Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[Dr. Ed 2]

See Page 4 of the Providence PD affidavit:
https://www.scribd.com/document/968825317/Claudio-Manuel-Neves-Valente-Affidavit#from_embed

Apparently it is now possible to recover DNA -- not just fingerprints but actual DNA -- from shell casings, including spent brass. I didn't believe this but apparently it ha been possible for the past 3-4 years. And Connecticut's lab, from what I have heard, is fairly reputable.

It appears that they have DNA from two DIFFERENT people on the ammo, and as the ammo came from three different brands, it wasn't someone in the factory, even if they still package ammo by hand, which I doubt.

So who is the second person????

[hobie]

I realize it is disappointing that you hayseeds didn't get your radical left antisemitic terrorist tranny shooter. But in a second-shooter conspiracy lies hope.

[Dr. Ed 2]

WHOSE DNA IS IT?!?

"The science" says another person is involved.

[hobie]

Probably several people at Cabela's fingered the ammo before the killer bought the box. Or he had Kylo 'Ren' Rittenhouse sign the bullets at one of his grift carnivals.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Did hobie read the affidavit? (Does hobie know how to read?)

Three different brands of ammo, all with DNA on them.

This is a serious problem for those who allege the perp worked alone, as is his need to communicate with anyone. And no, someone keeping a low profile isn't going to order food deliveries....

[hobie]

You know, about two or three weeks ago, we had a guy here named Pendleton who is a fugitive mental patient that attacked an economics professor in his classroom. Pendleton?! If you're lurking about, give us your take on this college killer!

[David Nieporent]

someone keeping a low profile isn't going to order food deliveries....

You know, the way people like Voltage! think is revolting, but at least it's comprehensible. The way Dr. Ed's mind works is just breathtaking. Like, how does he get from point A to point q17b in his head?

[Dr. Ed 2]

You never have heard of police officers using shoe leather to investigate, going to the food delivery places and asking if anyone has seen the person they are looking for?

[David Nieporent]

1) No.
2) I don't even know what you mean by "the food delivery places." Do you mean… restaurants? Pretty much every restaurant offers delivery. But generally through apps, which aren't "places" at all; police can't go to DoorDash headquarters to ask if anyone has seen a guy.
3) Not to mention that almost all delivery now offers leave-at-the-door as an option, so even the specific person who made the delivery likely wouldn't have seen the person.
4) But what makes your claim even more confusing is… if the person doesn't order food, he has to go eat at a restaurant, or buy food at a grocery store. Which would expose him to more people than ordering food would.

[Bruce Hayden]

Have you ever bought ammunition? No, the clerks at Cabellas don’t paw through most of the ammunition that they sell. The bulk of the standard caliber ammunition that they sell, is automatically manufactured, then automatically boxed. It’s all done by machines. Big, expensive, machines. Then, maybe the boxes are placed in chases, by hand, or maybe, with large volumes, the casing of the boxes is automatic.

And, almost exclusively, other potential purchasers don’t paw through the opened box of ammunition. It’s a safety issue, especially if the store also sells firearms. So, almost always, when you buy a box of ammunition, the bullets haven’t been touched by human hands, until you open the box, outside the store.

[Riva]

I don’t think you’re paying close attention to the news lately. No shortage of islamic terrorists or violent leftists, here or anywhere else in the world. Actually quite a surplus.

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/live-updates-new-developments-in-brown-mit-professor-shootings/3864904/

The perp was "using aps to communicate" -- communicate with whom?!? Isn't communicating with a fugitive an accessory after the fact or something?

Notwithstanding that, who was he communicating with, and why?

[hobie]

"communicate with whom?!?"

DoorDash? Could have been ordering a pizza

[Michael P]

Isn't communicating with a fugitive an accessory after the fact or something?

Mere communication is not enough. From https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/accessory_after_the_fact :

An accessory-after-the-fact is someone who assists 1) someone who has committed a crime, 2) after the person has committed the crime, 3) with knowledge that the person committed the crime, and 4) with the intent to help the person avoid arrest or punishment.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Tell that to Dr. Mudd.

All he did was provide emergency medical care to an injured man.

[Michael P]

Setting aside the (still-controversial) issues of fact in his case, Samuel Mudd was charged and convicted for aiding and conspiracy to murder, not with being an accessory after the fact.

As to "all" he did, from Wikipedia, on top of being seen in the company of three of the definite conspirators and delaying reporting his assistance to Booth, "An acquaintance named Daniel Thomas also testified that in early 1865 Mudd had predicted that Lincoln and his cabinet 'would be killed in six or seven weeks'." The trial was rushed and done by a military tribunal rather than civil court, but there was evidence against Mudd that implicated his actions before Lincoln was shot.

[David Nieporent]

Isn't communicating with a fugitive an accessory after the fact or something?

No. Stop me if you've heard this before wrt Dr. Ed: This has been yet another episode of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.

[ducksalad]

Tremendous announcement today, in the White House, on “Most Favored Nation” Drug Pricing. There has never been anything like it in the Medical World. Prices are now dropping at levels never seen before. This alone should win the Midterms for Republicans! No Democrat could have come close to doing it. Prices will be dropping by 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, and even 800%!

Presidential immunity even covers the laws of mathematics.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Prescriptivist mathematics have no place in Trump/MAGA's battle against inflation. Trump acolytes get that inflation can boost prices by hundreds of percent. After that happens, it demands a reciprocal hundreds of percent decrease to undo. Only Trump knows how to deliver that.

[Estragon]

If you have time, try and track down the video of Howard Lutnick trying to square this circle on Fox News the other day. Priceless.

[Josh R]

It's either innumeracy or hyperbole intended to impact public opinion. Either way, a cut of 75% (what I guess Trump calls a 300% reduction) is a big deal. It's not at all clear if Americans will directly experience those cuts.

The announcement said the prices apply to Medicaid or those who pay with cash. The former is the prices paid by the states, not the people who already pay very little. The latter is only for those without insurance or on crappy insurance. It's like GoodRx for all without a premium.

[Life of Brian]

Yeah, not mathematically beautiful, but also a fairly common turn of phrase.

Private insurance reimbursement rates are a tougher nut to crack, but this is at least a step in the right direction. The brazen degree of price discrimination for US markets is a not-small piece of the puzzle in runaway premium costs.

[Josh R]

This is an issue that unites Trump and Bernie.

[Malika la Maize]

According to the intertubes Americans eat around 20 billion hot dogs a year and around five billion tacos. How much would that gap have to be closed for tacos to be an American food?

