Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[Kazinski]

December CPI came out Tuesday morning, and it looks pretty good.

All.items CPI was .3 for the month and 2.7% for the whole year.

Core inflation was .2 m/m and 2.6% for the whole year.

The baseline CPI number of 2.7% was of course .2% lower than 2024 2.9% CPI.

Food at home was up .7% for December but still 2.4% for the year, which is lower than the overall CPI rate.

But there was some good news, "Meat, Poultry, fish and eggs" actually dropped -.2% for December, but was up 3.9% for the year. I hope that number keeps dropping.

One kind of strange thing I noticed, Cereals and baked goods went up .6%, but that was the seasonally adjusted number, the unadjusted number was .2%. That's a healthy adjustment, if fact the unadjusted Food at Home was just .5, quite a bit lower than the adjusted .7 too.

Its almost guaranteed next months Y/Y total will drop, even without any substantial improved in January's monthly number.

But the bottom line is inflation in 2025 of 2.7%, dropped .2% from 2024 inflation despite Trump's tariffs breaking the entire world's economy.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_01132026.htm

[Malika la Maize]

Does it hurt your fingers, the cherry picking?

[Kazinski]

What's cherry picked? This is the only CPI report this month.

This hardly glosses ignores the worst part of the report:
"Food at home was up .7% for December but still 2.4% for the year, which is lower than the overall CPI rate.

But there was some good news, "Meat, Poultry, fish and eggs" actually dropped -.2% for December, but was up 3.9% for the year. I hope that number keeps dropping."

I thought food affordability was a big issue.

If I was just cherry picking I would have said Used Cars and Truck prices declined by -1.1% in December, New Cars were unchanged and only up 0.3% for the entire year. And Gas prices were down another -.5%, and -3.4%, and left it at that.

And speaking of Cherries Fruits and Vegetables were unchanged in December, but thanks for bringing it up.

[Ridgeway]

The numbers are a little wonky because of the shutdown, but the trend does not look like it is going in the right direction. CPI increase for Q1 and Q2 totalled 1.2%, while CPI increase for the balance of the year was 1.5%. However, Q4 may have been much less than Q3 (that is where the #s get wonky).

I suspect there will be some significant inflationary pressures in the first half of 2026 if the BBB-related tax refunds really come in as large as predicted. Add to this the $1776 bonuses, and whatever becomes of the $2000 "tariff refunds".

[Josh R]

Again, inflation had slowed to 2.4% on Liberation Day and now remains higher than that.

[Kazinski]

I'm expecting Y/Y inflation to drop to 2.5% after next months report.

The reason for the drop to 2.4% and the boomerang back to 3%, and now back to 2.7% is because spring and summer of '24 were a string of very good reports, when they dropped off the 12 month average bumped up again. The three worst months were November, December of '24, and January '25, its dropping those off the running average that are responsible for a lot of the improvement since September. January of 25 was the worst month of them all at+.5%, when that drops off it will be noticeable.

[John F. Carr]

AP takes a look at other consequences of sex that can be taken care of with a pill in the mail.

https://apnews.com/article/stds-fda-test-gonorreah-drug-visby-infection-2ff8c2ce9c757a2ad9eb599b291587ef

At-home STD tests following the design of the at-home COVID tests are available. One kit comes bundled with a telehealth consultation to get a prescription. New STD drugs have been recently approved. Samples for HPV tests can be collected at home and sent to a lab, no office visit required.

There is a lot of action by the FDA in a sensitive area during a time of cutbacks.

[Moderation4ever]

While I think that at home testing is valuable STDs and Covid are not the same. Covid is self limiting for most people and merely requires them to take reasonable measures for their own health and the health of others. STDs require follow-up treatment. I understand that granting privacy in testing may result in more testing. I hope those testing positive follow up for treatment. Cost will be another issue, because the people for whom home testing is most effective may not have the money for the test. If these home test are to be successful commercially I suspect the market will bring the price down.

[John F. Carr]

The price does seem high. You're paying a premium over the price of an urgent care visit to feel more privacy.

Maybe the kit makers want to make bulk sales to colleges. UMass was planning to buy enough abortion pills for the entire student body.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The issue that comes to mind is the one relating to HIV testing 40 years ago. The reason people paid cash for those test is that they didn’t want the insurance company to know if they taken one because that would then raise their risk on the presumption that they had a reason to take one.

Big computer is far more intrusive into our lives today, and the fact that someone’s taking an STD test clearly indicates that they live a lifestyle where such a test could possibly be relevant. Is big corporate gonna buy that list and not hire those people?

[David Nieporent]

Is big corporate gonna buy that list and not hire those people?

No. Because nobody except you still thinks, "Oh, that person had sex; what a whore."

[Botaglove]

This is what they voted for (Are conservatives familiar with the "Are we the Baddies?" meme?):

"Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
Q: The premier of Greenland said today, 'We prefer to stay with Denmark.'

TRUMP: Who said that?

Q: The premier of Greenland

TRUMP: Well, that's their problem. I disagree with him. I don't know who he is. Don't know anything about him. But that's gonna be a big problem for him."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Send him to GITMO…

[Martinned]

Who? Trump?

[John F. Carr]

I imagine Trump triumphantly returning home like Napoleon from Elba, backed by an army of terrorist buddies he met in Cuba sharing his goal of deposing the illegitimate regime that succeeded him.

In reality there are not enough prisoners left in Gitmo to make a good army.

[Malika la Maize]

Deranged deplorable, Trump’ s base.

[Sarcastr0]

The United States needs military access to Greenland, which it already has, to defend the Arctic, which it already does, from Russian and Chinese ships, which aren’t actually there.

[Dr. Ed 2]

In Amherst, Massachusetts, anyone present during a disturbance can be arrested for no reason whatsoever and thrown in jail. Anyone within a mile or two of a disturbance can be arrested and thrown in jail. This has been the protocol for nearly 20 years now.

Anyone identified by facial recognition technology as being present, can have a termination of public benefits, I.e. be expelled from UMass.

This has been going on for over 20 years now, it is apparently legal.

Well, why can’t the same thing be done in Minneapolis, Minnesota?
Why can’t ICE establish a perimeter and simply arrest absolutely everybody inside of it. This practice is apparently legal…

What about civil forfeiture — confiscate the vehicles. Let the owners hire lawyers to sue for recovery in Federal Court, and get them back three years later. You wouldn’t have to do much of this to put an end to the pursuit teams.

Likewise, you kinda know these women are receiving public benefits, eliminate them, and put their children in foster care.

The real question I have is why do illegal aliens have more rights than American born college students? When will Trump take off the gloves?

[John F. Carr]

Thanks to the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act seizing property for dubious reasons is harder than it used to be. The government bears the burden of proof and owes attorney's fees if it fights a weak case all the way to a final judgment. The government might get away with holding the car for a few months. A search warrant would accomplish the same thing.

One difference between anti-Trump protesters and college students is, the protesters have a nationwide network of donors to pay for lawyers. The dead woman's family got $1.5 million in short order. The protesters also have the state Attorney General on their side.

[Martinned]

Why can’t ICE establish a perimeter and simply arrest absolutely everybody inside of it. This practice is apparently legal…

Of course they can. And that's basically what they're already doing. Razzias of appartment buildings, etc.

[Martinned]

Here is the Vice-President explaining the Regime's position:

"It was a legitimate law enforcement operation. We were going door to door to try to find criminal illegal aliens and deport them from the United States ... say a prayer for that agent ... he deserves a debt of gratitude."

https://x.com/atrupar/status/2009339619888816381

Yes, "door to door". That's a razzia, and pretty much the very definition of what the 4th Amendment was previously understood as forbidding.

https://x.com/jimstewartson/status/2009411677285216620

[Dr. Ed 2]

The fourth amendment lurks the pursuit of fugitives?

[John F. Carr]

Police may not forcibly enter a private dwelling without a warrant. There may be an exception for "hot pursuit."

But the remedy for an illegal arrest, like kidnapping somebody in Mexico and bringing him to the US to face trial, is not dismissal of a criminal case. A court has jurisdiction over the person brought before it by whatever means.

[John F. Carr]

If you leave immigration out of it, police can go up to a door, knock on it, look intimidating, and ask to come in. Occupants are expected to refuse entry if they don't want the cops to come in. Even if the cop has an aura of "obey or die!" he didn't say it explicitly.

The same sort of logic said a man on a bus whose exit was blocked by a police officer in an aisle was not being detained, only having a voluntary chat.

As I said in yesterday's thread, much of Trump's immigration enforcement uses powers that have long been available. If sanity returns to the country legal changes are in order.

[Martinned]

Yes, "ask", that's definitely what ICE is doing.

[John F. Carr]

Razzia is a rare word in America. It was borrowed into English from French and may be more common in the Netherlands.

Etymologically, it is related to ghazi, a Muslim warrior.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Yes, "door to door". That's a razzia, and pretty much the very definition of what the 4th Amendment was previously understood as forbidding."

It depends on what they do. Cops can do a voluntary knock and talk just like anybody else, and courts often don't enforce the limits placed on them by Jardines.

[jb]

Seems like they are doing a lot more than having friendly chats:

https://youtu.be/rXX5wlVZrV0?si=YqmA44r_tSoZLJnV

[TwelveInchPianist]

Yeah, they need a warrant for that.

[jb]

At least according to the people in that story, they didn't have one.

This is the problem with a lot of what ICE is doing now. Sure, they're presumably doing a bunch of relatively legitimate work, but mixed in with what seems to be an extremely high ratio of obviously illegal and unconstitutional conduct. And anyone who pushes back on this gets accused of obstruction or being an open borders fanatic. As M L points out below, it's not even that effective in terms of the overall number of deportations.

Why are so many people willing to not just put up with, but defend the sorts of systematic abuses we're seeing?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Who's defending that, assuming that they didn't have a warrant?

"Sure, they're presumably doing a bunch of relatively legitimate work, but mixed in with what seems to be an extremely high ratio of obviously illegal and unconstitutional conduct."

As I've said, I don't see any reason to think that the ratio is unusually high for ICE. Videos on youtube of cops making warrantless entries, using excessive force, and other fuckwittery without consequence are a dime a dozen.

[Brett Bellmore]

No kidding; I remember when they had that show years ago that followed cops around and filmed their day, I continually marveled at, not just what they'd do, but weren't even shy about doing with a camera rolling. I am not remotely certain ICE is worse than, say, the DEA. They ARE under a lot more attention right now, though.

[jb]

Obviously we don't have hard data on this, so it's easy for everyone to have their own opinion, but there's a few things that make me reasonably confident that these abuses are a lot more common in the current ICE regime than general policing.

First, I don't think these sorts of events are "a dime a dozen" in the normal course of things. I see several videos a day of blatant abuse from ICE that under normal circumstances would probably have us all debating over that particular incident for a few days or a week. But now they're happening multiple times a day, and right now it's multiple incidents a day just from Minneapolis. It's theoretically possible that this is just due to more scrutiny of ICE than typical police work, but I'm not sure why you'd make that your default assumption.

Second, there's basically no checks against them doing anything illegal. Under normal circumstances, if a cop gets caught doing something questionable on camera, they might be concerned about getting fired or maybe even a criminal investigation. But as the Good shooting demonstrates*, what will happen instead is that the President and the entire media establishment will demonize the victim, the federal government will take over the investigation and not only refuse to investigate whether the LEO did anything bad, but instead go after the victim's wife. And maybe we shouldn't get caught up in that particular incident, but as loki has documented here over the past few months, the government will consistently lie to avoid acknowledging illegal behavior and to protect ICE agents from accountability.

So in a scenario where we have LOTS of reports of ICE agents behaving badly, no accountability when they do, and the government constantly lying about what's actually going on, I take a pretty strong inference that things are not just business as usual.\

Edited to add: I actually think the article that loki posted below looking at the overall context of the Good shooting does a good job of giving some color to the overall environment of civil rights violations and lawlessness without getting too caught up on the specifics of who did what wrong in the few seconds between her putting her car in gear and getting shot to death.

* And I think that Ross probably has a reasonable self-defense claim, even if I also think the shooting was totally unnecessary.

[Kazinski]

That's kind of interesting, it seems like a tactic as much to try to spook people into fleeing as to actually find criminal illegals.

Were the activists honking horns, blowing whistles actually helping ICE?

[Martinned]

Noah Smith has gathered a whole bunch of examples of ICE abuses together in this blog post. Imagine being so authoritarian that even Noah Smith thinks you've gone too far.

Here's how he sums it up:

A number of Republican politicians have defended ICE’s actions with rhetoric that sounds downright authoritarian. Texas Representative Wesley Hunt said: “The bottom line is this: when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life.” Florida Representative Randy Fine said: “If you get in the way of the government repelling a foreign invasion, you’re going to end up just like that lady did.”

Is this America now? A country where unaccountable and poorly trained government agents go door to door, arresting and beating people on pure suspicion, and shooting people who don’t obey their every order or who try to get away? “When a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life” is a perfect description of an authoritarian police state. None of this is Constitutional, every bit of it is deeply antithetical to the American values we grew up taking for granted.

Oh, OK, it turns out it is actually Biden's fault after all:

Why is this happening? Part of it is because of the mistakes of the Biden administration. For the first three years of his presidency, Biden allowed a massive, disorderly flood of border-hopping asylum seekers and quasi-legal migrants of all types to pour into the country, and as a result, Americans got really, really mad. That made immigration into a major issue in the 2024 election, helped Trump get elected, and provided political cover for a dramatic expansion of deportations. Now, probably thanks to ICE’s brutality and the administration’s lawlessness, support for immigrants and disapproval of Trump’s immigration policies are rising again. But the administration still has what it considers a mandate to act with impunity.

But yes:

The only thing left for America to do now is to fight against this ideology. There is no future for a country that declares a third of its people to be illegitimate, and which deploys authoritarian force to intimidate and expel as many of them as possible. Instead, Americans have to insist that the Trump administration stop these abuses, and they have to vote against any politician who embraces the ideology that led to them. Otherwise, events like the killing of Renee Good are likely to become a normal occurrence.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Thank you for explaining why we need to reestablish the Klu Klux Klan.

[Brett Bellmore]

"There is no future for a country that declares a third of its people to be illegitimate,"

Just because somebody breaks into my home and squats in the spare bedroom doesn't mean they're "my people". Illegal immigrants aren't part of our people, they're intruders.

The alternate approach to making deaths like Renee Good's less common is for the opponents of immigration enforcement to accept that we actually have immigration laws, that enforcing them is democratically popular, and that they're just going to have to accept that until they can change the public's opinions and get the laws changed. And stop escalating towards insurrection.

[Martinned]

Shame on you

[Michael P]

Yes, "smart", that's definitely what you are.

Hillary Clinton declared a third of the country to be a basket of deplorables. In contrast, illegal immigrants are more like 6% of the population -- if we assume there are 20 million of them, rather than the more common estimate of 11 million.

Noah Smith's numbers do not pass the sniff test. Neither does his logic, typically.

[David Nieporent]

Hillary Clinton declared a third of the country to be a basket of deplorables.

She did not.

Also, you are pretending not to know that it has gone far beyond illegal immigrants with MAGA. DHS — not merely some Internet rando like Voltage! — tweeted in favor of 100 million deportations a couple of weeks ago.

[Michael P]

This u, bro? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws

[Magister]

So the DHS post was an inadvertent error? But they never acknowledged that, let alone retracted it, nor did they apologize to the artist whose work they used without permission.

[Magister]

Hillary Clinton said half of Trump's supporters were the basket of deplorables: "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic". Polling at the time confirmed that estimate, even if it was an impolitic thing to point out.

From Noah Smith's post following a DHS meme about deporting 100 million:

100 million is far more than the total number of immigrants in the United States (which is estimated at around 52 million). Instead, it’s close to the total number of nonwhite people in the country. So the idea of “100 million deportations” clearly goes well beyond the idea of deporting illegal immigrants, and well beyond the idea of deporting all immigrants, into the territory of ethnic cleansing.

Who do you think are the 100 million to be deported?

[SRG2]

Hillary Clinton said half of Trump's supporters were the basket of deplorables: "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic".

If she had merely sampled the cultists here, she'd have come up with somewhat more than half.

[not guilty]

"Hillary Clinton declared a third of the country to be a basket of deplorables."

Not true at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZHp4JLWjNw She referred to half of Trump's supporters during September 2016.

The estimated population of the U.S. in 2016 was 323,071,755. https://beautifydata.com/united-states-population/by-state/estimate/2016. According to Wikipedia, Trump's popular vote total in 2016 was 62,984,828. Half of that total would be 31,492,414.

Assuming that Trump had some supporters among non-voters, and assuming further that some folks who voted for Trump in November had not yet decided whether to support him two months in advance of the election, the percentage of the population that Hillary Clinton would have put in her "basket of deplorables" was in the single digits.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, shame on you. There are plenty of laws I disapprove of, some of them I think are actually unconstitutional. But do you see me ambushing BATF and DEA agents? Blocking the road when they're transporting arrestees, letting the air out of their tires when they're not looking? Warning drug dealers that the cops are coming?

No, you don't. Partly that's because I'm not a moron, I take prudential considerations a LOT more seriously than Rebecca and Renee Good did, but part of it is that if you're going to live in a democracy, with the rule of law, you have to accept that sometimes you lose votes, and get laws you don't like, and these laws are every bit as legitimate as the ones you did want.

And you have no right to demand that the laws you like be enforced, if you won't let the laws OTHER people like be enforced.

