumps up in 2025 but then jumps right back DOWN in 2026 to the level of the ongoing trendline, 4) the "30% reduction" projection mysteriously jumps up exactly the same amount in 2025 as the 20% reduction, but then does NOT jump back down in 2026 and just smoothly trends onward (and, as I said, continually downward).

It seems pretty clear that something's wrong with the underlying assumptions and/or the model, but instead of going back and questioning any of that they just went for the bloodbath headline. Pretty unimpressive.

[Moderation4ever]

The Keystone Prosecutors have racked up another failure in their attempt to get a Grand Jury indictment of Letitia James. James successfully prosecuted a case against the President and won a judgement. Maybe the DOJ should ask her to prosecute herself as she seems to be better at litigation than the people the DOJ have appointed to prosecute her.

[Mr. Bumble]

Did Blackman's post from yesterday take all the wind out of the sails regarding the Texas redistricting case?

[Joe_dallas]

Lost in the Texas redistricting case as any actual racial gerrymandering. The 2025 maps showed far less racial gerrymandering. The case also shows how the VRA has ceased to be a viable solution to the problem that existed in the 1960's

[Riva]

It also shows that plaintiffs better have direct evidence of racial intent and produce a viable alternative map showing a state could have achieved its partisan goals with materially different lines not producing similar allegedly racist patterns before making a claim of racial gerrymandering. If the plaintiffs need guidance they should read the California complaint. Plaintiffs were spoiled for choice with direct evidence of racial intent. But to be fair, their opponents are democrats.

[Brett Bellmore]

Remember, their definition of 'racial gerrymandering' is, "not racially gerrymandering in the way WE favor"; You have to take race into account to not "racially gerrymander", just in the particular way they want done.

[Riva]

It sunk it more effectively than a double tap.

[Malika la Maize]

The preseason college football rankings were really, really wrong

This year, the preseason poll did an unusually poor job of predicting which teams would go on to have strong seasons.

Teams in the preseason top 15 went 126-54 in the regular season, the second-worst winning percentage for programs ranked that high in the preseason poll over the past four decades, according to a Washington Post analysis of polls and results on Sports-Reference.com. With one more loss for any of the preseason top-15 teams, it would have been the worst winning percentage since 1984. Five of those top-15 teams won seven games or fewer. Three fired their coaches before the end of October.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/12/05/2025-preseason-rankings-penn-state-texas/

[Frank Drackman]

As the late great Howard Cossell would say
"That's why they play the Games"
or the related when Idiots say "(Insert Team here) Is better on Paper!"
"But the Game won't be played on Paper"
Not a Hurricanes fan, but no way they should be ranked behind the Fish Eaters (be warned, that's my nicest Catholic Slur)

Frank

[Bunny495]

Frank the U is back. Back to living up to their history of never failing to fail.

[Malika la Maize]

Even conservatives who are appalled by the grotesque ideologies of Fuentes and his allies sometimes seem uncertain about how to deal with the phenomenon. They note that illiberal “influencers” have large online followings, especially among disaffected young men, and fear alienating them if they draw a bright line excluding racists and antisemites from membership in good standing in the conservative community.
But drawing a bright line is exactly what we need to do — immediately.

Extremism and bigotry have no place in the conservative movement. They are contrary to the central things conservatives should be dedicating themselves to conserving, namely, the biblical principle of the inherent dignity of every member of the human family, and the civic principle that human beings are “created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/12/04/conservative-ideals-nick-fuentes-bigotry/

[Dr. Ed 2]

May I suggest asking WHY young men are going to these positions -- or even evaluating, say, the Wiemar Republic where something similar happened for the very same reasons...

"the biblical principle of the inherent dignity of every member of the human family, and the civic principle that human beings are “created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

All my life I have been denied that dignity -- very clearly told that I was NOT "equal" because I was an evil male, an evil White male, an evil Protestant White Male, and even worse, heterosexual as well.

So why should I support something that I don't benefit from?

[David Nieporent]

Dr. Ed likely was told that he was not equal. But if so, it's because he was stupid, incompetent, racist, sexist, and dishonest, not because he was a white male.

[DDHarriman]

> and the civic principle that human beings are “created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

What about those not quite human-being but human-like creatures; Leftists, Marxists, Democrats, or Jews?

[not guilty]

More drivel about who is or is not human, DDHarriman?

Last week you posited that "There are four distinct species of humans alive today."

Among human primates, homo is the genus; sapiens, the species.

Once again, what are the other three species?

And what, pray tell, do you claim indicates that Leftists, Marxists, Democrats, or Jews are "not quite human-being but human-like creatures"? Denigrating certain groups of people as subhuman kind of gained a bad name during the 1930s and 1940s.

[Riva]

I guess Obamacare heard about the billion dollar industrial level Somali welfare fraud in Minnesota and took up the challenge. Let’s see Minnesota top a100% fraud success rate. I admit it, democrats are unmatched when it comes to fraud. See we can find common ground for agreement.
https://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2025/12/03/fake-people-and-phony-ssns-had-100-success-in-getting-obamacare-subsidy-fraud-investigation-finds/

[Michael P]

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/12/welcome-to-the-crazy-cafe.html is an insightful observation about Trump's recent auto fuel-economy changes.

Trump’s rollback—cutting the projected 2031 fleet average from roughly 50.4 MPG to 34.5 MPG—relaxes the math enough that microcars could comply again. Only Kafka would appreciate a fuel-economy system that makes small fuel-efficient cars hard to sell and giant trucks easy.

[jb]

I agree that it is dumb that big trucks get such a pass with the way CAFE standards have been working. Maybe a rethink of the entire framework is in order, but if gas was appropriately priced with more of the externalities baked in, we could probably just let the market do the trick here.

[Krayt]

Please bake in externalities of rapidly advancing technology due to an economically free country severed from corruption dogging things down, and it's patter-based regulatory burden brother.

[Bwaaah]

Yup.

[jb]

First, I was basically making the argument that you're getting at--that it would be better to let the car industry and consumers figure this out than having the government set standards. But if gas prices are artificially low because other people end up paying for all of the negative effects of combustion engines, then people will end up overusing that resource relative to its actual cost/benefit.

But second: markets aren't actually perfect and I think investment in both electric cars and renewables show some evidence of that given how fast progress has been made relative to expectations a decade or two ago. But my best example of this is smoking: going out to places where people are smoking is really gross and back in the day where smoking inside was generally legal, almost every nonsmoker I knew would prefer to go to, e.g., non-smoking bars, but they basically didn't exist. The government had to intervene to make this concept a reality, and now the vast majority of people prefer it and if smoking bars were re-legalized you'd still probably only see a small minority of places allow it. I don't know why the market sometimes does a bad job of actually getting supply and demand right, but there's definitely examples of it. In fact, it's the just l kind of interesting problem that keep economists employed.

[grb]

Here's what happens when lying and dishonesty becomes an automatic reflex. When it's almost a religious duty to repeatedly insist up-is-down or black-is-white.

Patel on the arrest of the Washington pipe bomber:

"When you attack American citizens, when you attack our institutions of legislation, when you attack our nation's Capitol, you attack the very being of our way of life."

None of us will ever see such shameless liars in the White House over the rest of our lives. Good luck finding such shameless liars anywhere in our country's past. This administration is a low in United State's history.

[Riva]

I understand. It is difficult to watch the fake insurrection narrative the Democrat lawfare thugs worked so hard to fabricate collapse on itself. Don’t be afraid to seek professional help.

[Glaucomatose]

Oh, so it was the Democrats who spent the last five years claiming that the pipe bomber was an FBI mole. Sorry, I must have been on acid that whole time to have misremembered that so badly.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You do realize that the mentally ill can be manipulated, don't you?

[Stella Link's Ghost]

"You do realize that the mentally ill can be manipulated, don't you?"

Yes, Mr Ed, I do.

[DDHarriman]

Why do you think Biden's FBI couldn't find this guy for 5 years, but Dan Bongino can fire the Lifer FBI leads, take it over personally and solve it in 2 months?

Any guesses? Can you make some Ray Epps level guesses?

If you want to find the FBI moles, just go back and look at everyone Biden gave a Medal of Freedom too that was involved with J6 or the 2020 Big Steal.

[Riva]

No "Glaucoma," that's as false as the insurrection tale. There was no one theory, although there was much speculation. The only thing that was clear was that the Biden FBI was uninterested in the case. Although apparently there was evidence that would have relatively easily lead to this arrest earlier, they were more interested in tracking down any grandmother who happened to walk by the Capitol on Jan. 6. And, while more details are needed, the current suspect doesn't appear to contribute to their fake insurrection narrative.

[Krayt]

Apparently the pipe bombs were real. Even if never intended to be activated, that's a hell of a risk for a political operative to take. Don't believe it.