[hobie]

Are you asking something to the effect that if we were to consume enough sushi we could claim it as an American invention?

[Malika la Maize]

Not invention, more like adoption. Iirc we didn’t invent hot dogs but it’s an iconic American food now.

[Drewski]

You recall incorrectly. The frankfurter is German but the hot dog was invented in New York.

[ThePublius]

Agreed. The sausages certainly originated in Germany and Austria, but the practice of putting them into a slit bun is quintessentially American. Note the sausages used to be sold without a bun, and white gloves supplied, but when people stopped returning the gloves buns were substituted.

Hot dogs in the U.S. go back to the mid 19th century, but really hit the scene at the Polo Grounds in NY, and in Coney Island. Coney Island about 1867, Polo Grounds about 1901. Hot dogs (the sausage) in a bun may have predated these in the Midwest.

(I'm a big hot dog fan, having grown up with them in NYC. I even have jars of onions in red sauce and sauerkraut in the fridge. I prefer grilled, per Nathan's, but boiled per Sabrett is fine, too.)

[Mr. Bumble]

Where are the fast food chains based on hot dogs?
All the biggest ones are burger joints.
The only one I can recall was Lum's (now gone) that was based in Florida. They served hot dogs steamed in beer.

[Drewski]

Sonics are all over the place.

[David Nieporent]

Where are the fast food chains based on hot dogs?

I mean, ThePublius mentioned Nathan's in the very comment to which you're replying.

[Mr. Bumble]

At 198 location it hardly is a blip on the fast food scene.

[Frank Drackman]

You’re making me hungry! While I love Hebrew National my real faves are the Cheapo Pork/Chicken (don’t tell Jay-Hey) store brands on a top sliced bun with just a dab of salt and Texas Pete, (Boiled of course)

Frank

[ThePublius]

Have you ever had a hot dog in France? They have this contraption with a heated spike that they use to pierce a tunnel into a baguette, then pick up a hot dog with tongs and dunk it into mustard, then insert it into the tunnel. The bread is great, but I think it's too much bread for one hot dog.

[Mr. Bumble]

There's an off color joke in there somewhere.

[Bwaaah]

Wasn't this supposed to be about hot dogs?

[jb]

Butter chicken is the national dish of the UK. No one thinks it originates in the UK, but it's definitely been adopted.

[SRG2]

Not butter chicken - chicken tikka masala, which was invented in, IIRC, Glasgow. And is now readily available in India.

But Indian food has been the national cuisine of Britain for 40 years or more. The definition of "national cuisine" is what the most knuckle-scraping Neanderthal young men go out to eat on a Saturday night - and in Britain, that's Indian.

[Michael P]

Hot dogs are tacos. https://cuberule.com/

[Bwaaah]

That is fantastic.

[David Nieporent]

It's not often that I both appreciate and laugh at Michael P posts, but this is one of those rare times.

[hobie]

Agreed. Apparently he is capable of posting relevant articles.

[Brett Bellmore]

Seems unlikely; Hot dogs are much more convenient, and Americans value convenience.

Unless somebody at the Mall starts selling pretzel tacos. I'd give that a try.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No.

The concept of an "American" culture, as opposed to regional cultures, could only exist post-WWII when people had been dispersed throughout the country by the war.

[Drewski]

Do you think we're living in the pre-WWII era? I mean you're wrong anyway as anyone who has read early American authors could tell you.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Pre-WWII, most people lived their entire lives and died within 40 miles of where they had been born. Not now.

[Magister]

Regional cultures could easily blend together with less than half the population traveling, through newspapers, books, live performances, movies and more.

[Drewski]

Weird, because I've read a lot of Steinbeck, Mark Twain, and other pre-WWII guys who were there then and certainly thought we had a national culture. Maybe I'll go with them rather than the drunkard who claims we don't have a national culture today because WWII hasn't happened yet.

[Estragon]

Costco could probably tip the scales by themselves.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"How much would that gap have to be closed for tacos to be an American food?"

Tacos are an American food.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I mean, some types of tacos aren't even a Mexican food.

[DDHarriman]

I wonder what the Biden Whitehouse coordination was with the DOJ on Mar-a-lago raid after they took it offline?

[Malika la Maize]

Disappointed. Frustrated. Suspicious.

Several of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims said Friday that Justice Department failed them with its partial release of files related to the federal investigations into Mr. Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse of teen girls and young women. They said the release of thousands of pages of photographs and heavily redacted documents did little to shed new light on the investigations and the scope of Mr. Epstein’s crimes or conspirators.

“They are proving everything we have been saying about corruption and delayed justice,” said Jess Michaels, one of the earliest known victims of Mr. Epstein. “What are they protecting? The coverup continues.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/us/epstein-files-victims-reaction.html

[Michael P]

The flailing New York Slimes should bother to do some research before writing whiny Letters To The Editor on non-editorial pages.

https://legalclarity.org/what-is-redacted-information-and-why-is-it-done/

And somehow, there is still too much information in this release for some people:

“So many of the photos are irrelevant,” said Marina Larcerda, who has said Mr. Epstein sexually abused her when she was 14.

[Malika la Maize]

Again, Dear Leader says FAILING NYT, not flailing, you’re going to get reported and the MTG treatment!

[Michael P]

You're not my boss, and somehow Donald Trump still seems fine with my version. You should stop acting like he's as totalitarian as you are.

[Malika la Maize]

Hey, you want to run afoul of Dear Leader and have your MTG moment, be my guest!

[hobie]

Speaking of under the bus...need to make room for Vivek. Speaking to the racists at a Turning Point, he denounced the rising Nazi trope of 'blood-and-soil' nationalism on the Right.

"He went further on Friday, saying that people who cannot denounce hateful ideas toward any ethnic group “without stuttering” do not have a “place as a leader at any level in the conservative movement.”

Hear that hayseeds? No more badmouthing the brownies. But since racism is now an official plank, Vivek's bucking the party. So it's bus time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/us/politics/vivek-ramaswamy-anti-indian-hate.html

[Dr. Ed 2]

Both sides have their racist wings -- the left is considerably worse in this regard.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Cry me a river of tears -- not only have women historically gotten married at age 14 but did she really think she was being given what would be a $10,000 vacation with nothing expected in return?

Jewish law -- bat mitzvah -- girls are adults at age 12-13 and Jewish law has held that for how many thousand years?