Renee Good was trying to have it both ways: Enforcement of the laws she liked, obstructing the laws that she didn't like. Well, screw that, I don't have to pretend I think that's a respectable position.

[Sarcastr0]

ICE killed a lady. You're attacking the dead lady. With some lies about what she did.

One side is shooting people, ignoring the 4th Amendment, acting like a goon squad.
And that's who you are defending.

Your hate had lead you to get real mad on behalf of the wrong side.

Like, it's super clear:

ICE prosecutor who runs a white nationalist X account returns to work as an ICE prosecutor in immigration court
https://www.texasobserver.org/ice-prosecutor-racist-account-back-at-immigration-court/

[Frank Drackman]

Bonnie Parker was a "Lady" also, so was Squeaky Fromme, you don't get to try to kill a Cop/President and play the Vagina Card.

[DDHarriman]

She tried to runover an officer with her. We have all seen the video.

This is the single most absurd finger wag you have ever done.

You gas light.

You shame.

I don't recall ever seen you pull them out in the same whinge.

[Brett Bellmore]

Said lady tried to run over the ICE agent. You tend to get killed if you do that, that's what I meant by saying I take prudential considerations more seriously than they did.

[Sarcastr0]

No, she didn't try and run them over. As has been explained to you many times. You're not here for the truth, just to defend ICE.

ICE is hiring open white supremacists and acting like Nazis. Not just the shooting, all over. Someone lost an eye; tons of needless property damage. Picking up citizens and kicking them out of the car in random places.

You're defending some truly authoritarian villains.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes. She. Did. She looked straight at him while applying the accelerator. Another ICE agent had his arm in the car at the time.

"ICE is hiring open white supremacists and acting like Nazis. "

Yeah, and Democrats are openly hiring Islamic Jihadists and casually engaging in racial discrimination. Like I said below, we are definitely living in interesting times, way too interesting.

But that doesn't change the fact that you tend to get shot if you try to run over a cop.

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastr0 43 minutes ago
"No, she didn't try and run them over. As has been explained to you many times."

Sarcastro - 6 days after the event and you havent seen the video - or making comments as if you had seen the video.

She was driving the vehicle directly at him which is when he drew the firearm and when he was raising his arm to fire. The time span between driving directly at him to the time she began turning right was too short for the normal human brain to re-evaluate the change in threat. Secondly, its very unlikely the officer had the ability to see the tires move to the right or for the officer to be able to perceive the change in direction, at least in sufficient time to change his reaction.

[Kazinski]

Lets be charitable and just say she had a depraved indifference* of his safety, but no specific intent.

*Depraved indifference means acting with an "utter disregard for the value of human life," showing a willingness to risk death or serious harm to others without intending to cause it, but simply not caring if it happens. It's a mental state in criminal law, often for murder (depraved-heart murder), where someone engages in conduct creating an extremely high risk of death, consciously ignoring that risk, and demonstrating a shocking indifference to human life, even without intending to kill.

[David Nieporent]

Said lady tried to run over the ICE agent.

"Libertarian" hahahahahahahaha.

There are two types of people who claim that she tried to run over the agent: liars, and lying crazy people. Which are you?

[DDHarriman]

The kind that watched the video of her accelerating and hitting the ICE officer.

how bout u?

[Joe_dallas]

DDHarriman 12 minutes ago
"The kind that watched the video of her accelerating and hitting the ICE officer." "how bout u?"

That answer is self evident - see if you or anyone else can find a post where he has commented with any degree of reasonable accuracy of the actual facts from the event.

[David Nieporent]

The kind that watched the video of her accelerating and hitting the ICE officer.

No video shows her hitting him (which is also irrelevant to the question of her intent, anyway), and she drove slowly. You failed to distinguish which of the two types you were.

[Joe_dallas]

David Nieporent 22 minutes ago
"The kind that watched the video of her accelerating and hitting the ICE officer.

No video shows her hitting him "

except the videos that showed contact.

[David Nieporent]

except the videos that showed contact.

No videos clearly showed contact, but the ones that hint at it may show contact between him and the side of her car — that is, if there was contact, he hit the car, not the car hitting him.

Again: he wasn't even knocked down. That — unlike everything you say — is indisputable.

[Joe_dallas]

So now Dishonest DN is attempting to correct his prior repetitive lie yet repeats his distortion.

[Brett Bellmore]

"No video shows her hitting him"

He's technically right. While several of the videos make his having been hit inescapable, no camera was zoomed in on the area between him and the fender of the car, to record the actual point of impact.

So, we know he got hit, and was injured, but don't have those specific pixels.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "Said lady tried to run over the ICE agent."

1. They can't defend Ross without lying. And they know it.

2. At least six prosecutors in Minneapolis U.S. Attorney's office have now given up their jobs, appointments, and careers because they want no part of the Ross lies and coverup.

3. All the video analyses I've seen use the same evidence leading to the same conclusion: Ross was off the car's left front bumper when Good began to go forward with the wheel over hard right. That means the car began to immediate veer away from the officer who was already on its outside edge. Which, in turn, means Ross might have been fine where he stood. At most, to escape the "danger" he have to take a half step to the side. Not even a full step. Maybe not even a half step. That's the "danger" that excuses execution-style murder to the authoritarian bootlickers here.

4. Which leads to problems for their position. Let's say you're not one of the lying deadenders like Brett or Riva, still flailing the crude falsehood that Good tried to run Ross over. That puts you in the camp of (say) Joe_dallas who claims this tiny thimbleful of "danger" (only filled to the halfway mark) so froze Ross' mind in blind terror that he didn't notice the car was pulling away from him with every inch forward. He didn't notice he was completely clear of its path with the first shot. He didn't notice he was totally free and clear while firing two shots - execution-style - through the driver-side open window. Per Joe_dallas, Ross was sleepwalking while he committed cold-blooded murder.

5. And it gets stranger. Because Ross' supposed obliviousness didn't preclude him from taking the half-step to get completely clear. And Ross had to lean forward (towards the car) to get off his first kill shot, since the car was already moving past him and veering away. So the murderer was too oblivious to know he was clear of it's path, but not too oblivious to know he had to lean well over to shoot Good because he was clear of it's path. Strange, that.

6. Of course, since the car was already so far out of his way that first murder attempt only squeezed a bullet in the very corner of the windshield. I suspect the true murder shots were the ones following, gangland-style, through the driver's side open window. We won't know until we get the autopsy results.

7. Speaking of which, where are they? Shouldn't they have been released by now? I suspect they're being kept in the same faraway distant land where the Epstein files are hidden. Because everyone knows the Good murder was dirty - those six prosecutors and the people sitting on the autopsy finding included.

[Joe_dallas]

GRB - Getting more dishonest than Liar David

I made no such statement.
Why fabricate ? perhaps you have to result to fabrications to justify your bona fides .

[grb]

So explain the difference with your position and how it negates the bizarre absurdities that result. Remember : You're the one dishonest enough to claim two execution shots thru the driver's window (as the car passed by) was because Ross was "in danger".

Not that I don't sympathize with your predicament. It's an awesome responsibility, making sure all those jackboots have a gleaming good tongue-polish shine.

[Joe_dallas]

GRB - No - at no point did I infer what you allege. Further, I gave a very detailed explanation of the correct standard based on the facts.
Its you that continues to ignore those facts.

[grb]

Incidentally, when I said everyone knows the Good murder was dirty, that includes Ross himself. That's why he snarled "fucking bitch", walked over to admire his handywork, and then fled the scene in his car.

Granted, my knowledge of LEO SOP is far from comprehensive, but it does come from a zillion mysteries and police procedurals. And I kinda thought an officer who just killed was supposed to stay on the scene. But since Ross realized he'd just committed needless murder from pure choking rage, SOP must go by the board.

[Joe_dallas]

GRB - Exposing your deranged delusions

Its standard procedure for the officer that has shot a suspect to be removed from the scene.

Accusing the officer of leaving the scene is nothing more than being flat out dishonest about standard procedures.

From AI - After an officer-involved shooting, the officer does not simply "leave the scene." They are systematically and quickly removed from the immediate area by a supervisor or a designated companion officer to a secure location for their well-being and to preserve the integrity of the investigation.

[grb]

Also, per my (very limited) expertise in these matters, I would have thought the autopsy findings would already be public. In a case like this, with all its controversy & public discussion, some announcement of preliminary findings would have been automatic.

Of course that assumes the authorities want people to know the facts. But I suspect the exact opposite is true. Because as I note above, the facts are all damning to Ross and his actions.

Some people note Ross was stationed in the same border area where ICE was officially reprimanded for purposely getting in front of cars to justify deadly force. A real investigation - say the one run by the State of Minnesota - needs to look into that. But I'm not sure it wasn't raw incompetence that had Ross in front of the car, fumbling with his phone in one hand and weapon in the other. And (setting entirely aside the issue that Ross was the ONLY one of the officers rousting Good who drew his weapon) raw incompetence and choking murderous rage are a bad combination in a law enforcement officer.

[grb]

Joe_dallas : "From AI .... (etc)"

What does AI say about an officer who shoots a civilian dead and then walks off, gets in his car, and drives away?

AI is gonna have to do some serious heavy lifting on that one......

[Joe_dallas]

grb 9 minutes ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Joe_dallas : "From AI .... (etc)"

What does AI say about an officer who shoots a civilian dead and then walks off, gets in his car, and drives away?

Is that what actually happened ? Or are making shit up as every other leftist has done?

Most likely, he like most every officer knew what the standard procedure was and removed himself from the scene and remained under control of the appropriate official. Of course, attempting to know and understand the facts would not be in your wheelhouse.

[grb]

Per the accounts I'm seeing, Ross was in his car driving away two minutes after murdering Good.

Meanwhile, here are quotes from the "Officer-Involved Shootings: A Guide for Law Enforcement Leaders" from the DOJ (linked below):

"The initial responses of involved officers at the scene, and the steps taken and decisions made thereafter by first responders, supervisors, and investigative personnel, often determine whether an accurate and complete investigation occurs. As such, it is critical to have protocols in place that agencies can immediately activate should an OIS, other deadly force, or in-custody death incident occur. Despite the incredibly stressful nature of an officer-involved shooting event, it is important for officers involved to take initial steps to protect their safety and the safety of others, preserve evidence, and when possible, to perform those actions that will help the investigation of the incident."

And:

"Therefore, to the degree reasonably possible and appropriate, the officer should attempt to focus on just a few key matters. For example, he or she should note immediate surroundings and conditions, such as lighting; persons and vehicles present or recently departed from the scene; potential witnesses, suspects, or accomplices; and other factors. When possible, the involved officer should protect the scene from incursion by bystanders and secure in place or mentally note items of evidentiary value."

And:

"When possible, the officer should identify potential eyewitnesses, separate them, and ask them to remain present to provide a brief statement. If a witness wishes to leave, the officer should obtain contact information for future communications, or provide their supervisor’s contact information and request that they contact him or her."

And:

"If capable, the officer involved in the shooting should assume the responsibility of incident commander (IC) until relieved by a senior officer at the scene or a senior responding officer, supervisor, or investigator. The ICs job is to initiate the incident command system, a strategy employed to deal with situations requiring performance of multiple and often simultaneous tasks. Where necessary, the IC should assign individual responsibility for the completion of tasks. The involved officer, acting as the IC, should, where possible, begin taking actions outlined below. Upon arrival of a senior officer or ranking supervisor, the officer will turn over IC responsibilities to that individual, who will take responsibility for performing or assigning responsibilities for these actions."

Meanwhile, Ross was in his car driving away two minutes after murdering Good.

https://portal.cops.usdoj.gov/resourcecenter/content.ashx/cops-p350-pub.pdf

Of course I have to quote this part again : "The initial responses of involved officers at the scene, and the steps taken and decisions made thereafter by first responders, supervisors, and investigative personnel, often determine whether an accurate and complete investigation occurs."

But no one - Ross, Bovino, Noem, or Trump - wants anything close to an accurate and complete investigation, do they?

[Joe_dallas]

grb 2 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Per the accounts I'm seeing, Ross was in his car driving away two minutes after murdering Good.

Please provide a link
A google search today at 1:30pm today yields little or nothing with any information. Though the first three google search pages have reports of checking in the hospital with internal bleeding.

[bernard11]

Said lady tried to run over the ICE agent.

That's a lie. She in no way tried to run the agent over. I know you've convinced yourself, but it's still a lie.

[Dr. Ed 2]

SHE HIT HIM, THE LEFT FRONT OF HER VEHICLE PHYSICALLY STRUCK THE MAN. EXACTLY WHAT PART OF HITTING SOMEONE WITH A VEHICLE DOESN’T MEAN AT LEAST ATTEMPTING TO RUN OVER HIM?!?

She made eye contact with him. She saw he was standing in front of her. She rubbed up the engine, and the vehicle went so far as to hit him if he had been Black and she, a white supremacist, a male, white supremacist, what would you be saying then?

[David Nieporent]

SHE HIT HIM, THE LEFT FRONT OF HER VEHICLE PHYSICALLY STRUCK THE MAN.

Repeating it doesn't make it so.

EXACTLY WHAT PART OF HITTING SOMEONE WITH A VEHICLE DOESN’T MEAN AT LEAST ATTEMPTING TO RUN OVER HIM?!?

The part where attempting to do something requires an intent to do that thing.

[Joe_dallas]

David Nieporent 26 minutes ago
"The part where attempting to do something requires an intent to do that thing."

Is your legal training that deficient that you keep stating the wrong legal standard for self defense?

Never mind - you havent made an honest comment on this topic over the last 6 days.

1-16-200

[David Nieporent]

Is your legal training that deficient that you keep stating the wrong legal standard for self defense?

Are you retarded? Where do you see the words "self-defense" in my comment?

Dr. Ed asked a question: "EXACTLY WHAT PART OF HITTING SOMEONE WITH A VEHICLE DOESN’T MEAN AT LEAST ATTEMPTING TO RUN OVER HIM?!?"

I quoted that and answered it: "The part where attempting to do something requires an intent to do that thing."

Whether what he did was "self defense" — LOL no — does not enter into that exchange.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, you simply do not put your vehicle in forward motion with somebody standing directly in front of it, even if they're not a cop that's vehicular assault. Likewise you don't put it into motion in either direction when a copy has his arm in your window.

There is simply no way to rationalize her putting the car into drive being legal.

[David Nieporent]

Look, you simply do not put your vehicle in forward motion with somebody standing directly in front of it, even if they're not a cop that's vehicular assault.

I will re-ask the same question I asked the other day (but I'm not going back to find it, so I'll paraphrase): have you ever been walking through a big parking lot? (Grocery store? WalMart? That sort of thing.) Have you never had a car start to pull out of a spot while you were walking past it? When that happened, did you

(a) step/jump out of the way, perhaps cursing at the driver for not being more careful; or
(b) pull out the firearm that I'm sure you were carrying, and start shooting at the driver, claiming that the person was "assaulting" you and that you had no other way to defend yourself?

[Joe_dallas]

David Nieporent 56 minutes ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Is your legal training that deficient that you keep stating the wrong legal standard for self defense?

Are you retarded? Where do you see the words "self-defense" in my comment?

No "self defense " is not in your comment which proves your legal training is deficient. You are using the wrong standard and using non existent facts.
So yes your legal training is deficient.
You also got a link to the standards.

[Joe_dallas]

David Nieporent 18 minutes ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Look, you simply do not put your vehicle in forward motion with somebody standing directly in front of it, even if they're not a cop that's vehicular assault.

I will re-ask the same question I asked the other day (but I'm not going back to find it, so I'll paraphrase): have you ever been walking through a big parking lot?

So how many times over the last 6 days has DN lied about the actual facts or used the wrong legal standard or tried to compare non relevant examples for the Renee Good event? Upwards of a 100?

[David Nieporent]

No "self defense " is not in your comment which proves your legal training is deficient. You are using the wrong standard and using non existent facts.

You have no legal training and don't know what the fuck you're talking about in any way, so why don't you stick to filling out forms for grandmothers in Turbotax and leave every other topic to people smarter and more educated than you? (Which is pretty much everyone other than Dr. Ed.) Self-defense has nothing to do with what I wrote. Self-defense would be the lens with which to evaluate the agent's act, but my exchange with Dr. Ed was about evaluating her act. The two are independent of each other.

[Joe_dallas]

David - I have more than sufficient legal training to recognize that you as an attorney have been lying out your fucking ass on ever legal issue and fact on this case.
Repetitively fabricating facts.
Repetitively using the wrong legal standard .
Repetitively just being a fucking prick.

You have not made a factually correct statement on this case.
You have not used the correct legal standard on this case.

Every layman and every attorney posting on this site knows that have been the most prolific liar on this subject.

[Kazinski]

"The federal agent who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week suffered internal bleeding to his torso when he was struck by her vehicle, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed to Fox News on Wednesday."

I guess bruising qualifies as internal bleeding, but it should lat to rest the argument he wasn't struck.

[David Nieporent]

I have more than sufficient legal training

You have zero, and wouldn't recognize a legal argument if it punched you in the face. Despite being by far the second dumbest person at the VC, you actually think you know stuff. That's what's so amusing. You don't have the medical knowledge to apply a bandaid to a paper cut, and yet you fancied yourself deconstructing actual research on COVID. Remember your fake story where you met an actual scientist at some sort of conference and schooled him on virology?

Dunning Kruger was written for you.

[not guilty]

"David - I have more than sufficient legal training to recognize that you as an attorney have been lying out your fucking ass on ever legal issue and fact on this case."