[Riva]

I didn't say he was a "political operative." I simply note that his radical profile such as we know it doesn't fit the insurrection narrative the thugs were selling. It fits more of the profile of a BLM/Antifa radical nut.

And I political operative or not, I wouldn't necessarily attribute to him as much prudence and caution as you do. Political opertives (or antifa/blm or whatever) are not know for reasonable cautious behavior.

[hobie]

The naked duplicity and corruption being flaunted in broad daylight is quite spectacular. Ain't no shame in their game.

[DDHarriman]

....says a Nancy Pelosi #1 Super Fan

[loki13]

There's a lot going on, but as always, the presumption of regularity has gone out the window. This is ... not great. So two things some of you might not know about, but seem to "my beat":

1. HALLIGAN!!! .... remember how the DOJ was going to appeal the decision saying she wasn't the USA immediately? Yeah, well, not so much.

Reminder- this is the ED Va. This is the big leagues- serious cases, serious judges, and a seriously fast schedule. And the Trump Vengeance Train has been destroying it. The DOJ has insisted (aka, the Trump Administration has insisted) on having Halligan's name on the DOJ's filings, even though she's not the USA. Period. So the DOJ attorneys have to get harangued by judges at hearings about this- leading to Halligan's name being either stricken or "footnoted" from indictments and filings in the district. Not a good look- and it just leans further to the presumption of incompetence and lying.

Speaking of which, those same weasels tried to indict Letitia James again yesterday, but James wasn't a ham sandwich. The grand jury wouldn't. Again, this is an absolutely terribly case no actual prosecutor would agree to bring (which is why they were fired and Halligan was brought in originally), but the DOJ is promising to .... try, try again. Which I am sure, if they ever succeed, will be a subject that the ED Va. judge who gets the case curious about.

2. Abrego Garcia. There was going to be an evidentiary hearing in the Tennessee part of the action (the BS criminal case concocted by the Blanche/Ensign axis) on December 8-9 to dismiss for vindicative prosecution. Well, yesterday the Judge cancelled the evidentiary hearing, with an order to be issued shortly. I would assume that this is ... not good ... for the DOJ. Why? Primarily because they've been lying a lot in this case, and ... the other case as well (that was the one that had the hearing where the judge required the person who swore to a declaration to appear, and it turned out the declarant had no actual knowledge of the facts, and, moreover, the DOJ had filed something under seal alleging something about Costa Rica, but when it was unsealed and people learned what it was and asked Costa Rica about it, they said that the DOJ was lying - which was why they filed it under seal, hoping to get away with it).

I know almost all of you don't care about this. Or don't care about the lies in Oregon. Or the ones in Chicago (which ones? all of them, in so many cases).

Or the one in DC .... you know, where the judge summarized the DOJ's position as - Don't believe what we said, don't believe what we did, just believe what we are telling you now!

And the judge was like, "Naw. Don't believe that either."

This is truly depressing. There is no longer any presumption of regularity. Or of truth. Just lies.

[loki13]

Also, I am displeased to report that last night I got my "first personal taste" of how the Trump Administration is affecting everyone. That's right, the area I live in has one of the many "immigration crackdowns," that involve local police stopping lots of cars on pretext and trying to nail people. They also have ICE/CBP as well, but the local police involvement makes it different than the stuff you see so much on the news.

Well, I was driving the family's beater car back home at night (so my race wasn't clear) and a block from home, I got the blue lights. It was enlightening. I was told ... well, I either made a full and complete stop a ways back either just past the marked stop line, or too short of it. I was given different explanations.*

It was obvious (to me) that the LEOs were a little shocked that they had pulled over an older person, and a white person (as I mentioned, I was driving the beater car that was used by my son to drive to high school before he went to college) and they just checked my ID, etc., before letting me go.

But before that, they were asking me if "I lived here," and ... well, yeah. Things quickly went well when they asked me what I did.

Now, I know some of you will be like, "What's the big deal? Who cares if you get pulled over on a false pretext (and it was a false pretext, because they didn't even bother to make up a single wrong story) and inconvenienced for a little while so long as we kick out some brown people?"

And to that, I have two responses-
1. This America- fuck you.
2. Yeah, I'm an older, white, male. I have represented LEOs (PBAs, etc.) in the past. I'm going to be okay. But what about teens? What about people that panic, or do something wrong, or look nervous when they are supposed to be calm (or calm when they are supposed to be nervous)? I don't want to live in a police state, even if I am less likely to be inconvenienced by it because I care about people other than myself.

*This has been a feature in local news. A friend of mine, who is Hispanic but an American citizen of long lineage (not that it should matter) dealt with a similar, albeit more scary, pretextual pullover predicated on stopping ON the marked stop line.

[wvattorney13]

So you failed to properly stop at a stop sign, got pulled over, and they gave you a warning for it.

But you insist that the stop was pretext because of your race, even though you are a white person.

And that is Trump's fault. Got you.

[loki13]

Wow, you are quite the moron today, aren't you? And obnoxious, too!

Since you aren't one of the people that have been here for a while, and clearly don't understand acronyms, you probably skipped right over the represented LEOs (PBAs etc.) in the past. Yeah, having practiced for some time, I did spend some time representing LEOs (PBAs) on a statewide basis*. What does that mean?

*Claim to fame during that time is getting a major appellate victory in a fight over the statutory meaning of a state "Bill of Rights" for LEOs.

LEO- Law enforcement officers.
PBAs etc. - Police Benevolent Association, Fraternal Order of Police, etc. You do understand what those are, right?

So to recap-
1. I didn't fail to stop. I correctly stopped at the stop sign.
2. The local PD is using a pretext to stop vehicles for immigrations checks- in my case, they didn't have their story straight about whether I stopped "after" the marked stop line on the street or "too far" before it. Not that it matters, because as I noted another person was pretextually stopped the other day for stopping, apparently, exactly on the stop line.
3. The reason for the pretextual stops is to check for immigration status. I'm sure if they happen across a drunk driver they'll nail him for that as well.

But because I happen to know what I know (and, honestly, who I know) I wasn't worried. But most people aren't me. Most people don't know how LEO operates, and are confident that this won't be an issue. After all, even if they did want to pursue making up a ticket ... I know they wouldn't sure up for the hearing.

That wasn't the point. Honestly, it's a lot better to be pretextually stopped by LEO (even with those attendant risks) for BS immigrations checks than by the untrained goons they are using for CBP and ICE. But it would be best not to live in what is increasingly a police state, aided and abetted by bootlickers like you.

Do you have any other stupidity you'd like to throw my way? Go on, there is always more room in the clown car for ya.

[wvattorney13]

If they lied and you didn't commit an infraction, that is not pretext, it is a constitutional violation that can be punished.

[loki13]

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Oh sweet summer child. You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

[wvattorney13]

You are laughing because you rightly conclude that nobody will believe you when you say that you weren't doing nuthin' and the police told lies about you. Yeah, nobody believes that.

You committed a minor traffic offense, got a warning, and now are blaming all of society including Trump for what was very reasonable treatment.

Not everything is a grand conspiracy.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Yeah, nobody believes that."

It never happened at all.

[Sarcastr0]

You don't find it believable that he got pulled over?

[Bob from Ohio]

Convenient timing.

During an immigration crackdown. Driving a "beater". Did not do the alleged act, which is classic reason for a pretext stop. Cops had different stories.

Small details trip up stories. Multiple cops talked to him. This does not happen. One goes to the car asking for license etc. If there is another on scene, he stands back in case there is a problem.

I say he wanted two cops so they could have different stories about why he is stopped. So he could pretend it was all pretext and act as a defender of the innocent.

Your mileage will no doubt vary.

[Bwaaah]

BfO: "It never happened at all."

Wow. That's your take? Loki's comment history leads you believe he fabricated that? Is that some kind of retribution on your part, or genuine denial?

[Bob from Ohio]

Anecdote was just too perfect to be real.

Reinforces his oft stated immigration crackdown is racist view.

[Life of Brian]

Wow. That's your take? Loki's comment history leads you believe he fabricated that? Is that some kind of retribution on your part, or genuine denial?

Well played, sir. Well played.

[Bwaaah]

I can't be sure of the correctness of his inferences of the motives of the police. But I don't have reason to doubt his statements of fact, such as the police having given conflicting reasons for the stop.

In reflecting on Loki's posts, particularly (for example) his characterizations of written court opinions where I can check his characterization against the actual opinion, I find him to be quite disciplined at faithfully representing that of which he speaks. In his writing, his opinions are pretty clearly distinguished from his presentations of fact (unlike many other commenters whose opinions somehow morph into statements of fact).

His opinions in this case are of course disputable, even with the facts withstanding as presented. I don't know why he'd just make shit up. He's not typically a make-shit-up kind of a guy, and he easily enough gets to his conclusions here without having to resort to that kind of deceit. It seems uncharacteristic, unnecessary, and therefore unlikely to me.