So which is it -- was the 14 year old entitled to the responsibilities of adulthood -- or should she have been fitted with a chastity belt and/or locked in a convent until -- whatever age...

I really don't make a distinction between her having sex with a 15 year old and a 50 year old -- personally, I think *both* are wrong, but that is just me imposing my values on her.

[Malika la Maize]

Ed goes full statutory rape.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, Ed goes full "let's be legally consistent, damn it."

She either is -- or is not -- old enough to make her own decision if she will (a) engage in sexual intercourse and (b) accept the consequences of having done so.

Legally, she is either emancipated or she isn't, my personal preference would be for her not to be, but I'm just saying that the law should be consistent here. She shouldn't be allowed to have a good time today and then turn around next week and claim to be a "victim."

And where the hell were these girl's parents -- and in their absence, the state departments of social services?

And as the stake of ash, I can think of a more appropriate place for it after the last comment.

[Malika la Maize]

The wrongness in statutory rape is on the adult who should know better than to take advantage of an underage person.

[Frank Drackman]

What if she says she’s 18 and more importantly looks 18?

[Bwaaah]

That you chose the term "statutory rape" instead of merely "rape" is explicit acknowledgement of Dr. Ed's point, however unintended that acknowledgement may have been.

Sincerely,
Disaffected Liberal

[Malika la Maize]

How do you figure?

[jb]

The MAGA cult is pretty wild. For years, y'all were using the terms "pedo" and "groomer" as the go-to attack against liberals. But the second it looks like Trump might be a bit more into young girls than most of society is comfortable with, suddenly we're trying to make America great again by celebrating sex between old men and 14 year old girls.

[Dr. Ed 2]

MAGA celebrates a 14-year-old girl having a mother who knows where she is going and with whom, and a father who says "you will not go out of this house dressed like that" when appropriate.

[Magister]

Cry me a river of tears -- not only have women historically gotten married at age 14 but did she really think she was being given what would be a $10,000 vacation with nothing expected in return?

That point is rather ugly without having anything to do with statutory rape. Buying sex is widely illegal regardless of the ages involved; but historically you had to be older than 14 to enter into legal contracts, because we widely view young people as incapable of making such decisions on their own.

Dr. Ed 2 has previously rejected the notion of spousal rape; I have not seen Dr. Ed 2 explicitly rejecting the notion of rape by deception or rape of someone too drunk to consent, but he's generally known for blaming women in pretty much all situations.

[David Nieporent]

Ed goes full statutory rape.

That isn't even the worst rape he's endorsed this week.

[TwelveInchPianist]

He...endorsed rape twice?

[David Nieporent]

Yes. He explained that it's okay for men to rape their wives because "I do" is in his view inherent consent to have sex whenever the husband wants it.

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bigZ1fmwD-Q&t=8s

[Sarcastr0]

In another context it'd be pretty funny. They blacked out dang near everyone except Bill Clinton.

It's pretty blatantly fucking around and not following the law. If only they had a ton of time to work on this.

[Stephen Lathrop]

If only the nation had a ton of time to remedy judicial fecklessness at the Supreme Court. The mid-terms are on the way. The deny and delay scenario is well-practiced. It worked. If it works again, the mid-term election will be undermined before it properly begins.

I am at a loss to understand Democratic Party politics predicated on the notion they can win by making election issues out of governance crises, when the Court has shown again and again it knows how to bar that tactic with aversion and delay—and intends to do so.

[Joe_dallas]

What does the Supreme court have to do with the Epstein tapes that were released?

[Riva]

Cover up? Good thing we have democrats adding unnecessary amateurish redactions to make exonerating photos and emails look like they somehow incriminate President Trump. And further showing their commitment to full disclosure, the Clintons are avoiding giving any testimony. Also good thing there are so many other democrats who were associated with Epstein who can help us understand their relationships.

[Malika la Maize]

Democrats are adding redactions to the DOJ released files?

[ThePublius]

Yes! It's been in the news.

[Malika la Maize]

Cite?

[ThePublius]

You're kidding, right?

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/house-democrats-release-photos-of-trump-clinton-and-andrew-from-epsteins-estate/

"A spokesperson for the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee accused Garcia and Democratic lawmakers of “cherry-picking photos and making targeted redactions to create a false narrative about President Trump,” adding that nothing in the documents the committee has received shows “any wrongdoing” by the president."

[Malika la Maize]

Try again. That was a release from the Epstein estate, we’re talking about the files being released by the DOJ.

[Riva]

Fortunately plenty of democrats around who probably have first hand knowledge of most of the underlying accounts. And I do know Congressional democrats amateurishly redacted a couple of exonerating emails leaked from a trove of material that quite clearly implicated democrats. And that the democrat affiliated press later followed up with same clownish trick on a couple of photos.

[Malika la Maize]

So that’s a no?

[Riva]

Over the years democrats have done their level best to ignore and/or cover up anything Epstein. Ask the Clintons. If there was any “cover up, it was democrat orchestrated, notwithstanding their now amateurish attempts to create a new narrative to attack President Trump and distract from their own grossly unpopular agenda. Epstein actually hated President Trump, probably ever since he tossed his ass out of Mar a Lago.

[Malika la Maize]

You’re just deflecting, you claimed Democrats were redacting the files the DOJ is releasing, when asked to back that up you could not.

[Riva]

No, I pointed out that democrats engaged in leaks and bad faith unnecessary redactions in amateurish attempts to impugn President Trump. I noted further that democrats were associated with Epstein and have shown no public interest in disclosure until this year. And I noted further that the Clintons want anything but disclosure. I also suggested that, if there was a “cover up,” those most prominently associated with Epstein (that would be democrats) most likely orchestrated it.

[Drewski]

"we have democrats adding unnecessary amateurish redactions"

Of course nobody here takes you seriously so I'm not sure why I bothered to copy from your comment to show the obvious, clumsy lie. A little bored I guess.

[Riva]

What lies? An X message from Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) November 17, 2025 "...So what did Democrats do? They leaked 3 cherry-picked emails out of 23,000 pages—then made their own redactions to hide exonerating facts. One name they blacked out? Virginia Giuffre. Why? Because she publicly said she NEVER saw Trump do anything wrong"
https://x.com/GOPoversight/status/1990470030962913409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Democrats next post a 1998 image of Trump at Mar a Lago posing with five young women with the women's faces blacked out to suggest that they were underage. They were adult models who worked for Hawaiian Tropic participating at an event at Mar a Lago. They do the same thing with other photos.