Since you have put that in issue, Joe_dallas, when and where did you receive your allegedly "more than sufficient legal training"?

An accrediting agency somewhere may want to check out that educational institution.

[not guilty]

"Despite being by far the second dumbest person at the VC, you actually think you know stuff. That's what's so amusing."

That reminds me of an anecdote about a Chicago newspaper editor who cautioned a young editorial writer that he should not say that every member of the City Council is hopelessly corrupt. "Instead, say that with one exception, every member of the City Council is hopelessly corrupt. That way none of the Councilmen will take personal offense."

If Joe_dallas ranks second, the rest of us are free to speculate about who ranks first.

[Armchair]

If someone fires a gun at a police officer (and miss) and they are shot by the police in return and die...

Who do you blame? The person? Or the Police?

[Michael P]

If the perp is not in the process of pulling the trigger a second time, clearly the threat has passed and the officer's life is in no danger.

According to the theory propounded by a lot of commenters here, that is.

[Joe_dallas]

correct - a lot of commentators are basing their judgement on hindsight - which even NG knows is not the standard. NG is also another commentator who has based his legal analysis on the standards of a fleeing suspect in situations where it is established that the suspect is fleeing at the point of time of the shooting. It was not established that the suspect was fleeing at the time of the shooting. The leftists commentators are ignoring the fact as is clear in the videos, that the time span between a clearly attacking suspect and the change to fleeing suspect was approx 2/10's of a second.

[jb]

Not a great analogy. More like if you throw an axe at someone (and graze them) but no longer have the axe, can they shoot you at that point?

Of course, if you went and picked up the axe again, it might change the equation. Cars can be used as weapons, but usually they just drive people around. If someone is driving away from you, it's hard to see how the car is serving as a weapon at that point. As with the axe, if she turns the car around, then we're closer to the gun analogy.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem is that human decision making just isn't very fast. Not nearly as fast as we remember it being, because our memories play tricks on us.

It takes a quarter second or so for you to even start responding to incoming sensory data, so to keep you from being perpetually late, you actually end up making your decisions on the basis of what amounts to an extrapolation of what the data will be a quarter second later.

So if a quarter second ago the car was headed straight for you, NOW you are going to act on the car headed straight for you NOW, and remember that it was headed for you at the time you made the decision even if it had started turning in the meanwhile.

And then it's going to take some time for you to notice that the situation has changed, and reevaluate the decision.

So, bottom line, you can be two or three shots into a gun fight before you have any time to realize that you didn't need to fire another shot.

Meanwhile, actual targeting is being handled by a much faster loop in your brain that is responding to more up to date data, and your memories are retroconned to be consistent with what that loop does.

His first shot was definitely in the time window for thinking the car was headed his way, the second was close enough to the first that he wouldn't have had time to reevaluate that yet, and maybe by the third shot you could argue that he should have noticed that he didn't need to shoot anymore. Maybe. But he didn't have to consciously pivot to keep the gun on target, that was reflex action, not considered action.

I mean, think about playing catch, or swinging a baseball bat. You may recall deciding where to place your hand, or how to swing the bat, but any recording of brain activity will conclusively prove that things were happening too fast for that to be true. You were executing previous decisions on a reflex basis, and then remembering them after the fact as voluntary motions.

[Joe_dallas]

Brett Bellmore 21 minutes ago
"It takes a quarter second or so for you to even start responding to incoming sensory data,"

Correct - A commonly known fact that suddenly is no longer commonly known since it is no inconvenient for leftists.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Brett, you’re forgetting one other thing, his training.

His training is once he fires the first shot, to keep shooting until she’s down. It’s not a case of fire one round to see what happens and wait — it is to eliminate her as a threat.

If he would empty the clip empty the next one and go pot with a third yeah they’d be an issue. But there’s a reason why the M-16 has a three shot burst. There is a reason why firing three rounds from a handgun is usually what training protocol is.

Simply stated, you don’t know if the first two hit the target. Apparently he hit her in the head, through the windshield, with the first round. That’s a damn good (or damn lucky) shot — a windshield is a glass laminate that is curved and very easily can change the course of a bullet.

Remember that bullets are spinning, so when they hit something that slows them down, they can do all kinds of funky things.

[Sarcastr0]

The problem is that human decision making just isn't very fast

Yeah, this has been the excuse for police shooting people. It sucks.

https://radiolab.org/podcast/radiolab-presents-more-perfect-mr-graham-reasonable-man

You're the worst libertarian.

[Armchair]

re JB,

"More like if you throw an axe at someone (and graze them) but no longer have the axe, can they shoot you at that point?"

Answer...If you are fleeing, yes, the police can shoot you.

Here's the issue. By throwing the axe at the police officer, you have turned yourself into a dangerous subject. You do not have to pose an "immediate" threat to others, but merely a threat to others. You could escape the police officer and run into a school or hospital and try to kill someone else. So, if necessary, lethal force can be now used to stop you.

"A police officer may not seize an unarmed, nondangerous suspect by shooting him dead...however...Where the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force
— Associate Justice Byron White, Tennessee v. Garner"

[Bwaaah]

"Who do you blame? The person? Or the Police?"

That depends on whether the shooter was advocating for a Democratic social justice cause.

Clearly.

[Swede425]

Oh, Gaslighto.

[Malika la Maize]

Latrine digger’s gonna cry.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"ICE killed a lady. You're attacking the dead lady. With some lies about what she did."

Right back at you with Ashli Babbit.

We've been disagreeing about police shootings forever, doesn't pretend that this is something new.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Gaslight0 has finally gone way beyond the pale.

In the real world, attempting to run over someone with a 4500 pound vehicle is a felony. Even pretending to, which is what I think she did, is considered a felony.

People have complained about my tongue in cheek solution of snow plows to clear highways of pedestrians ILLEGALLY present. What GaslightO presumes is a criminal felons vigilantes have some right to do that to pedestrians who are lawfully present.

[David Nieporent]

Renee Good was trying to have it both ways: Enforcement of the laws she liked, obstructing the laws that she didn't like. Well, screw that, I don't have to pretend I think that's a respectable position.

You know who else was "trying to have it both ways"? Martin Luther King Jr.

[DDHarriman]

Who gives a shit about that Marxist fraud?

[Michael P]

Hitler, too. And Pol Pot. Unsurprising that you would leave them out of the comparison.

[David Nieporent]

By the way, King addressed the "trying to have it both ways" accusation in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail: just laws should be obeyed by all; unjust laws should not be obeyed by any.

[David Nieporent]

And just to supplement this even more: King's definition of just/unjust in this context was not whether he personally liked a given law, but whether the law was applied evenhandedly. To steal from Wilhoit, does the law protect and bind the same people?

[Dr. Ed 2]

David think rationally for a minute here, if you can.

They didn’t have SUVs back then, but they did have four-wheel-drive pick up trucks. If King had driven one of those directly at a police officer in, say, downtown Birmingham, Alabama — exactly what do you think would’ve happened next?

Are you at all familiar with what happened at Jackson State University? Yes all black Jackson State University — go look at some of the morning after pictures, and that was all done with single shot weapons, revolvers, shotguns, and possibly a few M1 rifles.

If King had done what Good did with her vehicle, it would have been like Bonnie and Clyde or what happened to the Dalton gang in downtown Bangor, Maine.

King knew that, I suspect you know that, and sadly Good didn’t.

[Joe_dallas]

Dr Ed -
Kiss that idea goodbye
DN will never attempt to be honest.

[bernard11]

Nobody, least of all Good, drove a vehicle directly at an ICE agent.

The guy was well off to the side, and could have been further off if he hadn't decided he wanted to kill Good.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, what do you call it when a community is "escalating towards insurrection," without arriving at insurrection? If it happens, on what basis do you even decide laws are broken? Which laws broken, by what parties?

What is going on in Minnesota is unprecedented at least since the 1970s. It shows features of martial law, together with features of insurrectionary resistance, together with features of a police riot, and at the highest levels of government, features of tyranny.

It is unwise policy to continue down that path at all, let alone to stake the prestige of a national administration on enforcing it with arbitrary violence, and when resistance arises, increasing the violence. The people targeted—including hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens in no way subject to legitimate immigration-related law enforcement jurisdiction—are left no way to organize systematic response without being further targeted.

That is folly. Stop supporting it.

[DDHarriman]

Enforcing the law is tyranny!

[David Nieporent]

I mean, yes, in fact. What do you think tyrants do?

[DDHarriman]

We must have anarchy because laws are tyranny!!!

[Brett Bellmore]

"Bellmore, what do you call it when a community is "escalating towards insurrection," without arriving at insurrection? "

Pretending that you know a trend will stop tomorrow, rather than continuing.

It is not unprecedented for a minority of states to decide that they don't have to comply with federal law, or permit it to be enforced within their borders, but it isn't common, either, and doesn't have a good history of working out.

I'd agree, it's folly. Stop supporting it.

[Sarcastr0]

Under no scenario is what ICE doing at this point enforcing the law.

That you're posting over and over 'you must comply!' and call yourself a libertarian is some clownish shit.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course they're enforcing the law. They're not always enforcing it in a lawful manner, that I will gladly concede, have conceded. The BATF and DEA don't always behave lawfully while enforcing the law, either, but they're still enforcing the law.

I've already said it: Trump does things I approve of most of the time, but in the worst way possible.

And I perfectly understand why he's doing it this way, even if I disapprove of it: He's trying to maximize self-deportations by making illegal aliens fearful. You see the same dynamic when any law whose violations are difficult to detect is subject to determined efforts at enforcement: Law enforcement acts abusively to substitute terror for certainty of detection.

I'd much rather that he used more legitimate means, such as offering bounties to illegal immigrants who turn in their employers. But a lot of that depends on Congressional action, and Congress, though it dares not be seen obstructing immigration law enforcement, is still ambivalent about it; The Chamber of Commerce still wants it's cheap and safely abused laborers, and the Democrats still want a non-voting population to aid them in apportionment.

Let's be blunt: If they were effectively deporting just as many illegals while dotting every "i" and crossing every "t", the left would be just as pissed, because enforcing the law IS what you're pissed off by.

[David Nieporent]

I've already said it: Trump does things I approve of most of the time,

Because you're not a fucking libertarian, and you should at least have the integrity to admit that. Everything Trump does is antilibertarian. He's the least libertarian president we have had since we stopped electing people who claimed that other human beings were their property. And probably worse than some of them.

[Joe_dallas]

Why get pissed at Brent just because you have done a piss poor job impersonating a libertarian!

[Stephen Lathrop]

Not me, Belllmore. My starting position on immigration, and still my aspirational position, is control of immigration tied to the state of the labor market. More immigration if labor is too tight. Less immigration while labor is in surplus.

But what you and your ilk have proved to me is that position will remain morally unviable, and far too risky for domestic safety, in a nation filled with racists. More so, of course, with a lawless, opportunistic tyrant running the nation.

What I am only half-jokingly in favor of now is immigration limited by the nation's appetite to add new states. I think Venezuela might make a dandy 51st state. Throw in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and even Greenland. Annex them all now, but only on condition of free and open elections for their populations to ratify statehood.

I'll take my chances with whatever national politics result. We could add Colombia too, and Panama, if they decide they like their chances. I would not exclude Mexico, either, although it would require pre-division into at least 4 new states. And I doubt Mexicans generally would go for it. But maybe we should find out. Giving DC its long-frustrated due would complete a nice package.

My guess is that you might not favor that. Too much fairness
for you? On what basis would you object?

[bernard11]

I've already said it: Trump does things I approve of most of the time, but in the worst way possible.

You keep saying this. I don't believe it. Suppose Trump announced this afternoon that he was placing strict limits on ICE, demanding that they quit using illegal and abusive tactics, stop hassling innocent people, etc. ICE agents who committed crimes would be fired and prosecuted.

Suppose he added that this would necessarily reduce the number of deportation by a lot, but was necessary in order to maintain a law-abiding government.

Would you applaud this, or be dismayed?

And I perfectly understand why he's doing it this way, even if I disapprove of it: He's trying to maximize self-deportations by making illegal aliens fearful. You see the same dynamic when any law whose violations are difficult to detect is subject to determined efforts at enforcement: Law enforcement acts abusively to substitute terror for certainty of detection.

So you don't disapprove at all. Do you regard terrorizing people as a legitimate tactic?

[Brett Bellmore]

"My starting position on immigration, and still my aspirational position, is control of immigration tied to the state of the labor market. More immigration if labor is too tight. Less immigration while labor is in surplus."

Yeah, where "labor is too tight" is defined as unskilled labor being paid more than starvation wages, I guess.

[bernard11]

They're not always enforcing it in a lawful manner, that I will gladly concede, have conceded. The BATF and DEA don't always behave lawfully while enforcing the law, either, but they're still enforcing the law.

No. They are not "enforcing the law." They are violating it, which you seem to think is just fine, as long as you don't like their victims.

If the police burst into your house, lacking a warrant or any other legal justification, to search for illegal drugs, would you say they were "enforcing the law?" You'd be wrong. They are breaking the law.

Law enforcement personnel is, in fact, bound by the law. They are not entitled, by virtue of their position, to break it. And this is an extremely important principle. Without it, we have a police state.

[TwelveInchPianist]

ICE hasn't been doing anything that all cops, Fed, state, and local, haven't been getting away for years.

If we want real reform that will give all cops a degree of accountability, great! But you guys jumping on the bandwagon when it's an administration you don't like enforcing a law you don't like are telling on yourselves.

[bernard11]

And you defending these practices when it's an administration you like enforcing a law you like are telling on yourselves.

[jb]

Hate to tell this to you to you, bud, but the same people complaining about ICE have been pushing to hold the police more accountable for decades.

[jay.tee]

That’s far too broad of a statement. Plenty of posters here, along with other talking heads, have excused or outright condoned LEO shootings based on the political affiliation of the victim.

[jb]

Give me some examples of that.

The only one that comes to mind is Ashli Babbit. That's a pretty problematic example because I'm not aware of any other analogs to someone trying to force their way into a protected space in the midst of a big violent riot. But if you substitute the US Capitol for, say, a military base, I don't think the results would have been any different.

[jay.tee]

Bryan Malinowski, for one.
And yes, Ashli Babbit qualifies as well.

[jb]

I have never heard of this person before, so I'm pretty skeptical that plenty of posters here condoned his shooting.

From my brief research, it seems like another good example of why the police shouldn't use SWAT tactics for routine searches.

[Stephen Lathrop]

TwelveInch — Your dodgy resort to, "all cops, Fed state, and local," gives your game away. No federal cops have been doing what ICE is now doing. None of the state cops have since approximately the 70s gone on city-wide rampages, or indulged in police riots.

You like ICE for some reason that has nothing to do with legitimate law enforcement, which ICE doe not practice, Want to tell us your reason?

[not guilty]

"ICE hasn't been doing anything that all cops, Fed, state, and local, haven't been getting away for years."

That is unfortunately true, but to say that in an attempt to excuse or mitigate Jonathan Ross's reckless disregard of his own safety -- he could have easily stepped out of the path of the vehicle -- and his malevolent shooting of a suspect is outlandish.

As a plurality of SCOTUS has observed:

Those who decide to take the law into their own hands and act as prosecutor, jury, judge, and executioner plainly act to deprive a prisoner of the trial which due process of law guarantees him. And such a purpose need not be expressed; it may at times be reasonably inferred from all the circumstances attendant on the act.

Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 106 (1945).

[TwelveInchPianist]

"That is unfortunately true, but to say that in an attempt to excuse or mitigate Jonathan Ross's reckless disregard of his own safety..."

I guess that's why I didn't say it in such an attempt.

But if you're curious about the extent of "reckless disregard of [one's] own safety" that courts find reasonable, check out the case (especially the Kavanaugh concurrence) that SCOTUS decided last term, where the cop pulled over someone for a toll violation, and when the guy tried to take off, the cop jumped on the door sill and shot him. The cop, of course, could have alleviated the danger by not stepping on the door sill, or by stepping off of the door sill.

CA5 gave the cop SJ on remand.

[TwelveInchPianist]

As a plurality of SCOTUS has also observed:

Fleeing from the traffic stop could suggest that the driver is preparing to commit or has committed a more serious crime—and is attempting to evade detection or arrest. The driver may have illegal drugs or an illegal gun in the car. Or the driver may be unlawfully in the country and fear removal if apprehended. He might have a warrant out for his arrest. He could have an abducted child in the car.

Or as the tragic 2025 New Year’s terrorist attack in New Orleans illustrates, the driver might intend to use the car as a weapon.

Barnes v. Felix 605 US _ (2025)

[bernard11]

And "could suggest" is sufficient to justify killing the driver?

Is that what you think?

[Michael P]

You are approvingly quoting some idiot asshole who wrote these words:

It’s not clear whether Good meant to hit the ICE agent with her car, or meant to threaten to hit him, when she briefly pulled forward before driving away. Nor is it clear why Good was interacting with the agents in the first place.

... and who thinks a "fairly representative tweet" is a meme showing Good as Tank Man in a photoshop of the infamous Tienanmen Square picture, in a blatant and very literal DARVO.

How did your life go so wrong?

[David Nieporent]

None of what Dr. Ed wrote is true, of course.

[not guilty]

In Amherst, Massachusetts, anyone present during a disturbance can be arrested for no reason whatsoever and thrown in jail. Anyone within a mile or two of a disturbance can be arrested and thrown in jail. This has been the protocol for nearly 20 years now.

Anyone identified by facial recognition technology as being present, can have a termination of public benefits, I.e. be expelled from UMass.