[Life of Brian]

Oh, you were serious. Point to Nathan Poe.

There was a time when I would have agreed that -- despite his air of overbearing smug condescension -- he was capable of being reasonably objective. Over the past few months, though, he seems to have taken a different turn, with the vast majority of the posts both containing the phrase "they lie" and themselves enjoying an increasingly flexible relationship with objective reality. Recent example here.

And that's on stuff in the public space that can be evaluated. When the story is based solely on his say-so and is so exquisitely pitch-perfect as to set one's teeth on edge... well.

I say this with no particular joy -- I'm actually concerned the man is in the process of massively losing it right here in front of us. But for better or for worse, he's squarely off the list of people I can read without checking their work.

[Bwaaah]

I may attribute to opinion more than you do. And most of what he writes of late, sometimes all, is dripping, dripping opinion. Do you think, for example, this was a concocted characterization:

"I was told ... well, I either made a full and complete stop a ways back either just past the marked stop line, or too short of it. I was given different explanations."

(I was wondering what the angle was on the "well played" remark. lol)
(P.S. And now I know what Poe's Law is. Ouch. I'm a risky bet.)

[ducksalad]

Can't speak for loki, but to me the naivete is in your statement that an unjustified stop of someone who hasn't committed any crime "can be punished".

You do realize that's a purely theoretical law school thing, right?

I just want see your guess. Estimate what fraction of unjustified stops - ones like loki is claiming, where no one got hurt and no one got arrested - result in any form of discipline, even a reprimand?

[loki13]

Look, you know. I obviously know. But you can't explain something to someone who doesn't get it and never will.

Still, that comment made my day. I haven't laughed that hard in a while. Again .... he knows I worked for PBAs and FOPs, and he came back by telling me that I was going to get these officers punished for this.

He's a rare one!

[loki13]

No, I am laughing because you are so clearly out of your depth and yet you keep doubling down.

First, I didn't commit a minor traffic offense. Look back at what you replied to- they never said that I didn't stop at the stop sign (which was a few blocks from my house, I know well, and I always stop at). You didn't read what I wrote, and you've been digging your hole ever since.

Second, you have no experience with this sort of thing. I don't get worked up about a pretextual stop because I've worked with LEO extensively- if they really want to pull you over, there are so many traffic infractions (both objective and subjective) that they can use that they will be able to do so. I happened to find this one particularly amusing because they didn't bother to get the pretextual reason straight. FWIW, in actuality I stopped before the stop sign, and it was a full and complete stop.

Third, the reason I bothered relaying this wasn't "woe is me," but because this is being using where I am (specifically, the before/on/after the stop line) as a pretextual reason for IMMIGRATION STOPS by LEO. This is, in fact, something new that has been happening in the last few months pursuant to pressure that the Trump administration has put on the state that has filtered down to the local departments. I know this because I know the people involved. Well, the pressure part- I wasn't aware until recently about the hilarious/disturbing stop sign bit. I mean, c'mon, at least get the people doing California stops!

Fourth, it's clear that you're out of your depth (and OH SO KAREN!) with that last response, hence my laughter.

It's that type of attitude that gets Karens like you in trouble. I've seen it before, far too many times. Because you're going to be all, "It's all cool watching the baddies get beaten up, and I'm sure they were doing something bad to make ICE/CBP/LEO act like that, buncha hippies, etc."

But then ... one day you'll be on the receiving end. And because you're all indignant and MAH RITEZ you're going to get your panties in a bunch, and be ... non-compliant ... and you'll find out the hard way how things work for the people you make fun on and get your jollies mocking.

But sure, I am quite positive that if I make a big stink about it, the LEOs will be punished for pulling me over and letting me go when they shouldn't have. As someone who is quite familiar with the process, I think that's going to warrant a hanging!

LOL.

[Life of Brian]

Man, we're now up to a sold 4 screenfulls of this unhinged rant. This is what we get when we don't properly respect the Last Reasonable Man's authori-TAH.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I know the expression, but talking about amusement, it amuses me that I know of a few "Karens," and each is not very Karen-ish.

[Bwaaah]

One fucked up Karen ruined it for all the others.

Wait. No. It wasn't her. It was us.

[wvattorney13]

Maybe you could stop typing for a minute and respond without the snark.

If you didn't do anything, it is a lot of stuff, but it is not a pretext stop. A pretext stop would be if they pulled you over for running a stop sign, but their real, undisclosed reason was that they thought you were an illegal immigrant.

If they pulled you over for nothing at all, and then made up a violation, that is an illegal stop, not a pretext stop. And laughing that you can't prove that they didn't witness a violation is, wait for it, exactly my point!

You sound like every criminal defendant complaining that they "did nothing wrong" and the mean cops just targeted them. But point of fact, you have no idea if you did anything wrong or not. Given that it is trivially easy to commit a traffic infraction, you likely did not stop.

But we are supposed to think it unfathomable that you would do such a thing and that these cops are rogue thugs who just profiled you, a white man, thinking that you were a brown illegal immigrant. Let that sink in.

You have no evidence of your claim at all. It is specious. Yet because you were pulled over for a traffic infraction, treated with respect, and given a warning, this is all Trump's fault and he enables the racist asshole cops who ruined your drive. The fact that they tried to politely explain what you did and you couldn't understand it is yet more evidence of a grand racist conspiracy to screw with white guys.

They were only foiled because you got one over on them by being a white guy driving an old car. Pretty slick, there. Congratulate yourself on a job well done. And also I am an idiot for not thinking that is the case.

You guys have really gone off the deep end with this stuff. Is there anything bad in your life that is NOT Donald Trump's fault?

[Sarcastr0]

point of fact, you have no idea if you did anything wrong or not.

Do you drive cars? Did you take criminal procedure? Talk to a minority in 2025?

I don't think West Virginia is a police state, so I don't know where you're getting a lot of your assertions here.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Loki13, 15 years ago, I would have agreed.

But with the amount of recording equipment you can put on a vehicle today, and transmit to a remote, secure server -- combined with the time documentation created by the modern police cruiser, I'm not so sure.

The Mass State Troopers got in trouble for overtime fraud by just not having their cruisers running -- their cruiser computer wasn't handshaking with the server...

[Zarniwoop]

"...that can be punished"

yeah, Loki13 is correct to laugh at this. You are an attorney, correct?

[Bob from Ohio]

"And obnoxious, too!"

Loki just called another person obnoxious! Very ironic.

[Bwaaah]

Okay. I admit it. His tone is a bit strident. Like, lately, out-of-the-ballpark strident.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Your previous reply to Life of Brian was all that was needed to be said, nicely.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Where were you 40 years ago when they developed this practice for OUI?

And if OUI roadblocks to check licenses and registrations are legal, why not similar citizenship roadblocks?

[Zarniwoop]

If only there was an on-point S.Ct. opinion that addressed immigration checkpoints without making uninformed analogies to DUI checkpoints.

TL,DR for Grampa Ed: the S.Ct. in 1976 allowed immigration checkpoints against a 4th amendment challenge, and set forth some of the relevant criteria. From the syllabus:

"1. The Border Patrol's routine stopping of a vehicle at a permanent checkpoint located on a major highway away from the Mexican border for brief questioning of the vehicle's occupants is consistent with the Fourth Amendment, and the stops and questioning may be made at reasonably located checkpoints in the absence of any individualized suspicion that the particular vehicle contains illegal aliens. Pp. 428 U. S. 556-564."

I doubt the current court is going to have a problem with that, and seems willing to expand the scope (i.e., Kavanaugh Stops).

[Dr. Ed 2]

Which is similar to the established permanent truck weigh stations located on major highways -- I'm familiar with this case.

The OUI roadblocks were random and NOT on major roads.

[John F. Carr]

Citizenship roadblocks must be within 100 miles of the border.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_interior_checkpoints

[ducksalad]

I would ask how a textualist/originalist can pull the number "100 miles" out of the 4th Amendment text/history, but maybe there weren't a lot of those on the court in the mid 70s.

If one counts seacoast and international airports as the border they've got it mostly covered.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The Supreme Court was working off what federal policy determined was a 'reasonable' distance from the border for purposes of regulating border searches, given traffic patterns and the like.

(100 miles being a lot easier to travel over than it once was.)

Determining the appropriate distances here (including the area to protect around a home) is going to be somewhat arbitrary.

[Kazinski]

A couple of years ago I had a similar experience driving my beater truck, from my cabin to my mothers apartment about 4 hours away. I started at dusk so it was late night before I arrived.

Not only did I get stopped at a drunk driving checkpoint, I also got pulled over when I was driving into my mothers apartment complex.

The pretext was my license plate frame light was out, even though they would have no trouble reading my reflective license plate in their headlights.