And maybe you missed the news of the Clintons doing their best to avoid giving testimony? Or the years of news preceding of democrats and democrat leaning celebrities and their adventures with Epstein?

[Malika la Maize]

We were talking about the redactions on the files the DOJ recently released. So you were just whatabouting.

[Riva]

No, "we" weren't. You were attempting to create some false narrative relating to Epstein with a NY Times story about DOJ file redactions. I was pointing out the real corruption and misbehavior relating to Epstein points squarely at the democrats who think they can now manipulate public opinion by exploiting all things Epstein. Leaked emails and photos amateurishly doctored to incriminate President Trump failing spectacularly we now have more absurd reports from The NY Times.

Democrat are bastards but they are determined bastards. Determined bastards who project a lot.

[Dr. Ed 2]

My land acknowledgement:

This land was cleared by White Christians.
This country was founded by White Christians.
This university was built by White Christians to educate White Christians, which should be the overriding priority of this university.

[Malika la Maize]

Fuck those Jews, right Ed?

This kind of thing, like most racism, is so goofy. Why stop at that level of abstraction? The country was founded by people from Great Britain and Ireland, is as accurate.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I was trying to make a point and you fell flat on your face.

And for the record, I was including the Jews in the cohort of "White Christians" because they largely acted like them.

[Malika la Maize]

“And for the record, I was including the Jews in the cohort of "White Christians" because they largely acted like them.”

lol, sure! Talk about falling flat on your face!

[Dr. Ed 2]

They did -- they were members of the community.

[Malika la Maize]

They weren’t Christians, which is what you limited it to.

[jb]

"Monotheist" doesn't roll off the White Nationals tongue in the same way, though.

[Estragon]

“acted like them”

Oy vey.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The theological differences between my faith and the Catholic faith are greater than the theological differences between my faith and the Jewish faith.

Living with people in a community doesn't mean that you all go to the same house of worship.

[Malika la Maize]

“my faith”

Incelism?

“are greater than the theological differences between my faith and the Jewish faith.”

That’s laughable, but even were it true it wouldn’t warrant using the term Christian to mean Jews as you now claim you meant.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Puritanism.

And stake, meet hammer....

[Estragon]

This is actually unintentionally revealing. The inclusion of Jews in the white nationalist’s concept of the volk was, is, and will continue to be conditional. As long as they “act like” the right sort of people. We’ve already had Bob in this very comment section proclaiming who is and is not a “real” Jew. Wanna bet whether that determination depends entirely upon ones political usefulness to the fascist project unfolding? Earth to Blackman, Bernstein, and others: these people are not your friends.

“I decide who is a Jew.”

-Karl Lueger.

[SRG2]

The theological differences between my faith and the Catholic faith are greater than the theological differences between my faith and the Jewish faith.

Bullshit.

[bernard11]

The theological differences between my faith and the Catholic faith are greater than the theological differences between my faith and the Jewish faith.

No, they are not, assuming you are a Christian. If you are not then who knows.

[Riva]

Isn’t that the tagline of all the sick pro Hamas democrats? Soon it’ll be on a plaque in Gracie Mansion. Gotta globalize that intifada.

[Longtobefree]

This land was taken by force of arms from those who had taken it by force of arms.
You want it "back"? Come and take it.

[Malika la Maize]

Might makes right is a long tenet of fascism.

[Bruce Hayden]

So, it’s fine that Native Americans took the land by force, from other Native Americans, but this had to stop around 1800, because Reasons. Never mind that “white” men have held the land longer than the latest tribe of Indians ever did. In the case of the Lacota Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne, “whites” have held the land now for twice as long now, as those tribes did.

I couldn't believe my daughter’s church service in Boulder a couple years ago, when the minister led the congregation in a Land Acknowledgement for the land they were sitting on, right before the Benediction. They included the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Utes, the first two having taken the land from the third around 1800, and lost it to “whites” by the 1860s through 1870s.

[bernard11]

This land was cleared by White Christians.

No black laborers? How do you know?

This country was founded by White Christians.

Thousands of blacks fought on the American side in the Revolution. Many more fought for the British, true, but one can hardly blame them, since they were promised freedom. There were no blacks at the Continental Congress or the Constitutional Convention. I guess they just weren't interested, or maybe something else prevented their attendance. Wonder what.

This university was built by White Christians to educate White Christians, which should be the overriding priority of this university.

Even in cases where your first clause is true, the idea that we have an obligation to honor the bigotry and racism of the past is odious, not to mention stupid.

[Malika la Maize]

The etymology of mistletoe — a plant with small, oval evergreen leaves and waxy white berries — likely comes from the Anglo-Saxon words for manure — "mist" or "mistel" — and "tan" (sometimes rendered as "toe"), meaning "twig" or "stick."

"It literally means bird poop on a twig," according to Susie Dent, a British lexicographer and author of Guilt by Definition.

The name stems from the way its seeds are carried by birds and dropped after passing through their digestive tract. This method of seed dispersal is called endozoochory, says Tristram Seidler, a biology professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the curator of the UMass Amherst Herbarium.

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/17/nx-s1-5641015/mistletoe-dung-manure-etymology

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bird poop is a double-edged sword. Necessary ecologically, and not just because birds need to poop. As you mention, it is essential for the propagation of many plants. Of course it also spreads disease. And as a byproduct of the commercial poultry industry, it has become a pollutant scourge. It has dome much to degrade the Chesapeake region.

Bird poop is a fertilizer of more-than-generally-appreciated importance. In Rocky Mountain ecology it makes forest growth possible across wide areas where forests would be otherwise impossible. Those are areas where phosphorus is low-to-non-existent in the rock, and thus also in the soils. Lack of phosphorus thwarts forest growth.

But many of those areas historically hosted salmon runs, after which the corpses of dead salmon lined the stream banks, got eaten by scavenging birds, with their ocean-derived phosphorus spread upward in bird poop to provide on mountain slopes above the streams a missing element necessary to grow forests.

More than 50 years ago, a few ecologists noticed all that, and predicted that dam building in the Columbia drainage would block salmon runs, cut off the phosphorus distribution, and kill vast tracts of forest which were growing on phosphorus-poor mountain soils. That came true. The predicted forest destruction is now widely evident.

Not much vegetation is replacing the dying trees. Erosion into the streams now threatens to make restoration of the salmon runs challenging, even if dams were removed.