This has been going on for over 20 years now, it is apparently legal.

Color me skeptical. What statute(s) authorize this?

[bernard11]

Oh come on, NG.

Surely it's plausible that police can arrest anyone shopping at a store, or having a picnic in the park, if the store or park is within a mile of a disturbance.

What if there's a full movie theater in range?

[Dr. Ed 2]

269 MGL 1 and 269 MGL 2.

These are British colonial statutes, which the SJC has never upheld, and in the one case where it went to the SJC involving a prison riot, the SJC refused to uphold it.

But as it is only applied to white male college students, there’s no legal movement to challenge it, so it’s been done with impunity for the past 25 years or so.

[not guilty]

Those Massachusetts statutes do not confer the breadth of authority that Dr. Ed 2 ascribes to them:

Section 1. If five or more persons, being armed with clubs or other dangerous weapons, or if ten or more persons, whether armed or not, are unlawfully, riotously or tumultuously assembled in a city or town, the mayor and each of the aldermen of such city, each of the selectmen of such town, every justice of the peace living in any such city or town, any member of the city, town, or state police and the sheriff of the county and his deputies shall go among the persons so assembled, or as near to them as may be with safety, and in the name of the commonwealth command all persons so assembled immediately and peaceably to disperse; and if they do not thereupon immediately and peaceably disperse, each of said magistrates and officers shall command the assistance of all persons there present in suppressing such riot or unlawful assembly and arresting such persons. For the purposes of this section, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst shall be considered to be a town.

and

Section 2. Whoever, being present and being so commanded to assist in arresting such rioters or persons so unlawfully assembled, or in suppressing such riot or unlawful assembly, refuses or neglects to obey such command, or, if required by such magistrate or officer to depart from the place, refuses or neglects so to do, shall be considered one of the rioters or persons unlawfully assembled, and shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than one year or by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars or more than five hundred dollars, or both.

Dr. Ed asks:

Well, why can’t the same thing be done in Minneapolis, Minnesota?
Why can’t ICE establish a perimeter and simply arrest absolutely everybody inside of it. This practice is apparently legal…

Because no federal or Minnesota statute authorizes ICE to do so, and the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause for each individual custodial arrest.

The "British colonial statutes" quoted here illustrate that there was good reason for the drafters of the Fourth Amendment to require probable cause for any seizure of a person.

[Commenter_XY]

Memo to MN ICE agitators: There are plenty of jail cells for you to occupy and agitate in. Try not to claim a Darwin Award, in the meantime.

Signed,
ICE Barbie 🙂

[Martinned]

Yes, you're right. All those ICE lunatics need to be in prison asap.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What people need to understand is that because of the asshole protests, the experienced ice guys in their 50s are volunteering to go to Minnesota. Instead, they’re getting guys in their 20s, full of aggression and fight, but not so much maturity.

Now what could possibly go wrong?

And the people who are responsible for it and the overweight, middle-aged women who really need to look in the mirror.

[Martinned]

For the record, that's called victim blaming. It's not civilians' fault that the US Regime chooses to send untrained thugs after them.

[Commenter_XY]

FTR, it is called human agency. Renee Good made a bad choice, Eurotrash, egged on by her partner, Becca Good.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And I see justice is now investigating the spouse.
As it should.
Throw her fat ass in jail, treat that insurrectionist the way the January 6thers were….

[SRG2]

So it's the protestors' fault that the Regime is sending inexperienced young Brownshirts prone to violence. Gottit.

[Bob from Ohio]

"inexperienced young"

Ross has been in the Border Patrol or ICE for 20 years. Part of the BP tactical squad, you know the people who stopped the Texas school massacre a few years ago.

[SRG2]

Ross is not the only Brownshirt.

[David Nieporent]

Whereas Jonathan Ross made an evil choice, egged on by you.

[Dr. Ed 2]

David, go get a large handgun and point it in the face of a police officer while screaming I’m going to f*cking kill you!”

Now tell me how the officer is supposed to (a) know that you really won’t shoot her and (b) ignore all of her training about lawful response to potentially lethal threats.

[Joe_dallas]

David Nieporent 49 minutes ago

"Whereas Jonathan Ross made an evil choice, egged on by you."

There is absolute zero evidence to assert that Cxy egged on J Ross. In fact there is zero evidence to assert that Cxy even knew J Ross or that J Ross had ever read or heard of Cxy Ross.

Of course that doesnt stop DN for fabricating BS.

[Swede425]

LOL!
"Those poor, retarded, lesbian women are victims!".
Yes. Of their own stupidity.
Quit infantilizing these brave mentally ill women and taking away their agency!
SHAME!

[Malika la Maize]

Clinton was really crazy to talk about deplorables.

[ReaderY]

What Dr. Ed 2 needs to understand is that if you want to send a paramilitary force to rough up and intimidate opposition folks under a pretext you are doing something about immigration, the absolute LAST people you would want to send would be deep-state traitor libtard democrat-trained immigration enforcement types who might object or even attempt to curb people’s enthusiasm.

You WANT young rowdies who will create incidents, rough the libtards up, maybe shoot a few, put fear into their hearts, make them realize that treason against the Leader has consequences.

That’s the people you want to send in.

We’re past the point where Mr. Trump is even bothering to pretend to claim the “incidents” are unfortunate. He is openly saying, as are many of his shills on this blog, that protestors are terrorists and will he treated as such.

[Swede425]

LOL!
"The pretext".
Newsflash, sugar tits: ICE is, in fact, rounding up illegal aliens and deporting them. That should be construed as actually "doing something" about immigration.
It's the entire reason retards such as yourself are upset: You have to import your future voters and that plan doesn't work when the border gets closed and illegal aliens get put on a plane to wherever.
The fact that you've decided to suspend any kind of sense and support running over LEO's is a you problem.

[Malika la Maize]

LOL, RETARD!!!

That low ASVAB continues to show.

[Commenter_XY]

Eurotrash:

Only the ones who impede, obstruct, threaten or harm Federal LEOs go to jail (and they should). That is a fairly small number. You don't mess with an LEO performing their job duties; save it for the judge.

Loud, boisterous, peaceful protest is fine. Don't cross the line.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The only small number is the percentage will go to jail. What’s going on in Minnesota right now is an insurrection. Trump should call it that and do what Eisenhower I would have — arrest everyone and let the courts sort it out.

[bernard11]

You know, I have a lot of respect for Eisenhower.

GOP presidents - Nixon, Ford, Reagan, the Bushes, and especially Trump, have been in decline since 1960.

I doubt Ike would act as you say.

[Frank Drackman]

ICE is just enforcing the laws that were in place during Barry Hussein and Sleepy Joe's terms, laws passed by Congress, signed by a President. Maybe if your shithole did the same you wouldn't be living in an Islamic Republic.

[bloocow2]

Do you think that "agitators" deserve to get shot in the face? You think that's funny?

[Commenter_XY]

Aussietrash:

Renee Good made a BAD decision, egged on by her partner Becca Good (who should be charged as an accomplice). She made the choice, and paid the price. No, I don't think it is funny. It is tragic. There is a 6-year old orphan. Will the people who badly trained Renee Good take care of that child? Nope, they are nowhere to be found.

If other ICE Warriors want to claim Darwin Awards, well, that is on them. It is incredibly stupid to obstruct, impede, threaten or harm an LEO performing their job duties.

Why not fix your own problems; Bondi Beach, widespread societal anti-semitism, and aboriginal discrimination.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yes, the dumb c*** got EXACTLY what she deserved.

[Botaglove]

Well I guess Mengele was also a doctor.

[bernard11]

No she didn't, you fucking jackass.

Whatever crime you imagine she committed, the punishment is not summary execution by an ICE thug.

[Riva]

Sounds kinda insurrectiony there sport.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Something to think about the next time you attempted to try a free sample at grocery store.

https://www.themainewire.com/2026/01/orland-man-busted-for-stealing-and-masturbating-while-working-as-a-vendor-in-a-bangor-supermarket/

[John F. Carr]

The First Circuit recently published a decision upholding a government employer's mandatory COVID vaccination policy against religious objections. The employer had a policy of not granting religious exemptions for on-site employees. A medical exemption was granted to an on-site employee who recently had COVID. So maybe that's religious discrimination?

All fine, said the First Circuit agreeing with the District Court.

The twist in this case is, the employee procedurally defaulted claims about discretionary individualized exemptions. So the court didn't have to apply the recent "most favored nation" status of discretionary religious exemptions. That left the policy to be reviewed as a generally applicable law that incidentally affects religion.

The court asked first, does granting medical exemptions and not religious exemptions further the stated justification for the policy? The medical exemption does advance the policy. The religious exemption does not: "granting a religious accommodation does not further the Authority's health and safety interests nor decrease the risks of viral infection or transmission." And then, is there a rational basis for the policy? Yes. Maybe the shots work. The shots do not have to be 100% effective for the policy to survive review.

The District Court had ruled that the policy satisfied strict scrutiny. In the First Circuit it probably does, thanks to the Maine quarantine case. But a lower standard of review was appropriate: any conceivable reason for the vaccination policy and an actual reason for the exemption policy.

Brox v. Steamship Authority, https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/files/opnfiles/24-1063P-01A.pdf

I recall a lot of fighting over whether having COVID justified not getting the vaccine. The more liberal regulators insisted on the shot or nothing. In fact infections and vaccinations were similarly effective in generating immunity. The medical exemption granted to a recently infected employee followed the science, as people liked to say during the pandemic.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The sad thing is that it was the Republicans, i.e. the mASSgop that was behind all of this.

Charlie Parker, Kerry Healy, Mitt Romney, Jane Swift, Paul Cellucci, Bill Weld, and assorted schmucks in the mASSgop and people wonder why I am now a registered Democrat.

[John F. Carr]

You can't very well go undercover in a school if you declare yourself to be a Republican. That would be like a Cold War spy checking the "yes, I am a Communist!" box on the visa application.

[Commenter_XY]

What is the likelihood an appeal is heard by SCOTUS?

It is only a matter of time before China creates the next lab-leak caused pandemic.

[John F. Carr]

As a Justice I would vote against taking the case. The plaintiffs failed to timely raise their best argument. There are other cases in the pipeline. West Virginia's longstanding ban on religious opt-out fron school vaccination may go to the Court. New York's new ban may go to the court. They may even present a circuit split. The latest situation is West Virginia's ban was struck down and New York's was upheld.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't know, the pandemic hit them pretty hard. In fact, I think they made sure it leaked to the rest of the world before we found out about it because they knew they were screwed, and wanted to make sure the rest of the world was put through the wringer, too, in order to somewhat preserve their relative position.

I don't think they want that to happen again. The leak, I mean.

Not saying they would never develop a biowarfare agent and release it abroad. I'm quite concerned that they might, after seeing how thoroughly the West hosed itself with the way we responded. I bet they'd love to see us crash our economies again.

But being ground zero for its release will be something they don't want to repeat.

[Martinned]

I'm glad to hear that the Israeli government thinks we should no longer worry about right-wing antisemitism. Or maybe Netanyahu simply disagrees with the government that he himself leads...

Netanyahu Joins Germany's AfD, Far-right Europeans in Backing Orbán as Hungary Campaign Begins

The AfD and Austria's FPÖ are boycotted by Israel over their antisemitic roots and members. Launching an uphill re-election bid, Orbán invited international far-right allies to his illiberal Fidesz party convention, where he denounced the EU as an 'enemy of European Christian civilization'

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participated via video recording in Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's re-election campaign kickoff on Saturday, alongside far-right European leaders, including Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Austria's Freedom Party (FPÖ) – parties that Israel officially boycotts because of their antisemitic roots and members.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2026-01-11/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-joins-germanys-afd-far-right-europeans-in-backing-orban-as-campaign-begins/0000019b-ae1f-da2a-abdf-ee3f5b0c0000

[Martinned]

US rightwing antisemitism, on the other hand...

Conservative media are promoting a GiveSendGo fundraiser for the ICE agent who killed Renee Good. The page includes the following statement from the organizer: "But this didn't happen in a vacuum—it's the direct result of anti-American traitors like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (who is Jewish)"

[Dr. Ed 2]

Again, you articulate why we need an active and powerful KKK.

THREE REASONS
First, so that schmucks like you can see what true antisemitism looks like. A man acting in self-defense when attacked by a 4500 pound guided missile is not antisemitism, at least as I define antisemitism.

The man’s entire family has had to go into hiding. Pray tell, exactly what did his children do to deserve this? His children….

The second reason is balance of terror. The left has its violent thugs and without violent thugs on the other side, the left rules by Tara done this for the past 60 years.

And third occurred approach is to compromise. If you’re going to establish a midpoint between two sides, both sides have to be equally rabid.

[DDHarriman]

On no! Someone noticed!!! AnTI-sEMiTIsmS!!!

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, that's not great. While the left are promoting people who are agitating for a genocide of Jews in Israel, (From the river to the sea!) it's not the worst thing around by far, but it's not great.

The world is such a mixed bag right now. On the one hand we may just have the AI singularity in the next year or two, the long stalled conquest of space has resumed, progress is finally being made on conquering aging... On the other hand antisemitism is becoming mainstream again and we seem to be progressing at a disturbing pace towards civil war.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Everything seems to be coming to a head at once, and I haven't even had a chance to start building my retirement boat yet...

[Michael P]

You're not going to mention that the parenthetical got deleted after it was criticized?

Typical.

[Magister]

Not typical; the more common case is to defend and double down on the bigotry. But even with the backing down, it's not like it was originally an inadvertent typo.

[Michael P]

Your reading comprehension continues to suck.

[bernard11]

WTF difference does that make?

He was stealing, but stopped when someone noticed. Do have any neurons at all?

[John F. Carr]

Boycotting foreign political parties is a strange concept. Countries have diplomatic relations with other countries, not other parties. In my view the normal state of affairs is for a country's official policy not to be for or against specific parties in another democracy. I recall Reagan declining to formally endorse Thatcher even though everybody knew he wanted her to win. When Labour backed Harris that was also unofficial.

[Martinned]

Fast forward a couple of decades and the US Regime has a formal policy of endorsing far-right parties in every European election. Funny how things change.

[DDHarriman]

So what? He doesn't think we should. I say fuck the EU, they sent boots on the ground to campaign for Kamala in 2024.

Leftwing Europeans can't be hated enough.

[Dr. Ed 2]

+1

[not guilty]

"I say fuck the EU, they sent boots on the ground to campaign for Kamala in 2024."

Boots on the ground, DDH?

Supporting facts??

[DDHarriman]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62m2pde4p6o

Of fucking course you didn't know this happened.

[not guilty]

Your linked article nowhere references the "European Union," the "EU", "boots" nor "ground," DDH.

Ctrl-F is your friend.

[Kazinski]

Maybe it has to do with the fact Hungary is the safest place in Europe to be Jewish.

And if the AfD wins in Germany it will be much safer their for Jews to, and Christians.

If Reform wins in UK, in a few years, maybe it will be safe for people to be Openly Jewish in the UK again too.
"The Met Police has apologised after an officer said an antisemitism charity leader looked "openly Jewish" as he was threatened with arrest"

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-68856360

Maybe Netanyahu knows where the real danger to Jews lies.

[David Nieporent]

Maybe it has to do with the fact Hungary is the safest place in Europe to be Jewish.

Well, no. There are a few Jews who anti-Muslim viewpoint (which of course has an understandable basis) outweighs their common sense, and thus view right-wing nationalists as allies in an enemy-of-my-enemy sense. But the vast majority of Jews understand that right-wing nationalists don't like Jews any more than they do Muslims. It's a whole first-they-came-for-the-Muslim-immigrants thing.

[Kazinski]

Not just my opinion:

"Hungary is quickly turning into one of Israel’s most important allies, and one of the most consequential countries in Europe. The Eastern European nation is home to Israel’s third-largest Jewish community and is among the most popular vacation destinations for Israelis.

Netanyahu and Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, have found common ground and formed a strong working alliance, evidenced by the royal greeting Netanyahu recently received in Budapest.

Since the International Criminal Court, a stand-alone judicial body in The Hague, which is not connected to the United Nations, issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on faulty war crimes charges in February, the Israeli premier cannot touch down securely throughout much of Europe. But not only did Orbán welcome Netanyahu with open arms. He formally withdrew Hungary from the ICC and said that the once “important court” has become a political tool, as so many international bodies have."

https://jewishworldnews.org/news/israel/hungary-starts-budding-alliance-with-israel/

I realize there is a cohort of Liberal American Jews that see everything through a lens of American politics, but its certainly not a universal viewpoint.

[David Nieporent]

This may come as news to both you and Donald Trump, but Israel and Jews are different! A country can have friendly relations with Israel and be utterly inhospitable towards Jews.

No sources are cited for this claim, and it's incoherent:

The Eastern European nation is home to Israel’s third-largest Jewish community and is among the most popular vacation destinations for Israelis.

Hungary is home to Israel's third-largest Jewish community? WTF could that even mean?

[Kazinski]

Ask Jewish World News, they said it. I would guess 3rd largest community of Isreali ex-pats if i had to guess.

[bernard11]

Ask Jewish World News, they said it.

And you blindly quoted it, without any idea what it means, if anything.

[Mr. Bumble]

If only Mother Nature would step up and sock the Twin Cities with a good old fashioned blizzard maybe everyone would step back and take a breath.
(Would also give Dr. Ed's snow plow plan a chance to be tried out)

[Dr. Ed 2]

🙂

[Frank Drackman]

Winter's not even a month old, patience Grasshopper.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I notice that the courier leftists are all leaving the US DOJ.
This is a good thing.
A really good thing.