All told I have been stopped at least 4 times when it was clearly pretextual, all by local or state law enforcement, and none of them cared about my immigration status.

And none of them gave me a ticket.

Did you think pre-textual stops just started January 20th, 2025?

[wvattorney13]

I'm going to keep saying it. You got pulled over for something that is technically against the law but never enforced. The officers used that hook as RAS for the stop without ever intending to cite you for it. They did it to dig for other things.

That is pretext.

What the previous poster is referring to is NOT pretext, but plain illegality.

[Armchair]

Loki's gone off the deep end lately. Although, reading his post, I just got a sense of his "Privilege"

Seriously...assuming that only "minorities" drive beat up cars? The cops were "surprised" when it was a old white guy driving? It's like Loki doesn't live in a world where there are poor white old people. All the poor people he knows have a different skin color.

And then the whole "I'm a big shot who represents the police and watch me use acronyms!" Ugg...

[Sarcastr0]

assuming that only "minorities" drive beat up cars not an assumption loki made!

The cops were "surprised" when it was a old white guy driving? It's like Loki doesn't live in a world where there are poor white old people.

If you don't believe racial profiling exists, there's plenty of studies you should read up on.

Don't be a hater just because someone tells a story you don't want to be true.

[Kazinski]

Nobody said it wasn't true, just that it might not mean what he thinks it does.

[hobie]

We're rapidly approaching a point where the courts are gonna have to sanction the federal government for abuse of the courts. Which, AFAICT, would be a first.

[Dr. Ed 2]

We are rapidly approaching a point where the federal government is going to have to start throwing federal judges in jail which is NOT a first -- Lincoln did it. Roger Taney wrote in his diary that he fully expected Lincoln to do it to him...

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Abrego Garcia should be allowed to go back to living with his wife and (special needs) children.

No bullshit criminal prosecution (persecution). No bullshit move to deport him (including to Costa Rica, which is more ideal of course than the middle of Africa or whatever, but only by degree).

Paul Krugman has a Substack today arguing that Trump was elected in 2024 because "Americans were angry about higher prices and not mollified by the fact that most people’s wages had risen more than overall consumer prices."

What a pathetic state of affairs. Shameful. Put aside that such things were based on confusion regarding how the candidates would act and economic indicators. I'm no economist. I understand people having simplistic views about that.

People knew who Trump was. What he did and might do yet again if given the chance.

And voted him in because prices were too high. Well, I guess that is better than "I hate foreigners" or "I hate trans people" or something of that nature.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What's wrong with hating criminals?

[Krayt]

[Kazinski]

I keep pointing pointing out the polls in 2024 showed a majority of voters wanted all illegal aliens deported.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/majority-of-voters-support-deporting-all-illegal-immigrants-new-poll-shows

And Gallup reported a month before the election that 72% of voters said Immigration was "Extremely" or "Very" important.

And sure the Economy was the number one issue but there were 20 issues a majority of voters said were at least "very" important. It wasn't until #21 Climate change the less than a majority cared.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/651719/economy-important-issue-2024-presidential-vote.aspx

There were lots of reasons Trump won, not just prices.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Trump blocked the passage of a strong border control bill, one supported by his main competitor.

Anyway, I don't deny there are various things (in a confused and depressing way) that motivated voters. The economy was a leading driver. And it is rather problematic for various reasons.

There is, for instance, a general anti-immigrant mentality. Voter vibes vs. how they act in real-world situations (such as the criticism of the Administration's current policies) are not the same.

The idea, per one of those articles, that "deport all undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. illegally" is realistically possible, putting aside all the problems caused by trying it, is also something to ponder if one wants to be serious.

[Bob from Ohio]

"strong border control bill"

It was no such thing.

As Trump has shown this year, stopping illegal immigration at the border is a matter of will, not new laws.

[Sarcastr0]

will, not new laws.

Seems bad.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, Trump demonstrated that you didn't need a bill. You just needed somebody in charge who WANTED the border controlled.

[Sarcastr0]

We are a country of laws not will.

[Bwaaah]

Except when the will is for good, like student loan forgiveness.

Oh. Wait. That was the effect of a law that nobody previously knew could work that way.

You're right. The President needs to abide by his congressional marching orders. Executive discretion is a bug, not a feature.

[Sarcastr0]

It never occurred to you that I thought Biden was in the wrong on that?

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/08/federal-district-court-rules-red-states-lack-standing-to-challenge-legality-of-immigration-parole-program-for-migrants-from-four-latin-american-countries

I wholeheartedly agree with Armchair here. There needs to be some judicial mechanism to review potentially ultra vires executive action, and as it stands if a benefit is given there is no review; Congress has to act and then it's a political question.

This applies to student loan forgiveness, and immigration policy, etc.

You are very confident you know who I am but you actually have no idea.

[Kazinski]

And Trump is enforcing the laws.

[not guilty]

Trump is enforcing the laws of what nation?

The United States in the Superman comics' Bizarro World?(The cube shaped planet also known as Htrae.)

[Bwaaah]

As immigration soared, Sarc insisted there was nothing the Biden administration could do about it because it was a matter of law, not executive action. Legislative action was necessary for change, he said.

And that was while Biden unilaterally streamlined the entry and parole process.

[Sarcastr0]

I didn't say anything like that! I work with the INA and am aware it contains an extraordinary amount of discretion.

It's pathetic to make up things about me so you can pretend I'm a hypocrite.

[Bwaaah]

Nope. You said it was beyond his control. I don't need to make stuff like that up, nor do I have a desire to do so.

[Kazinski]

Trump blocked?

He was a private citizen then.

But in any case Trump has decisively proved no bill was needed to close the border.

[not guilty]

"2. Abrego Garcia. There was going to be an evidentiary hearing in the Tennessee part of the action (the BS criminal case concocted by the Blanche/Ensign axis) on December 8-9 to dismiss for vindicative prosecution. Well, yesterday the Judge cancelled the evidentiary hearing, with an order to be issued shortly. I would assume that this is ... not good ... for the DOJ. Why? Primarily because they've been lying a lot in this case, and ... the other case as well (that was the one that had the hearing where the judge required the person who swore to a declaration to appear, and it turned out the declarant had no actual knowledge of the facts, and, moreover, the DOJ had filed something under seal alleging something about Costa Rica, but when it was unsealed and people learned what it was and asked Costa Rica about it, they said that the DOJ was lying - which was why they filed it under seal, hoping to get away with it)."

On Monday the defense filed a submission regarding witness and exhibit lists which states:

Pursuant to the Court’s Order dated November 3, 2025, Defendant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia submits the following notice regarding witnesses and exhibits in advance of the forthcoming evidentiary hearing on his motion to dismiss for vindictive and selective prosecution, currently set for December 8 and 9, 2025. (See Dkt. 208 at 1). Given that the government’s motion to quash subpoenas issued by the defense remains pending, and the defense is awaiting the production of meaningful discovery, the defense is not currently in a position to identify witnesses or exhibits for the evidentiary hearing. [Footnote omitted.]

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tnmd.104621/gov.uscourts.tnmd.104621.240.0.pdf

I anticipate that Judge Crenshaw will issue an order spanking the government for frustrating the defense's ability to prepare and possibly ruling on outstanding motions. Rule 16(d) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is relevant here:

(d) Regulating Discovery.

(1) Protective and Modifying Orders. At any time the court may, for good cause, deny, restrict, or defer discovery or inspection, or grant other appropriate relief. The court may permit a party to show good cause by a written statement that the court will inspect ex parte. If relief is granted, the court must preserve the entire text of the party's statement under seal.

(2) Failure to Comply. If a party fails to comply with this rule, the court may:

(A) order that party to permit the discovery or inspection; specify its time, place, and manner; and prescribe other just terms and conditions;

(B) grant a continuance;

(C) prohibit that party from introducing the undisclosed evidence; or

(D) enter any other order that is just under the circumstances.

IOW, the District Court has a boatload of discretion here. The defense submission recites at pages 2-3:

As detailed in Mr. Abrego’s pre-hearing brief, (see Dkt. 195 at 1-3), because Mr. Abrego has established a presumption of vindictiveness, Mr. Abrego has no burden to present any evidence so long as the government has failed to rebut that presumption. See Bragan v. Poindexter, 249 F.3d 476, 482 (6th Cir. 2001) (“If the government fails to present evidence sufficient to rebut the presumption, the presumption stands and the court must find that the prosecutor acted vindictively.”); United States v. Zakhari, 85 F.4th 367, 379 (6th Cir. 2023) (“Once a reasonable likelihood is found, a presumption arises in defendant’s favor and the government must rebut it with objective, on-the-record explanations.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). And though Mr. Abrego has no obligation to prove actual vindictiveness, the government continues to stonewall the defense’s efforts to obtain the necessary documents or call the very witnesses whose testimony would be necessary to do so. The government has stymied defense counsel’s ability to even assess whether it has properly collected and reviewed documents responsive to the Court’s orders granting Mr. Abrego discovery on this motion. (See Dkts. 228, 228-1). And the government continues to show that it is willing even to mislead the courts regarding the practicability of Mr. Abrego’s removal to the country of his choice, Costa Rica, to exact punishment against Mr. Abrego. (See Dkt. 230 at 3-4).