That is just one of many cautionary reminders that would-be ecological engineers will likely never achieve capacity to either anticipate their mistakes adequately, or to correct them afterwards. Leaving wild stuff alone is what can work, but organizing the politics to make that happen remains nearly impossible.

Our society features indoor people and outdoor people, with the fraction of the former ever on the increase. Only the latter are likely even to notice wild changes that threaten evgeryone. And small minorities lack political influence, unless they are rich.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Before the Chesapeake Region was the Kennebec Valley -- to this day the Belfast (ME) High School teams are called the "Belfast Broilers." That all died in the 1960s.

Human sewerage in the rivers was one thing, as were the paper mills, but I don't remember anything about chicken farms polluting.

[Bruce Hayden]

The big problem with erosion is fire suppression, by the USFS (and BLM). Driven by zEast Coast liberals who have never lived in the area or around century old huge carniforous forests. The climax ponderosa pine, spruce, and fir trees have evolved thick bark, to withstand small, floor level, fires every decade or two. Thats also when their cones open up, to seed the next generation. The underbrush is burned, but not the big trees. But now, with fire suppression, a century of fuel has built up, and the fires ultimately get hot enough to set the crowns on fire. And those fires are almost impossible to stop. So in the NW, extending into W MT and N ID, whe get f ire’s almost every year that generate enough h smoke that air quality is unbreathable (AQI often in the 300s, sometimes up in the 400s). Hand most of the USFS budget is now spent fighting these fires, leaving not.hing for normal maintenance. And that is where a lot of the runoff problems come from.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Blueberries, raspberries, and (wild) strawberries are spread the same way.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

When kissing someone, I guess having some form of "poop" above you is better than doing so while stepping in the stuff.

[ThePublius]

How about this:

"Kopi Luwak (Civet Coffee)
Kopi Luwak is an Indonesian coffee produced from coffee cherries that have been eaten and excreted by the Asian palm civet, a small, cat-like mammal.
Process: The civet eats the ripe coffee cherries, but the inner beans remain undigested and pass through its digestive tract. During this process, the beans undergo a unique fermentation due to digestive enzymes and gastric juices which break down proteins, reducing the coffee's bitterness and altering its flavor profile.
Taste: The resulting coffee is noted for its smooth, less acidic, rich, and earthy flavor with hints of chocolate and caramel.
Cost & Ethics: It is one of the world's most expensive coffees, with a single cup potentially costing up to $80. However, the high demand has led to significant animal welfare concerns, as many civets are captured from the wild and kept in poor conditions or force-fed on commercial farms."

There's also an elephant variety:

"Black Ivory Coffee: Produced in Thailand using coffee beans eaten and digested by elephants."

[Drewski]

The civet is not in fact a bird though.

[David Nieporent]

https://birdsarentreal.com/

[Bruce Hayden]

Arent they bats? We were assured that they carried SARS type bat carried coronaviruses, as the source of SARS-2 (giving us COVID-19).

OF course, it later came out that the precursor for this virus was collected by researchers and transported by them to the Chinese bat virus research lab in Wuhan, China, where further Gain of Function modifications were made (apparently using standard CRISPR tools), to actually create the SARS-2 virus. That virology lab in Wuhan apparently had researchers who were COVID-19 Patients Zero, and more bat viruses stored than any other lab in the world.

[John F. Carr]

I went to a talk by the Ig Nobel prize-winning Kopi Luwak specialist. He could detect fake Kopi Luwak. Some people were selling coffee beans that had not really been embedded in animal poop.

[Longtobefree]

Anyone else find this amusing?

"We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them . . .
. . . We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time."

Not a lot of 'ownership' is it?

[Magister]

You own your car even if I reserve the right to tow it from my driveway.

[Davy C]

You own your car and don't lose ownership by parking it in the Reason headquarters parking lot, but if you park it across 4 spots they might have it removed. It's still your car - you just can't keep it *here* anymore.

[John F. Carr]

You can repost your deleted comment on Bluesky or Truth, whichever suits your brand of extremism.

[hobie]

Armed Jewish settlers, under cover by IDF forces who fire tear gas, have been on a rampage in the West Bank; burning crops and villages to the ground and expelling or killing the Palestinians that live there. In the linked PBS video, a funeral procession for some of the murdered villagers were surrounded by yet more armed settlers, and some of the relatives in attendance were killed execution style.

https://www.pbs.org/video/west-bank-violence-1724276092/

[DDHarriman]

"Never Again!!! " they cry as they raze your fields and rape your women and kill your children...

[Drewski]

Maybe they shouldn't have attacked an Israeli child for herding his goats nearby (on Israeli soil).

[Malika la Maize]

Is your argument that it’s ok to kill the relatives of a person be buried if the person being buried did a bad thing?

[Bruce Hayden]

You murder an Israeli kid on their own land, expect your village, and a couple more to be razed. With their Arab/Muslim neighbors, it doesn’t work to just catch the perpetrator. The in terrorem effects of a bit of overkill is necessary to make it stop.

[Frank Drackman]

Just pretend it’s Oct 7 and you won’t give a fuck.

[hobie]

Killing unarmed civilians is always thrilling, Frankie.

[Frank Drackman]

They all look they have arms to me.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Nuke Gaza....

[DDHarriman]

Biden won Georgia by 11,779 votes. Now, over 5 years later, they admit 315,000 votes in Georgia were actually counted illegally.

Fulton County admits they "violated" the rules in 2020 when they certified ≈315K early votes that lacked poll workers' signatures

"We don't dispute the allegation."

The SOS also found FC "violated Official Election... Processes"

It's even worse than no poll worker signatures

They didn't verify *voter* signatures for mail-in ballots

Source: sworn testimony from a Fulton election official in an evidentiary hearing during the Fani Willis RICO case

https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/2002340981287629001

https://x.com/AndrewElgert/status/2002377001902965056

This is how the Democrats saved our sacred democracy!

[jb]

I thought it was bad enough when Longtobefree recycled this nothingburger yesterday (only two days late to the party), but now you're a day behind him, even. You guys gotta coordinate your talking points better; seems pretty obvious that you're all drinking from the same haterade fountain when we get the same exact story three days out of four...

[ThePublius]

So what? It's still interesting, and the story is less than a week old. You are apparently dismissing it and hope people stop talking about it, and it goes away.

David N tried to hand wave it away, yesterday, I think, as if it doesn't really matter if election LAW wasn't followed in certifying the tapes. Well, it does matter. I want an investigation into how this was violated on such a large scale in Fulton county, and by whom. And, those 315k votes should be thrown out, and to the people disenfranchised, take it up with your election board.