[Martinned]

Gleichschaltung

[Frank Drackman]

Nazi uses a Nazi word

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://www.themainewire.com/2026/01/eliot-cutler-now-in-trouble-a-third-time-accused-of-violating-bail-conditions-from-alleged-probation-violation/

He’s actually married…

[Martinned]

True

As we contemplate the regime’s depiction of Renee Nicole Good’s murder, one must remember that the main point of propaganda is not to propagate a lie—it is to demonstrate that the propagandists *have authority over the truth itself.*

Propaganda doesn’t just misrepresent reality; it DEFIES reality.

[Michael P]

... says a propagandist who identifies suicide by (attempted-vehicular-murder-of-)cop as "murder".

The left likes to say that every accusation is a confession. The quoted accusation of propaganda certainly is a confession.

[David Nieporent]

…says a propagandist who identifies slowly driving away as "attempted vehicular murder."

[Michael P]

Stomping on the accelerator hard enough for the vehicle's wheels to spin is not consistent with an intent to drive away slowly. It reflects intent and attempt to accelerate as quickly as possible.

[David Nieporent]

If you know a car whose wheels do not rotate, you should alert physicists.

[bernard11]

Never mind that Ross passed in front of Good's vehicle twice without incident, which sort of suggests she was not looking to run him over. Instead, she was trying to go to the right and get out of there.

But Ross couldn't resist the opportunity to shoot, even though he was in fact largely clear of the vehicle and in no serious danger. And then fire again, twice, once all danger had passed.

[Joe_dallas]

Martinned 4 hours ago
"Propaganda doesn’t just misrepresent reality; it DEFIES reality."

Which raises the obvious question - Why would you repeat propaganda?

[Martinned]

Sure, why would people look at the US Regime and think "Nazi Germany"?

The White House says the Smithsonian Institution must submit materials about current and upcoming exhibitions and events for a review that will determine whether they express "improper ideology."

Entartete Kunst is, I believe, the term they're looking for...

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/13/nx-s1-5672645/smithsonian-deadline-white-house

[Michael P]

The left has been ideologically screening what goes into museums, the Smithsonian no exception, for decades -- including Trump's first term and under both Bushes. The Smithsonian hasn't changed its leadership or their leftist inclinations, which is why the National Proletariat Rabble-raisers are so sympathetic.

[DDHarriman]

Is this just not jaw dropping? The bling hypocrisy these people have?

[Malika la Maize]

Whataboutism!

[ThePublius]

You throw that around a lot, often mistakenly. This isn't whataboutism, it's exactly about the same topic, the Smithsonian. And Michael P is right, the Smithsonian has been in the hands of extreme left wing agitators for years. It's time the pendulum swung back some.

[bernard11]

Oh STFU. Your claims are nonsense.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Sure, why would people look at the US Regime and think "Nazi Germany"?"

Probably due to a complete and utter sense of perspective, but also because Democrats have been calling their opponents Nazis for so long that the latest generation of them are starting to take it seriously.

[Sarcastr0]

So are you just ignorant of what ICE is doing these days or in denial?

[Swede425]

Deporting illegal aliens?
No, we see it.
You gonna be ok?
You tards seem pretty upset about it.

[ThePublius]

So, you are apparently just ignorant of what these paid, organized 'protesters' are doing; interfering with agents carrying out their duty enforcing immigration law. ICE isn't 'doing' this, the disrupters are. ICE isn't going after people other than people here illegally, they are involuntarily interacting with people committed to disrupting their activities, and in many cases threatening them with violence.

[Bwaaah]

Sarc: "So are you just ignorant of what ICE is doing these days or in denial?"

So you're saying the U.S. is in the midst of a genocidal holocaust?

(Notice how I use one of your daily go-to rhetorical techniques here, i.e. grossly mis-stating somebody's position in the form of a question. Notice how uncompelling this technique is. Watch how you'll continue to use this technique incessantly, blind to how bad it looks for you.)

[Michael P]

Sure, why would people look at the US Regime and think "Nazi Germany"?

Because they're the kind of person who would antagonize federal law enforcement officers while they're on the job, tell an intimate partner to (try to) run over one of those officers, and then ask "Why did you have real bullets?!"

[bernard11]

Democrats have been calling their opponents Nazis for so long that the latest generation of them are starting to take it seriously.

Another lie you insist on repeating.

[Bob from Ohio]

https://www.reporternews.com/story/opinion/columnists/2016/12/01/democrats-and-nazi-card/94603274/

Goes all the way back to 1964

[Brett Bellmore]

Pft. Goes back to the 1940's, actually. They'd have started earlier, but people would have been all, "Who's Hitler?".

[bernard11]

Maybe they look at Noem's podium. Or Paul Ingrassia. Or the Young Republicans' chat, or the welcome given to Nick Fuentes or the behavior of ICE, or the admiration of Kirk, or...

Talk about a lack of perspective.

And no, the "Democrats" have not been "calling their opponents Nazis," no matter what a few idiots say. Once again, your tendency to wildly overgeneralize reveals you.

Though Trump is suspect.

[Frank Drackman]

Fake News Dept:
"President Donald Trump on Tuesday flipped off an autoworker during an appearance at a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, dropping an F-bomb during the interaction for good measure."

You have to get to the end where it explains

"Trump threw the bird after a worker in the crowd called him a “pedophile protector,” presumably a reference to the president’s relationship with the late *** trafficker Jeffrey Epstein ― and his efforts to prevent the release of Justice Department files regarding Epstein in its possession"

[Malika la Maize]

Such a professional President!

[Bwaaah]

Not like the good old cauliflower. Now *that* was professional!

[Dr. Ed 2]

It was a culturally appropriate response from a man who grew up in an environment was such a response was expected under a similar circumstance.

What do you think Lyndon Johnson would have done?
It’s just that you would never have heard about it…

[ducksalad]

Speaking of appropriate responses....

Q: What is the appropriate response if Donald Trump and Pam Bondi have defied the law for 26 days and counting by refusing to release the Epstein files?

A: Charge Bill and Hillary Clinton with contempt of Congress.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-republicans-plan-hold-hillary-clinton-contempt-refusing-testify-rcna253920

[DDHarriman]

After listening to some exerpts of KJBs questioning in that tranny case how can anyone think she survives without impeachment?

She is genuinely dumb and has a legal framework that starts at ideological goals and works backwards through the law amd feelings simultaneously.

Just an embarrassment. (Paraphrased from memory) "You call it 'tailoring' to make individual exceptions to the law..." that AG: "bitch, that's the literal definition of it, you retarded baboon"

[David Nieporent]

Voltage! didn't even graduate from high school and he's claiming a Harvard Law graduate is "genuinely dumb."

[Dr. Ed 2]

The fact that someone who is as clearly stupid as she is actually graduated from Harvard law school shows just how far Harvard law school has declined in the past 35 years.

Of course, the question I ask is if merely being stupid is a high crime or misdemeanor? SCOTUS really needs something similar to the 25th amendment where being stupid or senile is in and of itself grounds to be removed.

And if Congress was to impeach her and remove her, can you imagine the rioting we would have? Although the flipside of that is that dead rioters are no longer a threat to the body public.

[Joe_dallas]

Same with Sotomayor

I listened to a 4 minute clip during Sotomayor's questioning one of the States attorney's. Sotomayor made several statements on the court's holding in a couple of prior cases. The state's attorney came back several times stating that Sotomayor's description of the holdings in those cases was wrong. He was quite blunt about how bad her interpretation of the holdings were. Never very endearing to a judge to tell her she was flat out wrong.

[Bob from Ohio]

Only risk is making another justice mad. We all know her vote

[Joe_dallas]

I wasnt familiar with the cases so I cant comment on the validity of either interpretation of the holdings. Just noting that A - it is never a good idea to try to positively influence a judge by stating she is wrong and B - her interpretation must have been egregiously bad, for the state' s attorney to be so blunt. So maybe the point was being made to Barret, Kav, and Roberts that Sotomayor's position was bad.

[David Nieporent]

I wasnt familiar with the cases so I cant comment

Never stopped you before!

[Joe_dallas]

I was commenting on the state's attorney telling sotomayor she was wrong.

But that never stopped you from lying about what was stated, proving once again that you are one of the most prolific liars posting here.

[Josh R]

The full exchange:

Jackson: I guess I'm still struggling to understand why the state would have to have perfectly tailored laws. I would think the state would just have to make exceptions where people can demonstrate that the justification that makes the state's conduct constitutional doesn't apply to them.

Mooppan (Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States): Right. So making exceptions is tailoring your law. That's literally what it means, to tailor your law.

Jackson: Yes from the standpoint of a facial challenge when we're asking because whether this law has to be stricken completely because it isn't, you know, perfectly tailored. What we're doing is a different exercise in the as-applied challenge. We're asking whether --even though this law is overbroad, we're assuming it's overbroad now because you've got in there some people to whom it should not be applied. What do we do about that? What is the remedy that those people can get? And what I hear you saying is they get no remedy unless they can demonstrate that there are enough people that this is sufficiently overbroad, that it's no longer something the state can do.

Mooppan: Right

The issue is what, if anything, constitutes an as-applied challenge in Equal Protection doctrine. Kagan noted there is very little precedent on this topic and Jackson was pressing Mooppan to get his opinion on what the doctrine is or ought to be.

But of course Harriman is a troll who just wants to dump on Jackson.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Ed Whelan: Speed limits shouldn't apply to me, I'm a great driver!

[Josh R]

That analogy might work if there were a known genetic condition which we could measure that makes you a great driver. On the other hand, it still wouldn't work because other not-great drivers are impacted by you going faster.

[DDHarriman]

>That analogy might work if there were a known genetic condition which we could measure that makes you a great driver

You definitely aren't talking about transgenders here because there is no biological component to a social construct (gender).

[TwelveInchPianist]

What genetic component? It's an as-applied rational basis challenge to speed limits. It probably wouldn't work, but it gives you an idea of what they're opening themselves to.

[Josh R]

PBJ is arguing that the inherent genetic advantage that boys have over girls does not apply to her because she did not go through male puberty. In contrast, the great driver does not have an inherent, easily identifiable genetic advantage that justifies him being allowed to speed.

[Armchair]

Three questions for the commentariat.

1. Should ICE be abolished?
2. Should the immigration laws of the United States be enforced?
3. Should the worker authorization laws of the United States be enforced? (IE, only those who have proper authorization can work).

[Malika la Maize]

Should unarmed women be shot in the face?

Your shtick is tiresome. Just make the points you clearly came here to make.

[Swede425]

A 4000 lbs vehicle is a weapon when you're deranged.
Same when you don't recognize that.

[DDHarriman]

They don't have cars where he lives. Only those carts foreigners ride on that are pulled by browns.

[Malika la Maize]

What an idiot. My point was about asking facile questions and this latrines digger took the facile example seriously.

Low ASVAB score, LOL

[Dr. Ed 2]

I thought you were a psychologist.

What does the healthy well adjusted individual do when confronted with eminent death from a 4500 pound guided missile?

Does he (A) stand there and accept death, or (B) attempt to defend himself by taking out the guidance system of said deadly missile?

Her vehicle physically hit him, so we’re not talking misperceptions here — and he had no way of knowing that she was only threatening him with eminent death, that she would swerve out of the way at the very last instant.

[Joe_dallas]

Swede425 28 minutes ago
"Same when you don't recognize that."

correction - Same at all times, not just when she doesnt recognize it.

[Malika la Maize]

of course jd triples down on the dumb

[Joe_dallas]

Self evident that Swede's post is correct with the exception that the derangement is at all times.

[David Nieporent]

A 4000 lbs vehicle is a weapon when you're deranged.

Heh. Because you're a bad writer, you wrote something unintentionally true, and self-owning.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Should unarmed women be shot in the face?"
Ashli Babbit?

[Malika la Maize]

Jesus you and Swedish Meatball are idiots. What do you think was the rhetorical function of that?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"What do you think was the rhetorical function of that?"

It's to remind you that your answer to "Should unarmed women be shot in the face?" is "FUCK YEAH!"

[ThePublius]

"Should unarmed women be shot in the face?"

She wasn't unarmed.

She was wielding a 4k lb. projectile, aimed at an officer, and refused to "drop it" - stop and get out - when ordered to do so. Instead she "puled the trigger" - stepped on the gas - and suffered the consequences of her stupid actions.

[Malika la Maize]

Thanks for proving once again you’re a dolt.

[ThePublius]

How about a substantive retort rather than juvenile name calling? Probably because you can't formulate such a response. Because what I said is true, and you can't put a logical response together.

[Malika la Maize]

You’re really that dumb, aren’t you?

I was providing that example as an equivalent opposite facile question to Armchair.

Jeez, of course you’re MAGA.

[ThePublius]

You replied to my comment. I can't read minds, I assumed since you replied to my comment, you were replying to me. Who's dumb now?

[Malika la Maize]

It’s you.

I provided an equivalent facile “question” to Armchair and you literally ran with it.

But hey, maybe you’re not dumb dumb but partisan dumb, hopelessly in your ideological bubble and triggered by what you saw asa challenge to your talking points of the day.

[ThePublius]

You didn't reply to Armchair, you replied to me!

[Malika la Maize]

I replied to Armchair’s dumb false question with an equivalent dumb false question and you responded to it seriously. Then I responded to that.

[David Nieporent]

Shorter ThePublius: anyone in a car can be murdered at any time by the Gestapo because in theory he or she could run into someone.

[ThePublius]

That's bullshit, and you know it. DN.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Did you miss the part about how HER TRUCK PHYSICALLY HIT HIM?

[David Nieporent]

Did you miss the part about how her SUV did not?

[ThePublius]

But it did, DN, and the agent suffered a hip injury.

Why deny the facts in this case? Because they don't fit your preferred narrative?

[David Nieporent]

You've seen his medical records?

[ThePublius]

No, I've read the news, wise ass.

[ThePublius]

"The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good last week in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition. "

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-officer-who-shot-renee-good-internal-injuries-sources-say/

[David Nieporent]

So, you're quoting an article citing two people — your standards for anonymous sources appear to have loosened — who also haven't seen his medical records.

[ThePublius]

WTF is wrong with you, DN? Are you just being contrary? This is all over the news, do a search for yourself.

It's like you have some deranged desire for it not to be so, you're defending this miscreant who drove right at an agent after being order out of the vehicle, her wife shouting "drive, baby, drive." And you want the agents to be wrong and the women to be virtuous, for some bizarre reason. Why? Why can't you own up to what has been established beyond any reasonable doubt about what happened? Is the anti-Trump, anti-ICE force that strong for you, that it blinds you to reality?

[David Nieporent]

WTF is wrong with you, DN? Are you just being contrary? This is all over the news, do a search for yourself.

The same thing you report — that some "official" claims that — is all over the news. I am not accusing you of fabricating the claim. I am accusing you of credulity.

[jay.tee]

I am accusing you of credulity.

This from the person who continues to defend debunked and unsourced Russiagate “reporting” in the NYT and WaPo.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding..."

I wouldn't read too much into this. Even if true, there is another, more common name for internal bleeding.

[David Nieporent]

I wouldn't read too much into this. Even if true, there is another, more common name for internal bleeding.

Yes. A bruise. As even Bari Weiss was forced to admit, "It was unclear how extensive the [alleged] bleeding was."

[not guilty]

"Internal bleeding to the torso" can be something as benign as a single bruise, or it could be something more serious. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/internal-bleeding

The ICE agent reportedly went to the emergency room after the incident, where he was treated and released. No surgery or hospital admission has been reported.

[David Nieporent]

The ICE agent reportedly went to the emergency room after the incident, where he was treated and released. No surgery or hospital admission has been reported.

I would also add that if this were a legit story, they would have released it on day one, rather than a week later as polls have turned significantly against the administration.

[ThePublius]

"Did you miss the part about how her SUV did not?"

You just can't stop lying.

[Dr. Ed 2]

BREAKING NEWS: CBS NEWS is reporting that the ice guy has internal bleeding. At this point it’s going to be a serious issue.

[not guilty]

"Did you miss the part about how HER TRUCK PHYSICALLY HIT HIM?"

Any contact between the agent and Ms. Good's vehicle was because Mr. Ross foolishly refused to step back out of its path.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/25328546173440940

If that had been an agent of the FBI, the DEA, the BATF or the U.S. Marshal's service, that use of deadly force would have violated Department of Justice guidelines. As I pointed out yesterday, Section 1-16.200 of the Department of Justice Policy On Use Of Force states in part regarding the use of deadly force:

A. Deadly Force

Law enforcement and correctional officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force only when necessary, that is, when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.

Deadly force may not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect. [Emphasis added.]

Firearms may not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles. Specifically, firearms may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless: (1) a person in the vehicle is threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle; or (2) the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury to the officer or others, and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle. [Emphasis added.] Firearms may not be discharged from a moving vehicle except in exigent circumstances. In these situations, an officer must have an articulable reason for this use of deadly force.

If feasible and if to do so would not increase the danger to the officer or others, a verbal warning to submit to the authority of the officer shall be given prior to the use of deadly force.

https://www.justice.gov/jm/1-16000-department-justice-policy-use-force

Ms. Good indeed acted foolishly, whereupon a trigger happy LEO refused to take a step or two back, and instead shot a woman to death. Contempt of cop is not a capital offense.

[ThePublius]

It was not contempt of cop, it was attempted vehicular homicide.