The DOJ here is playing with fire by trifling with the Court. While I don't expect to see it happen, Rule 16(d)(2)(D) would even authorize a dismissal of the indictment.

[David Nieporent]

This is truly depressing. There is no longer any presumption of regularity. Or of truth. Just lies.

Yes, but TBF, the whole notion of a "presumption of regularity" is abhorrent. The govt — any one, not just Trump's — ought never have been entitled to a thumb on the scale in its favor in the first place.

[hobie]

"The inspector general concluded that the defense secretary violated the Pentagon’s instructions on using a private electronic device to share sensitive information."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/us/politics/pentagon-investigation-hegseth-signal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6U8.hI6L.UUdmQdLJV_JJ&smid=url-share

I've consulted my magic eight ball and it sees a mortgage fraud investigation in the near future for both Hegseth and probably this IG as well.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Send the IG to Gitmo.

[hobie]

Had to see what the IG that wrote the report looks like https://www.dodig.mil/Biographies/Bio-Display/Article/1124947/steven-a-stebbins/

Naw, he'll be alright.

[grb]

Well, it is a pretty impressive resume. However, I'm sure he's nowhere near the warrior Ed is.

[hobie]

Ed knows what I mean. I'm on a black thing today.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, you're being a racist.

Also obtuse in presuming that others are as racist as you are.

[DDHarriman]

Why is colonization only bad when White people do it?

[DDHarriman]

Why, when Leftism was ascendant and they were making their big push to remake capitalism with "Stakeholder Capitalism" and "ESG Scores", did all of the metrics or reforms only touch faggy gay shit and DEI and not real problems like planned obsolescence and predatory capitalism ala venture capitalists hollowing out corporations for flipping?

Why was it only ideological gay shit and nothing that actually helped the consumer? Is it because at the end of the day the Leftist ideology isn't about actually helping people, but controlling them?

[hobie]

"Donald Trump Jr.’s Expanding Business: After Joining 2nd New Board, U.S. Contracts Followed"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2025/10/29/donald-trump-jr-ultimate-machines-defense-contracts-drones/

"Unusual Machines [a drone maker...and likely subsidiary of Burisma] is at least the second company that appears to have activated an advisory board specifically to give a Trump a role, placing Donald Trump Jr. on the board in November 2024—and granting him shares worth millions—then announcing at least $15.2 million in military-linked orders, including a direct U.S. Army buy..."

And 10% for the Big Guy!

[Zarniwoop]

Bribing Hiring Don Jr. is a much better investment than Hunter ever was.

[Estragon]

Magnets, too

https://www.thedailybeast.com/don-jrs-fund-to-cash-in-on-620m-magnet-deal-with-pentagon/

[Bunny495]

As a long time UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle): The formal, technical term used in military, regulatory, and aerospace contexts.) owner and pilot I have to point out the current government attitude towards UAVs seems silly. While using UAVs in a military context is one thing currently there is a massive number of peeps who are using them in a nonmilitary context. Aside from civilian use local LEOs, fire departments, and other state and local government agencies almost with no exceptions use DJI products. DJI is far and away the leader in this field. I personally use their products to make moving pictures (and once in a while use the infrared feature to track animals being hunted). Thing is the current administration has basically imposed a no buy zone in America for DJI products. There have been claims that this it so Don Jr.'s association with UVA makers will lead to greater profits.

[DDHarriman]

>to make moving pictures

What in tarnation? Moving pictures? Now I've seen it all...

[LawTalkingGuy]

It’s an absolutely astonishing society-wide failure that such an obviously dysfunctional crank like RFK Jr. gets to set US vaccine recommendations.

[hobie]

Since boys can't have autistic babies, it should be safe for them to take Tylenol, yes?

[grb]

LawTalkingGuy : "... astonishing society-wide failure ..."

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. response:

"As a liver doctor who has treated patients with hepatitis B for decades, this change to the vaccine schedule is a mistake. The hepatitis B vaccine is safe and effective. The birth dose is a recommendation, NOT a mandate. Before the birth dose was recommended, 20,000 newborns a year were infected with hepatitis B. Now, it’s fewer than 20. Ending the recommendation for newborns makes it more likely the number of cases will begin to increase again. This makes America sicker.

Acting CDC Director O’Neill should not sign these new recommendations and instead retain the current, evidence-based approach."

[LawTalkingGuy]

Yep. Society-wide failure that both decades of American medical training and experience + political pressure and common sense still couldn’t stop this guy from voting for RFK Jr. due to party-politics.

[DDHarriman]

Who is at risk for Hep B?

Homosexuals and active drug users.

No newborn is a homosexual nor an active drug user.

[LawTalkingGuy]

So this is just flat out false.

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/why-hepatitis-b-vaccination-begins-at-birth

[David Nieporent]

Are you saying that Voltage! lied?

[Bwaaah]

LTG: "It’s an absolutely astonishing society-wide failure that such an obviously dysfunctional crank like RFK Jr. gets to set US vaccine recommendations."

No. Not society-wide. Just at the top of the bureaucratic public health apparatus. But definitely a crank.

Stupid at the top doesn't mean stupid everywhere. Idiots come and go. Not many of them take a [false] interest in science.

All is not lost. Think of this as part of the quadrennial swapping of political appointees at the top. Most of the substance beneath it, and especially independent researchers, are steeped in much more enduring principles and inclinations. They'll still be there after the next swap.

[hobie]

HaHa! Another in the Annals of Erasing Blacks which is definitely, positively not happening at all:

National parks change prioritizes Trump birthday over days honoring Black people
"...visitors to the 116 parks that charge entrance fees will no longer get in for free on MLK Day or on Juneteenth, a federal holiday on June 19 that celebrates the end of slavery in the U.S. They will, however, on Trump’s June 14 birthday, which was added to the list this year"

https://www.sfgate.com/national-parks/article/national-parks-change-prioritizes-trump-birthday-21219336.php

[Dr. Ed 2]

I am not going to get into detail as to how much of an asinine holiday Juneteenth was, beyond the basic fact that SLAVERY DID NOT END ON THAT DAY. It didn't even when the 13th Amendment arrived the following December because the Creek Nation had slaves and the US Constitution didn't apply to them.

And as a lawyer, I hope you realize that the Emancipation Proclamation could only exist under martial law -- that it would be a 5th Amendment "taking clause" violation under civilian law.

Lincoln knew this -- which is why slavery in DC ended by the Federal Government buying all the slaves. Seriously, they brought in three slave traders from Maryland and evaluated and paid compensation for each freed slave.

Remember too that slavery remained legal in the border states, e.g. DE, MD, WVA, etc., right up to December 1865 -- arguably until 1867 until the 4th paragraph of the 14th Amendment was passed.

Free admission on the POTUS' birthday is a nice touch -- and an incentive to remember who the current POTUS is if this continues. Not the approach to teaching civics I'd prefer, but I'll take it...

[grb]

Hey - Jesus almost surely wasn't born on 25Dec either. The early Christians just poached an existing pagan holiday. But we celebrate on Xmas Day because (A) We've decided it's well worth celebrating. and (B) We decided to celebrate on that day. I've never seen anyone upset about that day's selection.

But then Jesus doesn't upset people the way Black people upset you.

[Krayt]

Lesser known is that December 25th isn't even supposed to be Jesus' official birthday. It's his birth anniversary, a date ancient people used to celebrate such in times where calendar dates were little known, much less recorded somewhere.

It never even was supposed to be the official birthday.

Eeh I don't know why I dipped into this thread which went awful immediately.

[grb]

Well, you piqued my interest. What exactly is a birth anniversary? By common usage alone, it suggests a birthday plus "X" number of full years more. But it sounds like something with a slightly different meaning.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The term has various meanings. Looking it up, that includes a date celebrated each year in honor of something unclear.

So, we don't know exactly when Jesus was born, and a date is chosen to celebrate it. That is the "birth anniversary."

The "poaching" is a common practice. For instance, Purim might originally have had a non-Jewish quality.

[not guilty]

Perhaps Congress should reschedule Christmas for a time when the stores aren't so busy?

[Estragon]

“No moulignon holidays … From kwanza [sic] to mlk jr day to black history month to Juneteenth… Every single one needs to be eviscerated.”

[hobie]

HaHa! Paul Ingrassia: young Republican from MAGA's antisemitic wing. Should have figured he'd have something to say about neegroes as well.