[Drewski]

It's not interesting though. MAGAs making fake election fraud claims got old years and years ago. It's more of the same.

[ThePublius]

But this isn't a fake claim. It really happened, and Fulton county concedes that it did.

[Drewski]

It is a fake claim, though. Fulton County is about as credible as Dr. Ed. This is just more crank stuff.

[ThePublius]

No, it's not a fake claim! Geez.

"Earlier this month, Fulton County admitted that approximately 315,000 early votes from the 2020 election were illegally certified but were nonetheless still included in the final results of that election."

https://thefederalist.com/2025/12/17/fulton-county-we-dont-dispute-315000-votes-lacking-poll-workers-signatures-were-counted-in-2020/

[DDHarriman]

Now he's going to say the Fulton County civil servants are lying today, but weren't lying back then.

They cannot ever accept what everyone else saw on 2020, their entire worldview would collapse. They are entirely invested into whatever narrative the DNC pumps out.

[Drewski]

Indeed, they are lying today. What it to our resident Iranian troll?

[DDHarriman]

"The people in government tell the truth when they say things I already believe or desperately, pathetically need to, otherwise they are lying!"

-- Drewski

[Drewski]

You can't upset me. We all know you're a foreign troll. Being dishonest and lobbing insults is your stock in trade, being disruptive is your bread and butter. It's not personal.

[jb]

It's a real claim that a minor procedural step wasn't followed. It is not a real claim that this is evidence of massive fraud.

I suspect if you went and audited the procedures in a big red state jurisdiction like Dallas you'd also find some errors in election administration. As I mentioned yesterday, that's why there's always multiple fail-safes so even if one procedural safeguard isn't followed, others will make sure that we still get to an accurate result.

[jb]

Oops

[ThePublius]

It's not minor.

"Georgia’s Secretary of State Office investigated the alleged failure to sign tabluation tapes and “substantiated” the findings that Fulton County “violated Official Election Record Document Processes when it was discovered that thirty-six (36) out of thirty-seven (37) Advanced Voting Precincts in Fulton County, Georgia failed to sign the Tabulation Tapes as required [by statute],” according to a 2024 investigation summary. In addition to probing the unsigned tabulation tapes, the investigation also found that officials at 32 polling sites failed to verify their zero tapes.

Georgia law requires that election officials have each ballot scanner print three closing tapes at the end of each voting day. Poll workers must sign these tapes or include a documented reason for refusal. Voting laws also require poll workers to begin each day of voting by printing and signing a “zero tape” showing that voting machines are starting at zero votes.

If there is no record of whether the tabulator was set at zero at the start of polling, there is no way of telling whether ballots from a previous election (or ballots from a test run) were left on the memory card and might later be counted. Notably, this happened in Montana, where officials discovered more votes than were cast and believe the votes were leftover sample data that had not been cleared."

https://thefederalist.com/2025/12/17/fulton-county-we-dont-dispute-315000-votes-lacking-poll-workers-signatures-were-counted-in-2020/

[jb]

By the way, the Montana situation actually makes two important points:

(1) They did actually get to an incorrect result due to the error (unlike in Fulton County), and then caught it due to the failsafes, and then corrected the problem.
(2) If you were to apply your remedy in the Montana election, then all of the ballots would have been disqualified, so then there would be no outcome. This makes it pretty obvious that the right remedy is a recount, not disqualifying all of the ballots. Unless you think they should have just left the office open until the next election since no one won?

[Sarcastr0]

As jb said, there is that the same haterade fountain!

[Josh R]

Georgia recounted all their votes. If there was hanky-panky in how the machine counts were tabulated, the recount would have uncovered it.

[Bruce Hayden]

Except that the ballots being recounted were just as illegal.

Yes, we don’t know that not violating election law would have resulted in Trump winning the state, but it’s likely. The number of fraudulently counted ballots was more than two orders of magnitude larger than Biden’s winning margin in the state, and during that election, Dems early voted far more than Republicans did. It wasn’t until the 2024 election that a lot of Republicans started early voting.

Of course, what really looks bad is that the DA prosecuted Trump for questioning the 2020 election, and its integrity, when it turns out that the Fulton County fraud admitted to was more that 150 times the margin that Trump lost by.

[Magister]

It may be that election law was violated, but the consequence of violating that law is not to disenfranchise the people who voted.

[Mr. Bumble]

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

[DDHarriman]

If those were unlawful ballots, then counting them as official disenfranchises the votes.

[Magister]

The ballots themselves were not unlawful, though. Not counting votes that voters cast would disenfranchise the voters.

[SRG2]

This must be some new definition of "disenfranchise".

[Bruce Hayden]

But we don’t know how many of those 350k illegal ballots counted were from real people. Probably some, but unlikely all.

[jb]

The main point of the "so what" is that it's tiresome to see the same group of people trot out the same stories from the same ragebait blogs rather than doing any critical thinking of their own. It does let us get a sense of what's trending amongst the White Nationalist crowd without having to wade through all that garbage ourselves, I guess. But one repost per topic is really plenty, thanks!

"And, those 315k votes should be thrown out, and to the people disenfranchised, take it up with your election board."

Okay, I retroactively declare those votes to be thrown out and that Trump won Georgia in 2020. Good job, Trump! Now he lost the electoral college by a little less, 5 years after the fact. You happy now?

[ThePublius]

So, why have election laws, anyway, if it's O.K. for people to violate them, with no consequences, and no consideration as to them meaning and impact of the violation?

Don't you see that in this case election workers could have easily generated 100's of thousands of fake votes via 'test runs,' after which the machines were not zeroed, as there were no certified zero tapes?

Why do you think those laws are in place?

[jb]

No one is saying that it's OK for people to violate election laws. But there's lots of laws and the election system overall should be designed in such a way that minor errors like this one aren't material to the outcome. There's also a law against jaywalking in most jurisdictions, but we don't treat jaywalking the same as murder. Similarly, these ballots don't deserve the death penalty due to a minor procedural violation.

"Don't you see that in this case election workers could have easily generated 100's of thousands of fake votes via 'test runs,' after which the machines were not zeroed, as there were no certified zero tapes?"

No they could not have, and this is my whole point. Because there's there's other checks to make sure that the results match up other than the signature. In fact, the signature is the least valuable of all of the checks, because of course there's nothing stopping someone from signing something even if what they're signing isn't true. The signature provides accountability, but not accuracy.