You're blaming the intended victim.

[jay.tee]

Any contact between the agent and Ms. Good's vehicle was because Mr. Ross foolishly refused to step back out of its path.

Any contact between her face and his fist was because she foolishly refused to step back out of its path.

That’s how deranged you sound.

[Kazinski]

"Any contact between the agent and Ms. Good's vehicle was because Mr. Ross foolishly refused to step back out of its path."

Step where?

She was the one who put him in front of her vehicle when she backed up in her Y turn, then immediately shifted to drive.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Ten feet to the right, and ten feet forward, would have put the shooter beyond any possibility of being hit by the car. In the six seconds which elapsed after the car began to reverse, and before the first shot, it would have been trivial to accomplish that.

Had the shooter been a parent holding a 4-year-old by the hand, notably greater separation could have happened. If the shooter were a trained athlete at a dead stop prior to the car going into reverse, in six seconds he could have been at least 60 or 70 feet distant. Crap about instantaneous decision making has no place in discussions of multi-second time intervals involving decisions to do things which every adult with pedestrian experience is highly practiced at doing. When you see someone cut the wheel and back up, then pause, you know the next thing will most likely be a turning move forward.

If the shooter was hit by the car—which nothing I have seen shows happened—it was because he intended to stand his ground and shoot instead of deescalating by getting out of the way.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I think he did both, try to get out of the path of the vehicle and shoot her so that she couldn’t change the path the vehicle so as to go to where he was jumping to.

That’s clearly justifiable deadly force. And where the hell is the EDR data?

[not guilty]

The agent's own cell phone video (not his body cam) shows that he was moving from the passenger side of the vehicle, where he had been interacting with Rebecca Good, toward the driver's side of the vehicle. While the car remained stationary, the driver turned the front wheels to the right -- in the direction opposite from the agent's line of travel. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cell-phone-video-deadly-minneapolis-shooting-rcna253207 The agent, who was not even knocked down by his incidental contact with the vehicle, could easily have moved out of its path.

If the driver had intended to run the agent down, she could have done so while he was crossing in front of her, or turned the wheels to the left.

The agent crossing in front of a driver occupied vehicle is a damn foolish move in any event. There is a reason that police officers conducting a traffic stop approach from the rear.

[bernard11]

If the driver had intended to run the agent down, she could have done so while he was crossing in front of her, or turned the wheels to the left.

She could also have done so earlier, when Ross crossed in front of the vehicle without incident. The claim that she wanted to hit Ross with her SUV is a baseless slander.

[Armchair]

No. Ashli Babbitt should not have been shot. But you celebrate that she was.

[Malika la Maize]

Nope, pathetic as usual.

[Mr. Bumble]

Now do Justine Diamond, also shot by a DEI hire.

[Malika la Maize]

I didn’t celebrate that either (literally looked it up when you invoked it this week), so you’re doubling down on pathetic.

[not guilty]

Armchair, I don't know of anyone who celebrates Ashli Babbit having been shot.

[ThePublius]

No, yes, yes.

[Swede425]

No.
That's fascism.
Now, let's show the world what enlightened liberalism looks like by killing babies, mutilating children, putting men in women's sport, putting mental illness on a pedestal, pretending that our violence actually isn't, and howling like banshees when confronted with the consequences of our actions.

[Malika la Maize]

killing babies

Oh you knew he’s one of those. Crying over zygotes. It’ll be ok lil’ Swede, they’re in heaven with Swedish Jesus!

[Sarcastr0]

1. Should anyone sincerely respond to someone JAQing off?
2. Should anyone have to pretend JAQing off is based on sincere curiosity?
3. Should Armchair's utter adherence to 'only point left' posting ever be taken seriously?

[Malika la Maize]

Perfect.

[Armchair]

See, when simple questions are asked, and you can't answer.

It means your logical position is weak at best.

[Malika la Maize]

lol, what a joke

[Martinned]

only those who have proper authorization can work

Ausweis, bitte!

I remember when this used to be a libertarian blog...

[Malika la Maize]

Papers, please!

[Armchair]

Perhaps you should focus on your own country.

[John F. Carr]

Work authorization paperwork has been required since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, long before this blog existed.

There are still under the table payments in industries like construction. As the government squeezes out cash they will decline.

[Martinned]

For sure, but back then libertarians opposed that sort of thing.

[Moderation4ever]

Let us start with #2 because the rest may well follow from that question. When laws are not followed it is generally because the laws are poorly designed or out dated. Start by updating immigration laws to be more effective and relevant to current situation. Updated laws will address question #3. Working out, better laws will require less enforcement and ICE role can be adjusted as needed. Does that work for you?

[Armchair]

"When laws are not followed it is generally because the laws are poorly designed or out dated."

We have a lot of laws against murder. Yet we still have a lot of murders. The law is not being followed by some people. Are the laws against murder poorly designed or outdated and need updating?

Should we change the law to legalize murder?

[Sarcastr0]

This is what Moderation4ever gets for taking Armchair's JAQing off seriously.

He's not here for thoughtful responses, he's here for shallow hot takes like the vibes-based 'we still have a lot of murders.'

[Moderation4ever]

I think you are right about armchair. He not interested in a discussion just getting off.

[Jmaie]

Not many here seem much interested in having any discussion.

[Armchair]

Again, laws exist for a reason. Pointing out that "some" people break them doesn't necessarily mean they should be changed.

[ducksalad]

Let's run with your murder example.

Do we have special murder exemptions to the 4th Amendment and equal protection, that allow race alone to generate reasonable suspicion? No.

Do we have special Anti Murder Police with reduced hiring standards, different rules of engagement, and hired liar spokeswomen? No.

Do we enforce the murder laws in such a way that masses of the public feel the need to protest, and the police end up shooting and beating protesters? No.

[Armchair]

"Do we have special Anti Murder Police with reduced hiring standards, different rules of engagement"

Yes. They're called homicide cops (or homicide detectives). And since they are dealing with violent individuals, the "rules of engagement" for violent individuals are different than for non-violent individuals.

"Do we enforce the murder laws in such a way that masses of the public feel the need to protest"

Yes. It's called the death penalty. And many people have protested it.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and yet when Obama was president and Dems controlled the Congress all we go was the ACA.
Guess they didn't think immigration laws needed fixing.

[Malika la Maize]

They had a filibuster proof majority?

[Mr. Bumble]

They somehow managed to get the ACA passed by deal making.

[Malika la Maize]

So what’s your argument here?

[Bob from Ohio]

That the Dems wanted the issue, not a solution

They had 60 for a while, then 59 so all they needed was 1 GOP vote, easily obtained if they wanted a deal

[David Nieporent]

They had a filibuster proof majority?

For several months; that's how they passed Obamacare in the first place. (It only lasted between the time that Al Franken's victory over Norm Coleman was declared and the time that Scott Brown replaced Ted Kennedy.)

[ducksalad]

It's sad to admit, but Bumble has a point. They did not try hard enough on immigration reform and relied too much on executive orders that were easily reversed.

[Moderation4ever]

There have been points when Republicans and Democrats have tried to address immigration and the effort was shot down. Most notably the effort of eight Senators in 2013.

[Brett Bellmore]

A handful of Republican Senators doing something most people in their party oppose is hardly "Republicans".

[not guilty]

No true Scotsman!

[bernard11]

Think about that next time you accuse "Democrats" of some nasty deed.

[Brett Bellmore]

"When laws are not followed it is generally because the laws are poorly designed or out dated."

Or because a lot of people want to do the illegal thing.

[Moderation4ever]

I guess using marijuana falls in the category of things people want to do that is illegal. Also driving faster than the posted speed limit.

[ducksalad]

1. Should ICE be abolished? The ICE leadership should be clean sweep fired, from Noem through district managers. There should be a reduction in force to 2024 levels, implemented by laying off the most recent hires. Except at federal checkpoints AT (not near) the border, and airports, they should be forbidden from making arrests except based on a warrant. If they see another crime they can call 911 just like anyone else.

2. Should the immigration laws of the United States be enforced? This is a stupid question that dishonestly pretends there is a single answer to a plural question. Should laws against adultery be enforced? Should laws against speeding be enforced by SWAT teams backed up by paramilitaries? Should laws against keeping government documents at home be enforced? The answer to the less dumb form of this question is that some parts of immigration law are very low priority (like adultery they should be usually not bothered with), not enforced as if we are dealing with terrorists (so no tactical cosplay), and should not used as lawfare (so no targeting critics or dissenters on Israel).

3. Should the worker authorization laws of the United States be enforced? There should be zero federal worker authorization laws. Work is not immigration, work is not interstate commerce, and work is not a federal concern. US citizens should not have to show a single piece of paper to work, not even to show that they are a citizen.

[Armchair]

1. That's fairly dramatic. The elimination of all senior and middle management would lead to a less effective organization. Perhaps we'd see the Biden surge in immigration again. Redoubled. Massive 100,000 caravans of "immigrants" crossing the border.

2. Not stupid. It's hard to do immigration enforcement without an organization that is empowered to do it. Laws against adultery shouldn't be enforced. Laws against speeding should be enforced. If speeders are recklessly evading the police, then more manpower may be called for. Laws against keeping (confidential) government documents at home should be enforced.

3. Well...that would lead to a lot more illegal immigration as well. Not to mention child labor. Probably a little slavery mixed in. Plus, who needs a licensed doctor? Don't enforce that either.

[David Nieporent]

Yes. Not generally, no. No.

[Josh R]

No, generally yes and generally yes. The generally part is we have to recognize that much of the economy depends on long-term resident unauthorized workers who are integral parts of our community. So, these folks should be at the back-end of prosecutorial priorities unless they have been convicted of crimes other than illegal entry.

Something tells me you asked those questions to justify how ICE is currently being used. Sorry, that does not follow.

[Armchair]

Two parts.

Part 1. I asked because many people are saying "Abolish ICE". That's dumb. But it needs to be pointed out why

[Armchair]

Part 2: " The generally part is we have to recognize that much of the economy depends on long-term resident unauthorized workers "

That's just called exploitation of a group with limited power to get them to work for low (or zero) wages. Same argument has been used throughout history, for slavery, for child labor, for more. You can put child labor laws into place (and enforce them) without the economic damage that is quoted.

Once you recognize the exploitative nature, you'll see why it's not a good argument to make. There are no jobs Americans won't do. There are jobs Americans won't do at crap wages and crap conditions.

[not guilty]

"There are no jobs Americans won't do. There are jobs Americans won't do at crap wages and crap conditions."

How much more are you willing to pay for groceries, for new housing, for overnight lodging, for dining out?

[Josh R]

We could solve the problem with the compromise I have offered here a number of times. Build the wall (plus whatever other measures are needed to keep the unauthorized out and insure they leave if a visa expired) in exchange for a broad amnesty for those without criminal records (other than illegal entry).

The market can take it from there.

[Malika la Maize]

Democrats should not take the bait and immerse themselves in the ICE stuff. Americans want tighter immigration enforcement. The focus should be on Trump’s economic failures.

[Sarcastr0]

ICE is no longer doing immigration enforcement - focusing on their increasingly open terror tactics has been playing well and will continue to play well.

Despite some posters on this 'libertarian' website, the American People are not down for the Good German thing.

Affordability messaging is also doing well, but that's both-and.

[DDHarriman]

>ICE is no longer doing immigration enforcement - focusing on their increasingly open terror tactics has been playing well and will continue to play well.

You sound like one of your handlers slipped you their version of the talking points... lol

[ThePublius]

"ICE is no longer doing immigration enforcement - focusing on their increasingly open terror tactics has been playing well and will continue to play well."

That is ridiculous. The only people employing terror tactics are the organized, trained, so-called protesters who are interfering, sometimes physically and violently, with legitimate law enforcement activities. The ICE agents are necessarily responding to this when it happens, they are not going to places to instigate this.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"...focusing on their increasingly open terror tactics has been playing well and will continue to play well."

So it's all just PR to you. Thanks for telling on yourself.

[Bob from Ohio]

If he really believe the administration was Nazi like, he would not comment here. Reason has his e-mail address so it would child play for a gestapo to id him.

Its just performance art with ole Sarc.

[Brett Bellmore]

"ICE is no longer doing immigration enforcement"

What, you mean they've stopped deporting illegal aliens? That's big if it's true, it would really open up a huge division between Trump and his base.

Got any evidence of it?

[Mr. Bumble]

"The focus should be on Trump’s economic failures."
Care to list a few?

[Michael P]

He reduced illegal immigration. He reduced foreign dumping of goods to undermine US suppliers. He reduced inflation. He increased real GDP growth.

(The left considers these economic failures.)

[Malika la Maize]

Those job numbers are great! And Mikie Q doesn’t eat steak, more of a soy boy is he.

[Mr. Bumble]

Not responsive

[Malika la Maize]

Are you that stupid that you don’t think job numbers and beef prices are responsive to a point about economics?

[Mr. Bumble]

Someone is being stupid if you think beef prices and job numbers constitute the sum of the economy, but it's not me.
See Kaz's comment at the top of the page.

[Malika la Maize]

Go with that, please Bumble!

Job numbers aren’t important, like you don’t need all those dolls you don’t need all that income.

[Moderation4ever]

In a broader sense the Democrats need to lead the discussion and not follow. The Trump administration works by keeping the pot churring. ICE, Venezuela, Greenland, etc. Yesterday, an autoworker reminded the President that the Epstein files are still not released and was rewarded with the Bird. Don't let Trump pick the topic. What Democrats need to do is keep to the economy and healthcare but include the other topics in relation. Immigration has been shown to be a net economic asset. Trump is damaging that asset and sending millions of unnecessary dollars to in the effort.

[Josh R]

Of course Democrats shouldn't immerse themselves in ICE. But, they can hammer away at the economy and keep an eye on ICE at the same time.

While immigration enforcement as a general matter is an 80% issue (in favor), ICE overreach is likely electorally neutral or perhaps a small plus for Democrats. Trump's shutting down the border and deporting criminals is a big winner for him. Chasing after farm workers and pepper spraying protestors is not a good look for him.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

In the swing districts Democrats need to win, it is much more likely that immigration excesses will be a plus for them, both to rally the troops and attract voters on the fence that are likely concerned but only so much. These voters, especially in a midterm election, can be appealed to by noting the other side's excesses.

The candidates often won't lead with "abolish ICE" either. They will support "sane immigration enforcement" or whatever.

Dems in safe districts are more likely to lean left on this issue, their base (rightly) passionate about the issue.

[David Nieporent]

If Democrats are smart — and they generally are not — they will make their message, "Trump is targeting harmless dishwashers instead of the worst-of-the-worst, thus making us less safe."

[JoeFromtheBronx]

They will point out that he captured a significant number who are not harmless dishwashers. The tactics overall seem to bother people, too. I'm no campaign advisor, though.

[David Nieporent]

But he neglected to get many of the WOTW because all he cared about was juicing the stats.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Democrats should not take the bait and immerse themselves in the ICE stuff. Americans want tighter immigration enforcement. The focus should be on Trump’s economic failures.

Americans appear to think immigration enforcement is being applied recklessly.

"Tighter" immigration enforcement would be enforcement that is not as reckless, scattershot, and overall offensive as it is now. Americans (to the degree we can generalize) repeatedly are upset when locals they deem innocent are harmed while immigration enforcement occurs.

Democrats can use sane and fair immigration reform as part of their message. "Americans" (okay, after a while, this is dumb) consider immigration as part of the economy.

Long-term, immigration is something that needs to be addressed in a practical way. Democrats are the party of practical government, willing to work with Republicans to do so.

"Trump's economic failures" is only go to work so much. Are Democrats not to take the "bait" and address other bad things Trump did and note that Democrats are necessary to check his abuse? All voters are not just about the pocketbook.

This was true in 2024, often in a negative fashion. Trump was attractive to many voters for dark reasons. Many voters now are dead tired of his bullshit. It isn't just abou the economy, which is somewhat of an arbitrary thing on some level.

(The evidence can be shown in a way that points out that the Biden Administration did better for the American public economically. Ultimately, on some level, that didn't matter.)

[Kazinski]

"The focus should be on Trump’s economic failures."

Economic failures like 5.4% GDP.growth in the 4th qtr?
https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow

If that estimate pans out, and it did in the 3rd qtr despite speculation to the contrary, that would be 3.3% GDP growth for 2025 as a whole.

Add to that they are predicting a 91 billion increase in tax refunds that should start hitting peoples wallets in the next month.

[Kazinski]

Here is another Trump failure:

"China just posted a record-breaking $1.2 trillion global trade surplus. The EU's is up 18.1%. Germany's numbers are BONKERS - a staggering 108% surge in surplus, meaning that it now accounts for nearly a third of China's entire EU surplus.

The US has been aggressively correcting its own trade imbalance with China through tariffs and restrictions. The result? China's exports to the US plummeted 20% in 2025, with imports from the US down 14.6%."
https://x.com/i/status/2011465705636368840

[SRG2]

And the NRA remain silent.

[Michael P]

And people like SRG2 are here to fill any moment of silence with mindless yawping.

[SRG2]

Oh the irony!

[Michael P]

It's ironic like rain on your wedding day.

[ducksalad]

Could you give a second clue?

[SRG2]

The leaked ICE list site: https://icelist.is/

[DDHarriman]

You're furthering a crime and putting federal agents in danger.

[Malika la Maize]

Federal lap dog.

How do their boots taste?

[SRG2]

1A, fuck off.