[not guilty]

Estragon, whom and what are you quoting there? When using quotation marks, it is bad form to omit the source.

[BrotherMovesOn]

NG, Estragon's comment was just a republishing of a statement by a racist kook.
No need for him to inform readers the wheres and whys ... It's just a quote that is now public. besides Hobie identified the guy hours ago.

[wvattorney13]

Not WV. Outlawed February 3, 1865 by an act of the legislature.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Juneteenth has a wider meaning but is tied, to be clear, to an actual historical date. The official date, pursuant to the Emancipation Proclamation, of the end of slavery in Texas. Federal military control is when the EP kicked in. The "end of slavery" nationwide occurred in December with the ratification of the 13A.

[Michael P]

Some people think that some loons in Minnesota gave found a clever end-run around the federal Constitution: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/08/07/transparent-election-initiative/

Wouldn't the paleoconfederates have been shocked to find out about this one weird trick?

[John F. Carr]

The idea is, return to the historical tradition of chartering corporations for limited purposes. I have frequently approved of this old tradition. I think chartering a corporation for "all purposes except political speech" would not survive the Supreme Court. But "making toxic chemicals and no more" probably would.

Practically, the effect would be moving poliitcally active corporations to jurisdictions that allow politically active corporations. EvilCo still has a right to send its speech over state lines.

[Krayt]

Assuming they could ban donations, I can't see how they could ban direct advertising or publishing (I'm sure media companies will be excepted, as usual) because "the owners take all their rights with them wherever they go, including participating in congressionally-created" programs like corporations.

Ironically, it would make transparency easier, which is the faceted goal pushed ahead of censorship desires.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, what you COULD do is start taking fiduciary duties seriously, and ask any corporation that wants to engage in politics to demonstrate that the owners (The stockholders!) actually want it to spend money that way, that could otherwise be distributed to them.

But then you run up against all the newspapers in the country above the level of a student paper being corporations...

Really, it would probably be best if we were to reform the laws that force all our economic activities to be done through corporations, first.

[Sarcastr0]

Businesses are not a client of their shareholders.

Nor do they exist to instantiate your personal idea of what makes business sense.

Good lord the ego on you.

[Bwaaah]

"Businesses are not a client of their shareholders."

And your house is not your property. What a fuckin' denial of the rights of ownership. You're a cognitive disaster with a mouth sticking out the side.

[Sarcastr0]

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

You're mad at me because you don't understand how the law of business associations works.

[Bwaaah]

Nope. The legal protocols you cite, relevant in cases of contention against a board of directors, don't undermine the overarching principle of shareholder control as represented through the board of directors (excepting breaches of fiduciary interests).

In effect, the business judgment rule creates a strong presumption in favor of the board of directors of a corporation,

In the simplest terms, corporations exist to serve the interests of their shareholders as expressed by their boards of directors. (Yes, all in accordance with applicable laws.)

Brett attempts to affirm that principle in the most genuine terms. And you oppose Brett.

I'm not mad at you. I just think you're an insufferable jerk.

[Sarcastr0]

The BoD is not the same as the shareholders. Neither is the executive board.

Brett attempts to affirm that principle in the most genuine terms.

No he does not. Because these things are not the same.

You're being foolish so you can attack me.

I am not your posting nemesis. I guess I'll mute you for a while because you're getting weird and obsessive again.

[Estragon]

I realize the hate target of the week is Minnesota, but where are you finding MN in the linked material?

[Life of Brian]

Just glancing at the article, I'd go way out on a limb and imagine he meant to say Montana.

[Stella Link's Ghost]

Montana Minnesota. Iceberg Goldberg. What's the difference?

[Estragon]

Even referenced Minnesota’s state bird!

1) can’t read
2) can’t type
3) monomaniacally focused on the new hot MAGA object of hate, and so can’t help seeing Minnesotas around every corner
4) as usual, hoping folks won’t click through thereby obscuring who is getting lumped in as loons (Former Republican governor of Montana and former chairman of the Republican National Committee)

Could be any or all, really. I could use more info on the theory of the “end-run” here as well.

[Life of Brian]

Yoikes, I was away for a bit. Hopefully the Two Minutes Hate is over and you've regained your composure.

[jb]

This is the same Michael P who tried to blame Trump's eviction moratorium on Biden just yesterday, so it doesn't seem like he's earned the benefit of the doubt on "mistakes" like this.

[Life of Brian]

No idea what you're talking about from yesterday, but also not sure what inherent value there is in attributing loony liberal stuff to loony liberals in one state rather than another. I'm sure I'm missing some sort of deeper hidden meaning to it all....

[Estragon]

“Former Republican governor of Montana and former chairman of the Republican National Committee”

Is sure is interesting to see who qualifies as loony liberals these days

[Life of Brian]

LOL -- maybe next time, key in on "huh, is that really the best spin they could come up with?" language like "former Republican __" and do 10 seconds of diligence first.

https://missoulian.com/news/local/former-gov-marc-racicot-to-vote-for-biden/article_40ae7b0c-5c79-50a4-8873-8db750b4ab47.html

[Estragon]

It is, of course, completely overdetermined that Trumpists would refer to this person as a loony liberal. I suppose he would say the party left him? Just an interesting data point from a purity test perspective. It is pointless to dispute your characterization— nor would I seek to— as it is merely your opinion, not some objective reflection of reality.

[Michael P]

I did not make any such mistake yesterday.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/aug/11/donald-trumps-executive-order-evictions-explained/
https://web.archive.org/web/20210828223751/https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-08-03/biden-new-temporary-eviction-moratorium

The Supreme Court has nothing to say about Trump's executive order. It struck down the Biden moratorium.

[Michael P]

MoNtana, obviously!

Yes, I misread the state name. I stand by my assessment of the merits. And I was not aware that the state bird of Minnesota os the common loon. The either was a coincidence.

[Michael P]

The epithet was a coincidence, rather. My phone keyboard continues to frustrate me.

[Stella Link's Ghost]

[Kazinski]

Somewhat ridiculous, because companies like X, Meta, GM, can charter themselves in any state they want.

3M may stand for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, but they are chartered in Delaware and they can be as political as they like.

And the commerce clause will keep Montana or Minnesota from discriminating against corporations chartered out of state.

[not guilty]

I was tempted to give Michael P props for finding an acorn like a blind hog.

But then I saw that he was talking about "some loons in Minnesota" while linking an article discussing a measure in Montana.

The full text of the proposed ballot statement for The Montana Plan constitutional initiative is here: https://transparentelection.org/montana-ballot-statement

On the merits of the First Amendment issue, I don't think that the proposed amendment can be reconciled with strict scrutiny analysis as required by First Nat'l Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 786-787 (1978).

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I'm reading a book about a professor who is raising a trans child in Alabama. That's a challenge, though he does have support, too. Including among his religious community.

[ Becoming Nicole, an earlier volume, is also recommeded.]

He discussed something that brings to mind the "rules" I cited recently. Particularly, the rules against not being an asshole and bullshitting. And, treating people as individuals.

He and his wife carefully go talk with the school administrator before "Kate" (he uses a pseudonym) starts first grade. They are assured that everything will go all right. No bullying. Full support. They will use her preferred name and so on.

The father (a communications scholar) even provided an extensive information file explaining how experts accept that preferred names and pronouns should be used in this situation.

The school had single-use unisex bathrooms, so that wasn't an issue. Sports are also not much of an issue for first graders.

Unfortunately, a new teacher comes in at the last minute. The parents are assured that the teacher will be supportive. They are wary (not knowing the person) but are warily optimistic.

I had to laugh -- the reader knew things were going to go sideways. The teacher refused to use the parents' and the child's preferred name. The improvement shown once her transition was accepted started to drop off. She was subject to some bullying, students guided by the teacher's approach.

The administrator suddenly said they could not do anything. Basically, the parents were lied to.

Compare this to how others treated Kate's decision, including at the family's church. They took it in stride. Yes, even in Alabama in the mid-2010s. Admittedly, before the current anti-trans wave.

They treated her as an individual. They saw she was the same basic person and treated her as such. For instance, her wearing a girl's swimsuit was not a big deal. Some go another way.

[grb]

1. Unfortunately, bullying and harassing the small number of trans people has become sport. In the old days, a White Christian male could openly sneer at woman, loathe Blacks, despise Jews, and hold gay people in contempt. This was done certain of approving smiles, hearty nods, and complicit smirks. Now all those targets have been taken from the public sphere. From right-wing-world we constantly sense their anguished nostalgia and seething anger that those good ole days are gone.

2. There is a website that monitors anti-transgender legislation at all levels of government. For instance, in 2025 there were 1,012 bills proposed in 49 states. 124 passed, 506 active, and 382 failed. The previous few years have had similar numbers. Freely admitting the disparity of scope and effect, this reminds of nothing less than Germany after Hitler. Because despite the massive differences, the two phenomena are alike in these two ways: In both cases there was an "Other" it was acceptable to harass and torment. And in both cases, government at all levels couldn't wait to get in on the fun.