Specifically, in this case, if they didn't zero the memory card, then the total number of votes on the card wouldn't match the total number of ballots cast. Also, there was a FULL MANUAL RECOUNT of the physical ballots, so we don't need to rely on what was on the memory card at all.

Anyway, why do you care now? I already declared the votes to be invalid, Trump to be the retroactive winner, so you got the result you wanted.

[DDHarriman]

Because we want accountability for the fuckers that stole the election.

If there is no accountability then they will just cheat again and if your side can continue to cheat and steal elections with impunity human freedom is gone.

How on Earth could you not figure this out for yourself?

[jb]

Well, lucky for you those people aren't going to do it again because they've been replaced:

Ann Brumbaugh, attorney for the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, told the SEB in the hearing that while she has “not seen the tapes” herself, the county does “not dispute that the tapes were not signed.” Brumbaugh continued, “It was a violation of the rule. We, since 2020, again, we have new leadership and a new building and a new board and a new standard operating procedures. And since then the training has been enhanced. ”

But also, you're an idiot since none of this has anything to do with cheating or serves as evidence the election was "stolen".

Double also, I declared the ballots to be disqualified as ThePublius wanted, so now both of you got the outcome you wanted.

[ThePublius]

Have you ever been to a casino, especially an 'unground' casino? You think those roulette wheels, card dealing machines, etc., are all on the level? Same with these voting machines. If something can be 'fixed,' corrupted, gamed, or cheated, it's going to happen.

Well, unless you were born yesterday, then, no, everything's on the up and up.

[ThePublius]

s/unground/underground

[jb]

Cool analogy. Now explain how the missing signatures somehow corrupted the hand recount of the actual physical ballots.

[bernard11]

I've been to lots of casinos, though no underground ones.

And yes, I think all that stuff is on the level, or at least not deliberately rigged by the operators. Casinos are heavily regulated and monitored, and honestly run casino games are quite profitable. (Unless you are Donald Trump it's tough to lose money owning a casino. ).

Why would you risk losing your license to run a business where, essentially, your customers come in and give you money, for the sake of a few extra dollars?

[Estragon]

lol seriously. The only thing worse than fucking a chicken is fucking a four day old chicken that has already been thoroughly fucked by a bunch of your fellow travelers. Yuck.

[ThePublius]

Yea, as your Queen, Hillary Clinton said "What difference, at this point, does it make?"

Sure. It's a five year old story that's just coming to light. You and your fellow dismissive progs wave your hands and say 'drop it, it's old news.' No, sorry, it's not. Nothing happens overnight, and nothing gets resolved, or addressed, no less punished overnight.

[Estragon]

“Queen”

We don’t do that stuff. That’s you guys.

Anyways, knock yourself out with this.

[Estragon]

“Nothing happens overnight.”

Yeah whatever happened with the bamboo ballots? And the smart thermostats? Have the cyber ninjas wrapped up their investigation yet?

[Frank Drackman]

Little suspicious that John Lewis still cast a ballot in 2020, he took that “Souls to the Polls” seriously

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's the two US Senators elected because of this that did the real damage.

[David Nieporent]

Biden won Georgia by 11,779 votes. Now, over 5 years later, they admit 315,000 votes in Georgia were actually counted illegally.

Nobody, of course, "admitted" any such thing. No law commanded — or even authorized — those votes not to be counted.

And the second claim is completely unsupported. Nobody said that they didn't verify signatures. The testimony was about the use of a specific machine.

[ThePublius]

Nobodyt asserted that the voter's signatures weren't verified. It's that the election workers failed to sign the tapes, thereby certifying them. And it wasn't one machine, it was 36 of 37.

[David Nieporent]

Nobodyt asserted that the voter's signatures weren't verified.

Um, did you read the OP? Quoting it:

It's even worse than no poll worker signatures

They didn't verify *voter* signatures for mail-in ballots

Source: sworn testimony from a Fulton election official in an evidentiary hearing during the Fani Willis RICO case

[...]
https://x.com/AndrewElgert/status/2002377001902965056

There were two claims in Voltage!'s post. One was the one about not signing the tapes. The other was about voter signatures not being verified.

[jay.tee]

No law commanded — or even authorized — those votes not to be counted.

Are you really an attorney? Does that sort of partisan horseshit “reasoning” work in court?

The statute states something must occur in order for the votes to be certified. That something did not occur. Thus, certifying those votes broke the law.

[David Nieporent]

Are you really an attorney? Does that sort of partisan horseshit “reasoning” work in court?

Yes, and — minus the mischaracterization — yes.

The statute states something must occur in order for the votes to be certified. That something did not occur. Thus, certifying those votes broke the law.

No, no, and no. First, you are not actually quoting a statute; you are just describing some vague summary of a statute you haven't read. Second, the question of whether a statute or regulation has been violated — in any context — is separate from the question of the remedy for having done so. Third, whether some election tapes should've been certified is an entirely different claim than that the ballots were problematic.

Without evidence that actual ballots were fraudulent, not counting them is virtually never the applicable legal remedy. (Imagine the mischief that could occur if election workers could cause hundreds of thousands of ballots to be disqualified simply by deciding not to sign a ballot tape.)

[Magister]

Any penalty should be on the election workers, not on the voters; not counting their votes would punish the innocent voters. Does the Georgia Election Code specify any particular penalties?

[Bruce Hayden]

But we don’t know how many of those illegally counted ballots were from real people, eligible to vote under GA law. Checking signatures is one of the ways that is checked. 315k ballots, in one county/ alone, were not checked and properly validated.

[Josh R]

As others have said, the question is what the remedy should be. The reason for the procedures that were not followed is to guarantee that the counting was not fraudulent. So in this case, the logical remedy is to recount the ballots. An lo and behold, they were recounted (as the entire state was because the result was close).

[Bruce Hayden]

No. The count was fine. The problem is that the unvalidated ballots were included into the pool of ballots that were to be (and were ) counted. Count them as many times as you like - and you will likely get roughly the same counts. They should never have been counted in the first place, so counting them again just repeats the problem.

Some of the ballots may have been legitimate. Likely many weren’t. But we will never know. The pool of ballots to be counted has been tainted, and none of them should be counted.

[Drewski]

Ten years ago, progs were of one mind: Rape isn't funny, don't joke about rape, and don't use the word "rape" metaphorically. Now they're, like, "But back then we didn't know about child rape!" and just competing for the spiciest takes on Epstein. Mark my words, this unserious approach will not help anyone who's main motivation isn't engagement on Blue sky.