[Malika la Maize]

Harriman is Lex and before that Chuck. He started commenting here angry against the federal government because the VA wouldn’t approve his farther’s sex change operations. He’s gotten progressively right wing extremist since.

[Bwaaah]

What is your name, and where do you live?

[ducksalad]

Interpretive history quiz.

Q. The communist regime in East Germany was infamous for its

A. Secret police
B. Anonymous blog comments
C. A and B are the same thing!

[Bwaaah]

Interpretive history quiz.

Q. The communist regime in East Germany was infamous for its

A. Secret police
B. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in 2026
C. A and B are the same thing!

[Bwaaah]

Notice how a facetious voice allows me to sound smart, and yet be substantively distortive, at the same time?

I actually think you're better than this, but too often lazy and snide...makes you look a bit like Malicia.

[ducksalad]

You're saying I sounded smart? Thanks, rare praise around here.

But I think your response was unresponsive. Sarcastr0's anonymity is not the same as a police officer's anonymity. You don't really need that explained but today you're asking to get catechized anyway: blog commenters are not supposed to be accountable, while LEOs are supposed to be accountable.

[Bwaaah]

I was requesting SRG2's name and address (not Sarc's). He posted a link to the so-called "ICE List" (which is now an error page), which was to have detailed the personal information of ICE officers. That's usually called "doxxing," but in this case, it's cast as some kind of *justly* *imposed* *accountability*.

I thought maybe SRG2 would be willing to be accountable for his implicit support of harassment of LEOs by telling me his name and address. How about you?

I'm kidding. You're just nasty social justice warriors, and as the saying has been, "All Cops Are Bastards." (Of course, we mean ICE cops.) Or did that list attempt to separate lawful actors versus unlawful actors, good ICE officers versus bad ICE officers?

Fuck 'em all. Anonymously. 1A, man. ACAB.

[loki13]

Oh, you mean the same Ice Thugs that are illegally accessing databases so that they can show up at the homes of protesters and harass and intimidate them?

So glad that you have your priorities in order. Boy, you did fall a long way from being a lapsed liberal!

[Bwaaah]

They all Ice Thug, eh? So dox 'em all?

You're supposed to be the high-minded one. But, yes, "priorities."

And I believe the expression you're trying to parrot is "disaffected liberal."

[loki13]

Or maybe you should remember that, for example, I am all-for reasonable laws protecting LEOs from doxxing (such as state laws that protect them from state-level FOIA requests) ...

But that's because actual law enforcement doesn't wear masks, travels in marked cars that are identified, doesn't falsify their license plates ... and identifies themselves.

So the people that interact with them know who they are. Also? Actual cops don't tend to illegally access databases to come to your home and dox you IN PERSON with guns ... knowing that you cannot identify them.

But sure, I guess you are the one that feels superior with your rhetoric, eh? Because it's all the same to you. When thugs go around and aren't accountable, the ability to identify them and make them at least somewhat accountable is "doxxing...."

But when those same thugs kidnap, beat, maim, intimidate, and murder US Citizens without any accountability, you get to be snarky because they have the same power as anonymous internet commenters.

Feel better?

[David Nieporent]

They all Ice Thug, eh? So dox 'em all?

I reject the notion that identifying cops is "doxing" them in the first place. And yes, they should all be identified. Secret police are for Trump's idol Putin's Russia, or Nazi Germany, or the Stasi.

[Bwaaah]

Your answer is reasonable, and on point, David.

I don't think I'd ever be one to out cops en masse. That's too broad a stroke for me. And I have little sympathy for people who harass cops.

[David Nieporent]

I don't think I'd ever be one to out cops en masse. That's too broad a stroke for me. And I have little sympathy for people who harass cops.

If by "harass" you mean "follow them home and annoy them and their families when they're off duty," I would oppose that. (While I don't have any sympathy for ICE agents who are willing to work for Trump, I think in the bigger picture that such behavior would be more damaging to society.) But if by "harass" you mean follow them around on the job and do things to annoy them like filming them, I think that's perfectly legitimate. (Though of course it is possible to cross the line into illegality if one physically interferes with actual operations.)

[ducksalad]

You're just nasty social justice warriors

Perhaps I'm just a recently disaffected former conservative.

[Bwaaah]

"Perhaps I'm just a recently disaffected former conservative."

Ok. I enjoyed that one. But even in jest, you couldn't bear to call yourself a disaffected conservative. You had to be a former conservative. Why then the disaffection? The illness is already in the past.

Admit it. You're just a slightly nasty liberal. That's not bad.

[John F. Carr]

D. "Women" athletes.

[Bwaaah]

Did you ever see such biceps? Astounding.

[Malika la Maize]

Recently disaffected liberal thinks random internet commenters and LEOs should be held to same standard! Youre a joke. Lol

[ducksalad]

Did you have a warrant for that comment, Malika?

[not guilty]

"You're furthering a crime and putting federal agents in danger."

Furthering what crime? Aggravated journalism?

[DDHarriman]

Enforcing immigration laws, tyranny!

Restricting your speech in all contexts, the Warmth of Collectivism!

California’s far-left Supreme Court has ordered restrictions on the speech and expressive conduct of California’s lawyers “at all times,” including during their unrelated business activities, political endeavors and personal lives.

https://realclearwire.com/articles/2026/01/12/california_restricts_free_speech_153696.html

How many authors on this blog are now subject to State Censorship?

[not guilty]

In that there is no substitute for original source materials, here is the disciplinary rule in question: https://courts.ca.gov/cms/rules/index/nine/rule9_7?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--ZUL3sYGPZ3grqubTRuPYEVTMUC3mzVdWQxYNbM771zGkV6PS280Q--pzkk_W3gvxmBCcZBU5MRwe0pE3VaaJgDAGn6t2uk-MCz3BkDs9n0GjQg6k&_hsmi=395353656&utm_content=395353656&utm_source=hs_email

Some of the language used is potentially vague and/or overbroad, IMO. Attorney disciplinary rules must be applied to a particular case, however, in light of First Amendment restrictions. See, e.g., Gentile v. State Bar of Nevada, 501 U.S. 1030 (1991); Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977).

The rule about which DDH kvetches does not impose state censorship, nor does it act as a prior restraint on speech. Discipline may be imposed only after proceedings that require notice of the allegedly offending conduct and a broad range of procedural safeguards designed to ensure due process.

Those who prosecute and adjudicate disciplinary violations are bound by First Amendment limitations, and the process is subject to review by courts that are also so bound. Insubstantial cases will likely be weeded out with no formal disciplinary proceeding being initiated. Where proceedings are initiated, the respondent attorney is able to use the First Amendment protected nature of his speech or expression as a defense.

IOW, the sky is not falling, no matter what Chicken Little or Henny Penny claims.

[Sarcastr0]

ICE isn't doing immigration things, they're doing white nationalist thuggery things.

Oglala Sioux Tribe says three tribal members arrested in Minneapolis are in ICE detention
https://apnews.com/article/ice-minneapolis-tribal-citizens-immigration-detention-29ac43de85569b80bd64875388097ab6

It’s not the first time in recent months that ICE agents have detained tribal members.
...
Homeland Security refused to release more information, unless the tribe “entered into an immigration agreement with ICE.”

[Absaroka]

Native Americans seem like the farthest one could get from illegal immigrants.

[Malika la Maize]

Score!

[Moderation4ever]

Not just white nationalist, but male white nationalist. Listen to the administration's whiny about white women ganging up to oppose ICE.

[Malika la Maize]

Just finished watching Death By Lightning about James Garfield. Highly recommend.

[Sarcastr0]

SAUSAGES!

[Malika la Maize]

That was great, love that actor.

[Moderation4ever]

Agreed very good program. It was interesting to see that Chester A Arthur did step up when he assumed the Presidency. It is also a good lessen for for our current period. The effort that Garfield made and Arthur finished was to push back on the spoils system. Forgetting history we are seeing the Trump administration trying to revive the idea of political appoints on loyalty rather than merit.

[Mr. Hook]

It's undeniably entertaining, but it's often at cross-purposes with itself. It seeks to present Garfield as not just this forgotten president, who didn't even live long enough to be one of the placeholder presidents of the period. Rather, it wants us to appreciate him as the common man who becomes president. He is virtuous, a sincere believer in protecting the civil rights of the freed slaves, and his death is a tragedy because subsequent presidents abandon that responsibility. Like, his death matters. We can argue the legitimacy of the argument, but it has some merit to it.

But then the series also makes Guiteau and Arthur into comic characters. Guiteau is a delusional bozo and Arthur marinates in cynicism. Which, to be fair, isn't inaccurate, but it doesn't have to be played for laughs. It's fun stuff, don't get me wrong, but it works against the idea that Garfield's death is a tragedy for the nation. Should we feel regret from all this or be laughing? The makers want it both ways.

[Sarcastr0]

It's a hagiography with comedic elements.

I think it's a mistake to take it as a particularly serious piece with big things to say about the sweep of American history in that era.

Arthur wasn't a physical thug, just a party man. And apart from civil service reform he ended up pushing for and passing the Chinese Exclusion Act. But it's not his story, really.

So what? It was engaging and a ton of fun.

[Though I ended up skipping some of the Guiteau parts by the middle; they bored me for some reason.]

[Ridgeway]

The book on which it is based is really good (Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard). It is not played for laughs, just an interesting overview of the political landscape of the time, plus a bit of scientific history courtesy of Thomas Edison, plus a preview of how one disaffected loser can affect the world (writ much larger 80 years later).

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I didn't see the series.

An Assassin In Utopia: The True Story Of A Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult And A President’s Murder by Susan Wels was a good book too.

[Mr. Hook]

A rather fun book on this stuff is Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation, which is equal parts histories of Lincoln's, Garfield's, and McKinley's assassinations and a travelogue of visiting the locations of the murders. Vowell's style is playful and often tongue-in-cheek but she's no dope.

[Michael P]

KBJ expressed concern during oral arguments yesterday over the privileges that cisginger girls have over other girls. I don't think she, as a privileged DEI hire, realizes the challenges that cisginger people face in our society, including being labeled as soulless.

[Kazinski]

"Liberal white women in the past 20 years have lived the most privileged lives of almost anyone on the planet. But even having everything somehow wasn’t enough. They needed to still feel like Thelma and Louise, like they had no other choice but to scream in the faces of the ICE agents, no other choice but to resist, no other choice but to step on the gas."

https://www.sashastone.com/p/confessions-of-a-recovering-liberal

[bernard11]

"Liberal white women in the past 20 years have lived the most privileged lives of almost anyone on the planet.

More privileged than the lives of American white men over the past 250 years?

[Michael P]

In contrast, ACLU seems to be giving away the farm...

ALITO: To decide if there is discrimination on the basis of sex under Title IX, we need to define what sex is, right?
ACLU: Yes.
ALITO: What does it mean to be a man or woman, boy or girl?
ACLU: We do not have a definition for the Court.

[Malika la Maize]

What does it mean to be a father?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Depends on the type of case being tried, and what the applicable law requires.

[Bob from Ohio]

He's just making the dumb we pretend adopters are parents argument again. Not a serious question

[Malika la Maize]

We don’t pretend adopters are fathers and mothers?

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
moth·er
/ˈməT͟Hər/
noun
a woman in relation to her child or children.
"his mother was a painter"

[TwelveInchPianist]

You think adoptive parents and kids are pretending?

[Bob from Ohio]

He thinks since we apply the status of parent to non-biological parents, that means we should be ok with saying the biological fact of sex can also be changed.

Yes, its as dumb as it seems.

[Malika la Maize]

Really, when a person mentions their father you consult caselaw?

[TwelveInchPianist]

We're talking about a lawyer arguing a case in court. Please try to keep up.

[TwelveInchPianist]

There was a minor internet flap over Barrett using terms like "trans girls" and "cisgender" to describe boys with gender dysphoria.

But they're still going to be messing with the definitions.

What do you call a person who is "AMAB" who identifies as a cisgender woman?

Is someone with "female" on their birth certificate AFAB? Is a person with a penis and a birth certificate that says "female" who identifies as a woman cisgender? Once you surrender reality, you don't get it back.

[Josh R]

What do you call a person who is "AMAB" who identifies as a cisgender woman?

Huh? People identify by their gender identity. The term "trans" or "cis" is then automatically determined by whether their sex matches their gender identity.

So, an AMAB (sex is male) who identifies as a woman (i.e., whose gender identity is female) is a trans woman, not a cis woman.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Huh? People identify by their gender identity."

Now you're policing how people are allowed to identify?

"The term "trans" or "cis" is then automatically determined by whether their sex matches their gender identity."

Not sex, assigned sex at birth. Apparently that distinction is very important.

"AMAB (sex is male)"

Again, from what I understand there is a very important distinction between those two things. Why do you just lump them together?

[Josh R]

I do not buy into the notion that one's sex is self identified, but gender identity is. Barrett's terminology is consistent with my beliefs.

[David Nieporent]

In contrast, Michael P is busy fabricating quotations.

(You will find some of those words in one of the two oral arguments, but not the one argued by the ACLU!)

[Josh R]

Correct. The exchange with ACLU-attorney Block:

Alito: And how can we decide that question without knowing what sex means in Title IX? I mean, it could mean biological sex. It could mean gender identity. It could mean whatever a state wants to define it to mean, but it has to mean something. How can we decide that without knowing what the statutory term means?

Block: Well, I --I think there are a whole range of sex-based characteristics that can give rise to discrimination. I think, if someone said I'm going to discriminate against anyone who acts in a feminine manner, like anyone with limp wrists, I don't care who they are, but I'm going to discriminate against them, like, I think that would be sex discrimination. It would be sort of gender presentation. I would --but I wouldn't say that's not covered by Title IX. And so I just --I --I'm not saying that biological differences aren't part of sex, but I'm saying that sex also has broader connotations and there's no reason to keep that out of the statute. And I'm certainly not saying that sex means gender identity. I just want to be very clear about that.

[Josh R]

I found the dialogue between Gorsuch and Mooppan on the Spending Clause argument very interesting.

Gorsuch pressed Mooppan whether West Virginia ought to win because the penalty is withholding of federal funds and there was not clear notice from Congress that WV would lose funds if it did not permit trans girls in girl's sports.

Mooppan resisted the argument, I think because it might undermine his case for withholding funding to states that permit trans girls in girl's sports.

[ThePublius]

Michael P's characterization is accurate.

The complete exchange:

"Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito: Well, to pick up on the issue of discrimination on the basis of transgender status, let me just go back to—let me go to some basics. Do you agree that a school may have separate teams for a category of students classified as boys and a category of students classified as girls?

Justice Alito: If it does that, then is it not necessary for there to be, for equal protection purposes, if that is challenged under the Equal Protection Clause, an understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman?

Hartnett: Yes, Your Honor.

Justice Alito: And what is that definition? For equal protection purposes, what does it mean to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman?

Hartnett: Sorry, I misunderstood your question. I think that the underlying enactment, whatever it was, the policy, the law, the—we’d have to have an understanding of how the state or the government was understanding that term to figure out whether or not someone was excluded. We do not have a definition for the Court.

And we don’t take issue with the—we’re not disputing the definition here. What we’re saying is that the way it applies in practice is to exclude birth sex males categorically from women’s teams and that there’s a subset of those birth sex males where it doesn’t make sense to do so according to the state’s own interest.

Justice Alito: Well, how can you—how can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means for equal protection purposes?

Hartnett: I think here we just know—we basically know that the—that they’ve identified pursuant to their own statute, Lindsay qualifies as a birth sex male, and she’s being excluded categorically from the women’s teams as the statute. So we’re taking the statute’s definitions as we find them and we don’t dispute them. We’re just trying to figure out do they create an equal protection problem."
[emphasis mine]

[Josh R]

That's not the ACLU attorney and Alito's question to the non-ACLU attorney was about the EP clause. To the ACLU attorney, the question was about Title IX.

And of greater importance, Hartnett's said we do not have a definition because we accept the state's definition.

[Josh R]

And having now read more the oral arguments, the ACLU attorney (Block) said the Court should not attempt to define what sex means in this case because it suffices to assume for the sake of argument the state's definition (without prejudging how sex might be defined in other cases). The Court took that approach in Bostock.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"In contrast, Michael P is busy fabricating quotations."

Where do you see a quotation?

[Kazinski]

In Switzerland you can be arrested for having a definition:

"Switzerland: Ten days in jail for saying skeletons have a sex
It is not an especially controversial idea that sex can be usually determined by examining skeletal remains, even if there are exceptions. Not so in Switzerland, where Emanuel Brünisholz, a musical instrument repairman, was sentenced to ten days in jail for an anti-trans Facebook comment. In a 2022 reply to a member of the Swiss National Council (sort of their House of Representatives), Brünisholz wrote: “If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll only find men and women based on their skeletons. Everything else is a mental illness promoted through the curriculum.”

Brünisholz was arrested in 2023 and convicted in December 2024, where he was fined 500 Swiss francs. After exhausting his appeals, he refused to pay on principle, announcing in September of 2025 that he would be serving his alternative punishment — ten days in jail — this month, December.

What makes this case so sinister is that it looks like a roundabout way of criminalizing dissent from orthodoxy. Whether Brünisholz is right or wrong about anything he says isn’t the point; the point is that using the systems of government to punish someone who doesn’t agree with the mainstream view is the opposite of a free society."

From Greg Lukianoff's Substack.

[ThePublius]

Does anyone have a link to the complete MN ICE Watch “de-arrest primer” manual?