3. My own story dates back almost fifty years. I was working a construction job over the summer and most of my coworkers were burly rednecks (for the record, I myself come from good redneck stock). But there was one gay guy on the crew, and he was extravagantly fey in the most extreme manner possible. To my surprise, everyone got on with perfect friendly comradery. But it's really no surprise at all. Treating people with dignity, respect, and understanding comes naturally when you don't make being an un-Christian asshole a point of pride.

[Bwaaah]

"To my surprise, everyone got on with perfect friendly comradery. But it's really no surprise at all. Treating people with dignity, respect, and understanding comes naturally when you don't make being an un-Christian asshole a point of pride."

Most of my work life was steeped in blue collar environments and coworkers. Aside from the gruff humor and attitudes, mutually respectful treatment and limits were the norm. There were some assholes out there, but they never fared well.

In real life, most people grow up to grasp that their houses are somewhat made of glass. That engenders fears that engender an ongoing offering: I won't step on you if you won't step on me.

It's not love. But it's sufficient for civility and sustainable coexistence.

[Kazinski]

Poor kid.

Here is a 6 year old child, and the parent wants to put them in a gender straight jacket. That's child abuse.

[Bob from Ohio]

Its like a vegan cat, we know who had the idea that this child was "transgender".

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The child determined things on her own, and the parents supported her decision while seeing how things went with the help of medical and other counselling. Some "straitjacket."

[Bob from Ohio]

"child determined things on her own"

Kindergarten and younger children generally are not seen as able to determine bed time on their own. Let alone this.

[not guilty]

Bob, who determined that you are cisgender? When did you/he/she/they do so? Did you actually need help from others before realizing it on your own?

If your parents or anyone (other than you) had determined that you are actually trans, would you have gone along with that?

[Brett Bellmore]

Pretty much. If a 16 year old says they're transgender, it might be their idea. If a 6 year old says it, it's their parents' idea.

[Bwaaah]

"it's their parents' idea."

It was Uncle Aunt Sadie. S/he was always the life of the party.

[Sarcastr0]

Gotta conjure an imaginary family member to convert the imaginary trans kid!

Ask yourself why you had to do that.

[Brett Bellmore]

Any source of outrage to avoid recognizing Munchausen by proxy.

[Sarcastr0]

Your inexpert diagnosing is offensive and you have no standing to make such a charge.

Defend yourself: how is this not bigotry?

[Bwaaah]

Sarc: "Ask yourself why you had to do that."

I didn't *have* to. I *wanted* to. For fun.

Ask yourself why you can't laugh at Uncle Aunt Sadie. (As I said, s/he was always the life of the party.) Is it because it's making fun too close to Brett?

[Bwaaah]

So I went back and asked myself why I was motivated to respond to Brett, beyond just fun. It was to suggest there are other influences beyond the parents. But I'll go further: I believe that deviations in gender identity are not necessarily externally driven, nor are they always pathologically problematic.

To put that more squarely: I think there are some mentally healthy people who express transgender identities, quite naturally. (But not many such people.)

At the same time, I never heard one of those healthy people express the absurd kind of confused transgenderist bullshit that became an endorsed feature of the political left in the past few years. They weren't confused about what their sex was. They merely presented themselves differently, and quite consistent with their actual emotional composition.

Unfortunately, most transgender people I've met strike me as confused, conflicted, contentious, mentally unhealthy people. But I take each person as they are, one at a time.

[Sarcastr0]

What an expert you are in trans issues.

[Bwaaah]

Did you forget to disagree with me?

[Michael P]

No, he (again) just hasn't thought through an argument enough to actually make one.

[not guilty]

Brett, I will ask you the same questions I put to Bob.

Who determined that you are cisgender? When did you/he/she/they do so? Did you actually need help from others before realizing it on your own?

If your parents or anyone (other than you) had determined that you are actually trans, would you have gone along with that?

[Michael P]

Was Jesus Christ cisgender? Who determined that he was?

Transgender self-identification is a social contagion, so of course it is susceptible to steering by parents or other caretakers -- especially for a preschool child.

[Kazinski]

Core PCE for September came out today, way late because of the shutdown.

It wasn't too bad .2% monthly, 2.8% annual rate.

Personal Income was up .4% m/m, 5% y/y, which of course means peoples incomes are rising at double the rate prices are rising.

Real Disposable Personal Income confirms that up 1.94% y/y.

https://www.bea.gov/news/2025/personal-income-and-outlays-september-2025

[grb]

More news from the Bling Palace front:

When Trump's ballroom was announced, people highlighted its architect as a plus. James McCrery II has built a career on the advocacy and commitment to strict classical design. But what started as a 500-seat ballroom connected to the East Wing grew to 650 seats. Then Trump wanted capacity for 999, followed by 1,350. And while DJT was telling public the new building wouldn't affect any existing structures, he'd already approved plans to demolish the East Wing.

So Client and Architect began to clash. McCrery counseled restraint over concerns the new building would "dwarf" the existing iconic structure. Therefore, he had to go. It would be mildly interesting to know whether McCrery ever gets paid. I doubt it. We all know the pleasure Trump gets from cheating people.

The new architect is Shalom Baranes. If you've never seen an architect's website, his is linked below. It's a very good firm, but has no particular affinity to classical design.

On the personal front, I came within a hair's breadth of being an employee. On following the Ex to a D.C. job, it was down to offers between his and another firm. I picked the other as smaller and less corporate. A few years later with the Great Recession, I was laid-off after every project I worked on was canceled. I went back to the Baranes guy who interviewed me for a redo. He said, "Are you frigg'n kidding me?" - but in a professional and almost kindly manner. They'd just let go a quarter of their workforce. It was not a good time to be an architect.

https://www.sbaranes.com/portfolio/all/grid

[Sarcastr0]

Appreciate this perspective and window into life in a discipline that doesn't come up except when it does.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

How impressive.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/12/breaking-donald-trump-awarded-peace-prize-that-a-lot-of-people-are-saying-is-more-prestigious-than-the-nobel-peace-prize

[ducksalad]

If it modifies his behavior in a good direction, even incrementally, or if it distracts him from doing something bad, then the award is a good and righteous thing with no downside.

I am absolutely serious.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Keep that optimism up.

It is as likely (at least) that it will encourage his delusions of grandeur and encourage him to keep on doing bad things.

How can a recipient of a peace prize, for example, be faulted for the attacks in the Caribbean or be at fault for a too pro-Putin position regarding Ukraine? Why should he admit his limitations?

A major international institution giving him an honor also benefits his overall reputation. Many will realize how trivial it is, but others will not.

It also generally waters down the "peace" brand.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Man, if we had just convinced Queen Elizabeth to make this guy Duke of Glasgow back in 2011, that would have fulfilled his megalomania and kept him out of office. Say what you will about the British aristocracy, but using shiny things and titles to keep wealthy morons with family money from exercising real political power is probably pretty useful.

Or maybe Obama could have just given him the Medal of Freedom in 2010. And named him, idk, Business Ambassador for Important Deals.

[John F. Carr]

Last spring the federal government declared a strip of land along the Mexican border to be a closed military facility so that anybody crossing the border illegally could have a trespassing charge piled on. A magistrate judge was unimpressed, noting that there was no evidence that people crossing the border knew they were entering a closed area. A trespassing conviction ordinary requires proof of knowledge that the area is off limits.

The Tenth Circuit recently issued an unpublished decision in one of the trespassing cases. The defendant had already pleaded guilty to illegal entry and completed his sentence (time served). The prosecutor wanted to hold him on the trespassing charge, insisting that no proof of intent was required. The Appeals Court said even if the government was right on the legal question, it had presented no evidence that the defendant was a danger to the public.

USA v. Toirov, https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/010111347533.pdf

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd think that knowing that the other side of that line is in a different country, and you haven't obtained permission to enter that country, would be enough. But, sure, signs are cheap.

[Sarcastr0]

Nothing gets Brett lawless faster than an illegal being in the mix.

In Brett's world some humans don't get to be protected, they only get to be bound.

[Brett Bellmore]

The question is, do you know you're trespassing? Knowing you're not supposed to be there would appear, facially, to be good evidence that you know you're trespassing.

But if the question is really, do you know you're trespassing on a military base, signs would be helpful.

"In Brett's world some humans don't get to be protected,"

You want me to protect the right of people to illegally enter the country? No, screw that. We're talking about people who know damned well they're doing something illegal, the only question is WHICH illegal thing they were doing.

[Sarcastr0]

But they aren’t going after trespassing they are just larding in charges to illegals.

You don’t care about this overreach because you have no principles these days.