(For the record, I think rape jokes can be funny, but not when they're about actual rapes.)

[Magister]

"Ten years ago, progs were of one mind" - what evidence of this is there?

[Drewski]

I guess you weren't old enough to use the Internet or watch the news back then. You'll have to study it as history or ask people who remember. It's true I did not take comprehensive notes, and if I had you wouldn't accept them, so you'll have to turn to third parties.

[Magister]

If you mean jokes in which the comedian celebrates rape as funny, then I see your point, but progressives are never of one mind on just about anything. Jokes in which rapists and their enablers and defenders are mocked were and are still funny, though, and that's pretty much what's been going on with Epstein because rapists like Trump have largely skated on consequences.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I borrowed The Princess Bride DVD (Criterion Edition), which has a separate DVD of extras. Some interesting stuff.

I checked and see that "Andre the Giant" died only a few years after the film. One extra was a 25th Anniversary interview with the director and the two leads. Rob Reiner made them promise to join together 25 years later. The 40th anniversary is approaching.

The American President was on television. A lot of familiar faces. Michael Douglas is a somewhat surprising choice since many are familiar with his roles having more of an edge. He has his moments. See also, the film The Wonder Boys.

Wikipedia notes that Robert Redford (with Emma Thompson a possibility for the Annette Bening role) was a top pick, but he eventually stepped aside. Various theories on why.

Douglas was good. As was the cast as a whole. Richard Dreyfuss as the heavy (somewhat based on Bob Dole) was a bit of a caricature. OTOH, the whole film did have a fantasy element.

The Aaron Sorkin connection comes out in all the political/West Wing stuff. But I liked the personal stuff (family, colleagues, romance) stuff the best. The final section had the feel of one of those Hallmark Channel films where around the 90 minute mark you wait for the upsetting complication.

[Dr. Ed 2]

American President and the "dish room."

I felt the leftist bias detracted from it.

Murder at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the sum of all fears and Op Center are all great movies without political bias (either way).

[David Nieporent]

"Leftist bias" is a weird way to put it. Setting aside the use of "left" for "liberal," it would be more accurate to call it a liberal perspective or p.o.v..

[Dr. Ed 2]

They are leftists, not liberals!

[David Nieporent]

Those words do not mean whatever you think they mean. It's not possible to be more centrist liberal than Aaron Sorkin.

[John F. Carr]

The first of the BBC House of Cards movies fits that description. The last I thought was too political.

[Michael P]

The other day, someone alleged that Fairfax County was full of undesirables. Those who favor ignoring ICE detainers share responsibility for this murder:

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia/reston-accused-killer-who-set-off-manhunt-was-released-from-jail-a-day-earlier/4031531/

[not guilty]

The Washington Post is reporting that some Republicans in Congress want to authorize the President to grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, whereby privateers are authorized to ply the trade of piracy in service of their country by targeting enemy ships.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/12/19/us-privateers-pirates-trump-letters-of-marque-bill/

Never mind that the Constitution at Article I, § 8 authorizes the Congress, not the President, to do so.

If the madhouse that Trump's second term has becomes prompts a future Congress to grow a spine and assert its role as the predominant branch of government which the drafters of the Constitution contemplated, as Prick Nixon's perfidy once did, maybe some long term good will result. In the meantime, I'm not holding my breath.

[ThePublius]

"...Congress to grow a spine and assert its role as the predominant branch of government..."

Since when did congress become predominant rather than coequal?

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/congress-supreme-branch-of-government-not-coequal/

It's up top at Article I for a reason.

[ThePublius]

That's bullshit . Just because it's listed first doesn't make it superior to the executive and judicial branches.

I know there's debate on this, and lots of revisionist theory saying that Congress is supreme, but that's not how it was set up, nor the intention of the founders.

[Sarcastr0]

From the question you asked, it's clear you had no idea. But you pretend you did and call it 'revisionist' based on just your bare statement.

You're not fooling anyone. You don't know or care about the intent of the founders, you're picking the outcome your want and insisting it's true.

[SRG2]

Since the day the Constitution was ratified - and for very obvious reasons. It's merely some unthinking part of US political theology that the three Powers are coequal. The power to make laws is clearly the primary power.

[David Nieporent]

…and more specifically, the power of the purse. And also, Congress can remove executive and judicial officers, but not the reverse. And Congress is responsible for creating almost all executive and judicial offices in the first place, and defining their powers.

[Bruce Hayden]

And then delegating much of their power to the Executive branch.

Congress can pass laws - but what is becoming more obvious this last year, is that they can’t execute most of those laws that they pass. That is the (almost) sole prerogative of Executive Branch, headed by President Trump.

[not guilty]

"Since when did congress become predominant rather than coequal?"

Read the document itself, doofus. It plainly contemplates Congressional supremacy. In addition to the specifically listed powers of Congress in Article I, § 8, the last paragraph thereof authorizes the Congress:

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. [Emphasis added.]

As Justice Douglas wrote, concurring in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 630 (1952):

In some nations, that power is entrusted to the executive branch as a matter of course or in case of emergencies. We chose another course. We chose to place the legislative power of the Federal Government in the Congress. The language of the Constitution is not ambiguous or qualified. It places not some legislative power in the Congress; Article I, Section 1 says

"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."

Per the express language of Article I, § 8, granting Letters of Marque and Reprisal is a legislative power. Language cannot be clearer.

[ThePublius]

Your 'doofus' insult notwithstanding, it's not so clear cut as you portray. See Federalist #51. The presumed predomination of the legislature was the reason for breaking it in two, the House and Senate.

[Sarcastr0]

Nothing in Fededralist 51 about a bicameral legislature. And rival branches is not the same as co-equal.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise

You really should stop pretending you know things about originalism. It just makes you look dishonest in addition to an outcome-oriented Trumpian monarchist.

[SRG2]

The Constitution takes precedence over The Federalist.

[Estragon]

Because only Congress has the power to remove.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Republicans IN CONGRESS want to give the president this authority.
Article I, § 8 says they can...

[Dr. Ed 2]

More about the Brown/MIT shooter -- how did he call his car rental company two days after he was dead???

[Zarniwoop]

Cite your source, so we know what you're hallucinating about.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Providence Police Affadavit, cited above

[Estragon]

I did not realize Mr Kharbouch had passed away