Government isn’t doing what you want so fuck it no rules.

[John F. Carr]

Harvard won one of the lawsuits related to treatment of Jewish students after the Hamas attacks. Plaintiff, who was assaulted by protesters, could not prove that the protesters were motivated by race instead of politics. "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" is not antisemitic without proof that the people chanting the slogan meant it to be antisemitic. He was also unable to prove that administrators' inaction was racially motivated.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70830947/segev-v-president-and-fellows-of-harvard-college/

[not guilty]

Makes sense to me. No plausible allegation of "severe and pervasive racial harassment."

[grb]

Worth quoting in full:

"The answer is that Trump is living his best life in this second and final turn in the White House. Coming up on one year back in power, he’s turned the office into an adult fantasy camp, a Tom Hanks-in-Big, ice-cream-for-dinner escapade posing as a presidency. The brazen corruption, near-daily vulgarity and handing out pardons like lollipops is impossible to ignore and deserves the scorn of history. Yet how the president is spending much of his time reveals his flippant attitude toward his second term. This is free-range Trump. And the country has never seen such an indulgent head of state.

Yes, he’s one-part Viktor Orbán, making a mockery of the rule of law and wielding state power to reward friends and punish foes while eroding institutions. But he’s also a 12-year-old boy: There’s fun trips, lots of screen time, playing with toys, reliable kids’ menus and cool gifts under the tree — no socks or trapper keepers."

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/12/04/trump-presidency-child-renovations-entertainment-attention-00676183

[hobie]

Trump made an implied deal with his base: If they agree to look the other way while he and his billionaires get stinking rich; he will provide them with white supremacy. The fear/hatred of brown people is so powerful that the hayseeds will abandon their principles, their own economic selfinterests, and even rationalize child trafficking and murder. It's really that simple.

Take the boat strikes. Does anyone honestly believe that the hillbillies care about the drugs? They care whether some brown person gets high or dies? Absolutely not. The boat strikes cause joy because brown people are being killed. This out-of-nowhere beef with Venezuela isn't about drugs or terrorism since Venezuala hardly does either. They just happen to be the weakest country that won't fight back, that can supply brown bodies into the Colosseum-at-sea for the rubes entertainment.

[whall_h2a1188]

Modern Seventh Amendment jurisprudence is a mess. The Amendment’s jury-trial guarantee and Article III’s limits on judicial power have become so entangled that many cases amount to Churchillian riddles within enigmas. The engine of this confusion is the so-called public rights doctrine.

Formally, the public rights doctrine is described as an exception to the Seventh Amendment’s requirement of a jury trial in “suits at common law.” Functionally, it authorizes judges to nullify the Seventh Amendment’s jury trial guarantee in cases where they think jury trials should not be required. The “public rights” doctrine in Seventh Amendment cases originated in dicta in Atlas Roofing Co. v. OSHRC, 430 U.S. 442, 444, 97 S. Ct. 1261, 1263 (1977). Atlas Roofing was unclear about when the public rights doctrine applied. The following fifty years hasn’t helped. It is time to retire it forever.

This post proposes that the Supreme Court should:

(1) Inter the public rights doctrine as incompatible with the text of the Seventh Amendment;

(2) Hold that the Amendment requires a jury trial (if demanded) in federal court before liability may be imposed for any statutory fine or penalty exceeding $20.00; and

(3) Hold that while administrative adjudication may assess a penalty (that is, formulate and define the government’s position that a penalty in a certain amount should be imposed upon a specific person), it cannot impose liability as a matter of executive fiat.

The fifty-year search for “public rights” has failed. No one has found a case in which the Supreme Court actually has that a specific claim fell within the public rights doctrine. Atlas Roofing didn’t – that claim was not common law. NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin didn’t – that claim wasn’t common law. Oceanic Steam Nav Co. v. Stranahan didn’t – the parties waived their right to a jury trial so the company could argue that the law imposed penal sanctions entitling to a Sixth Amendment jury. Passavant v. United States didn’t – the claim was not common law. The same can be said of every other so-called “public rights” case.

SEC v. Jarkesy tried to bring order to this mess by prescribing a clear test – one which yields clear answers. “Judicial precedent recognizes a class of cases concerning what have been called public rights. Such matters historically could have been determined exclusively by the executive and legislative branches.” SEC v. Jarkesy, 603 U.S. 109, 109, 144 S. Ct. 2117, 2120 (2024). But even this test hardly helps because Stranahan did not involve a public right under this test. Recall that while the government assessed the fine, the company was entitled to a challenge it in court and to have a jury decide the case. That the company waived its right to a jury shows that the company had a right to a jury trial but chose not to exercise it.

Taken together, these cases reveal that the public rights doctrine, despite presenting itself as an exception to the Seventh Amendment, is nothing more than a reframing of the Amendment’s text. The Supreme Court has never identified a putative “public right” that actually involved a common law action or remedy. The doctrine is pernicious precisely because it purports to authorize a knowing departure from the Constitution’s command.

Several objections may be raised to this proposal. First, some might argue that this proposal requires overruling Atlas Roofing. While overruling Atlas Roofing might not be a bad idea, it is not necessary to bring a modicum of reason to this area. A future Court need only recognize that Atlas Roofing’s discussion of public rights was dicta. The Court had already concluded that no common law rights were implicated and therefore the Seventh Amendment did not apply. Atlas Roofing Co., 430 U.S. at 453, 97 S. Ct. at 1268. In other words, eliminating the public rights doctrine does not require discarding the holding of Atlas Roofing, only the dicta that later courts have treated as if it were a freestanding doctrinal framework.

Another objection concerns the perceived linkage between Seventh Amendment doctrine and Article III doctrine. Recent cases often tie themselves in knots trying to apply the public rights doctrine consistently in both areas. But the proposal advanced here would resolve most of those hard questions. If administrative decisions merely formulate the government’s official position for later adjudication—and do not impose liability—then the Seventh Amendment’s jury-trial guarantee and Article III’s judicial power fall back into alignment. Any common law action, or action seeking a traditionally common law remedy, involves private rights and thus lies within Article III. This would restore a measure of doctrinal coherence that has been missing for decades.

Some might worry that limiting administrative adjudication to assessment could impede government programs that rely on agency enforcement. This concern is overstated. First, it misunderstands the government’s interest. The government’s interest is not efficiency for its own sake. It is the lawful implementation of Congress’s policy choices through necessary and proper means. If necessary and proper means are less efficient than unnecessary or improper ones, then we have to accept that inefficiency. The government’s duty is to secure rights while achieving policy goals—not to streamline enforcement at the expense of constitutional protections. U.S. Const. Art. I, 18; Decl. of Independence pmbl. (U.S. 1776).

Third, there may be claims that emergencies warrant bypassing a jury trial otherwise required by the Seventh Amendment. For those who believe an escape hatch is necessary, the Court could require Congress to make a clear statement justifying any such exception, limit it to a narrow and judicially reviewable class of cases, and impose a time limit. That would ensure political accountability and reinforce the presumption that Congress intends—unless it expressly states otherwise—that when enforcement involves a common law suit for more than $20.00, a jury trial is available.

Finally, some people may just generally be reluctant to make jury trials more available. The people, they contend (explicitly or not), just aren’t smart enough to engage in “expert” enforcement. Experts aren’t required to find facts; common sense is the only requisite. It said that a sign of an expert is that he or she can explain a complex subject in simple terms. That may take effort and skill which agency experts would rather forego but a little inconvenience for often isolated experts seems a small price to pay for jury trials.

It is long past time for the Supreme Court to clean up the tangle that Seventh Amendment jurisprudence has become. For the last 50 or so years, courts have struggled to apply a concept—“public rights”—that lacks definable content. The Court should put an end to it. When a case involves a common law cause of action or a common law remedy as traditionally understood, a jury trial in court is required before liability may be imposed. Clearing away the public rights doctrine would restore the Constitution’s text to its proper place—and bring long-needed coherence to an area of law that has wandered too far from its constitutional home.

[John F. Carr]

On application of the government, Chief Justice Roberts stayed the decision of the Fourth Circuit allowing civil service cases to be brought in federal court because the Merit Systems Protection Board is not functioning. Application 25A662. Plaintiffs must file a response by December 10.

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-05/chinese-hospital-ship-visits-jamaica-as-us-gunboats-ply-caribbean

"A Chinese hospital ship quietly docked in hurricane-hit Jamaica this week, projecting soft power into the heart of the Caribbean where a US armada is conducting a controversial anti-narcotics mission targeted at Venezuela."

We're fucking this whole thing up.

[Michael P]

Hey, if past racial discrimination by a government justifies countervailing current racial discrimination in the other direction, how many generations can white Ashevillians milk this for?

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article313367040.html

(I think John Roberts had the right idea in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No.1.)