[Bunny495]

I am not sure such an item actually exists. This is sorta, maybe, kinda what your are talking about.

https://climatedefenseproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Ice-Watch_March_2025.pdf

[ThePublius]

No, that's not it, and yes, such a manual exists. It's in four parts. Here's a story about it in the Post:

https://nypost.com/2026/01/12/us-news/minnesota-ice-watch-group-shared-de-arresting-manual-comparing-tactics-for-fighting-cops-to-a-micro-intifada/

[Brett Bellmore]

Typical: They'll talk about it in a manner suggesting they have a copy, but let you see it? Nah. Might form your own opinions if they did that.

[ThePublius]

They showed a page from the manual.

[Brett Bellmore]

Is the manual one page long?

[Martinned]

Freedom of the Press FTW! (Aka sucking up to the Regime gets you nothing.)

The FBI executed a search warrant Wednesday morning at a Washington Post reporter’s home as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials.

The reporter, Hannah Natanson, was at her home in Virginia at the time of the search. Federal agents searched her home and her devices, seizing her phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch. One of the laptops was her personal computer, the other a Washington Post-issued laptop.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/14/washington-post-reporter-search/

[Brett Bellmore]

Shockingly, working for a newspaper doesn't give you any special rights anybody else lacks. Something people who work for them are militantly resistant to understanding.

If the FBI could have done it a janitor given the same probable cause, they can do it to a journalist.

[loki13]

You don't actually know much about how the DOJ investigates leaks, do you?

Here's the TLDR;
1. The publication of classified information is not, in fact, a crime. AT ALL. You know that, right? First Amendment.

2. The DOJ has a policy that, when it is INVESTIGATING a leak, and is, after long effort, completely unable to identify the source of the leak, AND they have identified a specified disseminator, and they have requested the disseminator provide the source, and that is refused, they will seek a limited warrant to try and get that information. But this is always controversial.

3. However, this warrant was based on an ARREST that already occurred. Which means ... they aren't investigating a leak. Moreover, the person arrested was not charged with disseminating any documents.

Now, I point this out because to all rational people who understand how things operate, what happened is obvious- it's another escalation in the weaponization of the DOJ to go after critics of the administration and the press.

But you? You're confident finding excuses despite lacking any knowledge of the issue. Tell us again how you are just a fair-minded libertarian that just happens to support everything that this administration does reflexively.

[Bob from Ohio]

"it's another escalation in the weaponization of the DOJ to go after critics of the administration and the press"

The magistrate who issued the warrant a co-conspirator?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, that's true: The publication of classified information, by itself, does not prove that you committed a crime. Maybe you found it lying on the sidewalk, or it just arrived in your mail box with no return address, and you have no contractual obligation to the government to keep it secret.

Or maybe you stole it. Or maybe you received it from somebody who committed a crime by giving it to you, and you suborned their violation. Who knows?

But all this is beside the point. My point is simply that journalists have no special immunity to search warrants, so the bare fact that a journalist gets searched pursuant to a search warrant doesn't establish that anything wrong has happened.

You'd have to look at the warrant application to see why they did the search, and have some more than baseless opinion about whether it was a valid search.

[loki13]

Or, you know, you could actually form an informed opinion by understanding the issues, law, and policy surrounding the issue (which has been thoroughly discussed and understood for a while, including here if you remember) and apply it to what we already know and has been well-reported elsewhere.

Or, if you're Brett Bellmore, you can reflexively assume that Trump's DOJ and FBI going after the press ... something that "Libertarian" Brett (I am pretty confident) would be up in arms about when this was previously discussed in prior administrations ... is just normal! And then wonder why other people, again, keep pointing out that you always defend the administration's actions reflexively.

I would note that, infra, you made comments like you not agreeing with Trump blowing up the drug boats (aka, murdering people). And yet, I recall you reflexively and vociferously arguing with people about that earlier! Weird, huh? I mean, you weren't as nastily bloodthirsty as XY, but still.

Will it be the same with this? Will it be the same with the crass brutality of Trump's Thugs terrorizing Americans to enforce your policies that you like ... however unlawfully?

Tune in and see!

[Sarcastr0]

'It's not illegal, so it's fine' is the only way for your post here to be relevant.

And that's a truly shitty response.

[Brett Bellmore]

I didn't say it was fine. I said it might have been fine, without seeing the warrant application you'd have no way of knowing what the basis of the search was. The mere fact that he's a journalist does nothing to establish that it wasn't fine.

[Sarcastr0]

Far be it from you to speculate, LOL!

This is going after a reporter to get at information they got from their journalism.

You don't even seem to have bothered to read the facts, and ended up defending a strawman about publishing classified info. Twice.

You see why people might think you're a reflexive defender of this administration?

[loki13]

1. The reporter is not a "he," but Hannah Natanson. Good to know that you're still arguing about an issue to defend Trump that you are so well-informed on!

2. We do know a fair amount about the basis, because the basis was announced by the AG. Which I already discussed. In other words, the basis is the arrest of someone charged with taking classified documents home ... but ... (1) the person arrested was NOT charged with dissemination, and (2) even if the person did leak it to her (which it doesn't look like happened), IT DOESN'T MATTER.

The administration has said that they did this because they will not tolerate leaks. But again, publication is not illegal.

But sure, it's always entertaining watching you defend things you know nothing about. Even though I know (and remember) exactly what you argued when this exact issue came up previously, the the DOJ went through hoops and exhausted all other avenues and then only got a supboena of a reporter in order to FIND THE LEAK after trying to get it from the reporter voluntarily, and then in sworn testimony (which the reported refused under privilege).

And people like you HOWLED. Here?

"I'm Brett, and I assume that this is in good faith, because reasons, and also, this DOJ always operated in good faith ... right?"

[TwelveInchPianist]

"This is going after a reporter to get at information they got from their journalism."

Which, if you listen to journalists, is an egregious first amendment violation, but there's no basis for that. Journalists are no different from anybody else, with the exception of certain privileges, everybody's information is fair game.

Journalists have argued that they should get some sort of privilege, and some states have passed statutory privileges, but afaik there is no federal privilege.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — Once again, a cautionary note posted beside a pit
of quicksand:

1. The 1A does afford explicit protection for an institutional press.

2. A reporter working for an institutional press is thus in a more complicated legal situation with regard to expressive rights than someone not connected to an institutional press.

3. The Constitution affords due process to everyone, a guarantee which at times might impinge on people who rely on expressive liberty to make publications, including reporters who work for press institutions, but also freelance journalists without institutional connections.

4. Numbers two and three above may at times come into conflict. Such conflicts may create legal dilemmas which courts must resolve, maneuver around, or ignore, but always with insight by the courts that no single solution will be found capable to fully protect either expressive freedom for an institutional press, or due process rights for everyone. No such self-contradictory solution can exist.

Thus, all solutions in such conflicting cases are destined either to look cobbled together, slip-shod, or intellectually inconsistent, unless they come down solidly in favor of one kind of party or the other. But any such outcome must ignore the fact that such a categorical end to the dilemma will always prove less wise than permitting the dilemma to continue unresolved. The nation cannot afford to do entirely without due process for everyone, or without protection for institutional press activities.

5. Thus, respect for the Constitution dictates that no specific resolution of that dilemma must ever occur, lest either expressive freedom for an institutional press, or due process for everyone be sacrificed completely to the other.

That is the rule which must govern a wise legal system confronted with an otherwise unresolvable legal dilemma built into the structure of the Constitution, and affecting two of its most indispensable protections.

I get that you would prefer that Constitutional protections for institutional press activities be wiped out. But that will remain the choice only of people too unwise to recognize the benefits which freedom for an institutional press confers on the public life of the nation.

There are likewise foolish advocates on behalf of absolute legal protection for an institutional press. They are as blinkered as you are.

[Brett Bellmore]

"1. The 1A does afford explicit protection for an institutional press."

Nope. Simply no. You've had this explained to you before, at length, even by constitutional scholars.

The 1st amendment affords EVERYBODY explicit protection in using printing presses, just like it affords everybody explicit protection in using their voice. The protection given me whaling away on a typewriter, or even scribbling with a pencil, is exactly the same as the protection given some dude who works for a newspaper and has his output read by millions.

The institutional press have no rights they don't share in full measure with every random citizen.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Wrong Bellmore. That far-out screed by EV would get laughed out of any respectable graduate history seminar. EV is a legal scholar, not even slightly qualified to opine on issues requiring academic historical training—and the issue concerning whether the press freedom clause relates to an institutional press is preeminently a historical issue, before it can even begin to be a Constitutional one.

As a matter of history, original intent to protect an institutional press with the press freedom clause is not even slightly a contestable question. It remains one of the most copiously supportable inferences to be found in the entire historical record of the founding, with explicit endorsements from multiple influential founders, piled on top of a mountain of practical evidence that a great many founders relied upon the institutional press then in existence to make the revolution.

Your uninformed ipse dixits merely supply evidence to support my conclusion that you stupidly underestimate the value of the institutional press even to you and your political allies, and want it legally hampered.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"That far-out screed by EV would get laughed out of any respectable graduate history seminar. EV is a legal scholar..."

You're going to be shocked to find out who it is that decides first amendment issues. Hint: It's not graduate students in history.

Do you have a graduate degree in history?

"As a matter of history, original intent to protect an institutional press with the press freedom clause is not even slightly a contestable question."

Well, yeah, it's not hard to see how protecting the freedom to use printing presses would protect the institutional press.

[Stephen Lathrop]

TwelveInchPianist — You ask whether I have a graduate degree in history. Answer is no, because I decided not to complete a PhD in the subject, choosing instead to engage the world in a less ivory-tower sort of way.

Before deciding to make that change, I was offered an opportunity to join a team about to begin a multi-decade project to curate Ben Franklin's collected papers. I suppose that experience might have resulted in a history professorship if I had gone that route instead.

In retrospect, I am of two minds about that choice. Had I done it, I might have become a narrowly-talented historical specialist, a fate I did not want. On the other hand, I would have been a participant in the discovery—then almost unsuspected—that Franklin was both a pivotal figure in the making of the American Revolution, and a world-historical giant of the Enlightenment in both Europe and America.

But I have been a student in that graduate seminar I said EV would have been laughed out of. Based on the essay Bellmore linked above, EV could have expected to be chastised for egregious procedural howlers by students in the seminar, while getting gentle correction from the then-President of the Society of American Historians, Edmund Morgan, whose class it was.

No doubt EV could have proved smart enough to take advantage of the chance to change his approach, and do better history if he wanted to. But EV did not do that.

A law professor cultivates habits of thought nearly antithetical to those relied upon during historical research. Historians are aware of that. For that reason, you will almost never find an elite historian willing to venture any opinion touching upon present-day legal analysis.

For reasons I am powerless to guess at, the reverse does not follow in practice. Lawyers of every kind, plus law professors who should know better, and also judges and justices, remain blithely unaware that historical research presents its own set of intellectual challenges, which cannot be readily mastered without specialized training.

Too many lawyers opine on history all the time. Elite lawyers seek power, or at least influence. Elite historians would tend to shun power, in the unlikely event it became available to them. They regard ambition for influence as a prolific source of historical errors—a problem which does too often corrupt the work of some lesser historians.

Look up Edmund Morgan. There has been no more insightful guide to historical method than Morgan, at least until the British scholar Michael Oakeshott later codified rigorous research methods. Those closely followed methods Morgan relied upon and taught. I do not know for sure, but I suppose Oakeshott and Morgan must have become acquainted, given Morgan's research in England done while researching one of his crowning masterpieces, Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America.

The two shared similar interests. Research principles Morgan advocated and relied upon as if by instinct get anatomized in detail in Oakeshott's philosophically rigorous essay, "On History," which was published later.

If you want to understand why doing history is so much harder than reading it, you cannot do better than make Morgan and Oakeshott your guides. Morgan examples, and Oakeshott explains, unique intellectual challenges which separate history from all other fields of intellectual endeavor.

After you read them, you will have a gut feel for why a would-be historical researcher must both nurture a habit of rigor, and preserve a capacity for surprise. The past always turns out both harder to access, and less familiar than any beginning researcher expects it to be.

[Brett Bellmore]

Lathrop, believe me, you do NOT want the 1st amendment interpreted to protect the 'institutional press' rather than everybody's right to publish. Because if it were interpreted that way, all you'd have to do is deny that some publisher was really part of the 'institutional press', and, poof, their rights go away.

Whereas, as the right of all citizens it actually is, you can't take the right away without having to deny somebody is a citizen. (And under precedents you probably dislike, that means corporations, too.)

[David Nieporent]

I don't think Lathrop would mind that, because it would never happen to an established newspaper; it would happen to a blogger or the like.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent — Like Bellmore, you insist on a categorical error I do not propose. I do not propose to divide institutional publishers from others by law, or by any system of personal categorization at all. The distinction is a matter of practice, not of identity. Whoever practices characteristic activities of an institutional publisher should be afforded Constitutional press freedom protections for those practices. Period.

You are correct however, if you suppose such activities will rarely if ever be practiced by individual bloggers. Not because any power will deny them opportunities to do so, however. The opportunities lie before them every minute, while they reveal by their choices a disinclination to take the opportunities up.

That remains an understandable and familiar divide today. It previously characterized the difference between institutional publishers and contributors during the legacy publishing age of ink on paper. Nobody during that now fading epoch suggested, at least in America, that government ought to designate some people contributors, and others institutional publishers, and then categorically privilege the latter over the former.

The only reason the question draws focus now is because some folks have decided they want the kind of publishing power which accrues to institutional publishers, without the risks, pains, and penalties which attend institutional publishing activity. And failing that, those same opponents have decided that rather than permitting institutional publishers to do as they formerly did, they would empower government to tear down institutional publishers in the name of equality for the others.

That is stupidity. Institutional publishers benefit even their opponents. Like everyone else, the opponents would know virtually nothing about public life absent efforts by institutional publishers to gather news, and set it before the opponents for their edification.

The opponents fail to do likewise not because of some legal constraint or power of government arrayed against them, but because they plain and simple prefer not to do it, or do not know how to do it.

That is the problem in the abstract. In practical reality, there have also been changes in public policy regarding publishing which enabled consolidation and publishing giantism unlike any previously seen. Those created practical business barriers to the entry of new competitors. Those need correction by policy more favorable to diversity and proliferation among private institutional publishers. But all that is a different subject than the one you and Bellmore so often reiterate.

[Kazinski]

It's actually much worse than that, now there are credible allegations that the US has used directed energy beam weapons on journalists.

https://x.com/SundayBriefFNC/status/2010389343115018513?s=20

[Martinned]

Yes, strange that.

Jacob Frey told ICE agents to get the fuck out of Minneapolis, a hugely popular viral moment, and the media has been browbeating him over it ever since. Trump flipped a guy off and told him fuck you and it’s barely acknowledged.

It's almost as if the media either don't want to criticise Trump, or are afraid to.

[Bob from Ohio]

"media either don't want to criticise Trump, or are afraid to."

Yes, the media never criticizes Trump

You need another vacation.

[Martinned]

Randos on the internet criticise Trump. Actual US media write/publish wishy-washy bullshit, or bury stories altogether.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Actual US media write/publish wishy-washy bullshit, or bury stories altogether."

You are insane.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Matrinned — Could not agree more. That is why I have been increasingly turning the news off, to spare my wife the discomfort of a husband stupidly yelling at a television.

[John F. Carr]

We've heard rude or outrageous lines from Trump for many years now. I'll be happier if the media covers the substance instead of the form of his statements.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's almost as though the general public are cool with flipping the bird to somebody who insults you, and the media know that and don't want to report stuff that casts Trump in a sympathetic light.

[loki13]

OMG. Or maybe the media has a doubler standard that you appreciate.

The crudity and cruelty of Trump are just the way things are, but everyone else has to be civil, right?

Trump can shit us (literally and figuratively) and tell us to fuck off or tell the press that they're stupid for asking actual questions (or ugly and stupid if they're a female reporter), but we don't dare say anything about the Trump Brownshirts occupying and terrorizing an American City that might be crude.

[Absaroka]

I'm certainly not going to speak for the genpop, but I don't like presidents who can't keep their temper, whether Trump here of Biden in 2020.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, speaking as a boomer, if somebody accused a President to his face of being a pedophile, and he supplied the guy with a knuckle sandwich, I'd be quite understanding.

[Sarcastr0]

Responding to insults with violence is cool and good?

That's a pretty low bar to hold anyone to, much less the President of the US.

[loki13]

Honestly, "responding to insults with violence" (or responding to nothing with violence) is what ICE is doing...

And Brett loves him the ICE Thuggery ....

so at least he's consistent.

[Brett Bellmore]

Never heard of "fighting words"? It is a concept in law.

[Sarcastr0]

"It's [sometimes] legal so it's fine."

[loki13]

I love Brett. He has heard that "fighting words" are a "concept in the law."

But he obviously has no idea what that means, although it sounds good, right!

[Sarcastr0]

Do most jurisdictions even have a law about fighting words anymore?
I took Advanced First Amendment and it barely came up. Maybe half a class on it.

It mostly seems fodder for Internet misapprehensions these days.

[TwelveInchPianist]

It usually defeats a first amendment defense for something like disorderly conduct. It's not a license to retaliate, it just means the government can punish you for saying things that are likely to incite an immediate breach of peace.

[loki13]

Well, there are two separate issues...

The first is "fighting words," as an exception to the First Amendment, which exists mainly in theory, not in fact.

The second is that ... that's the First Amendment, which doesn't cover, um, attacking people and violence. There is no general "fighting words" defense to violence. As in, "He called me a Brett, which angered my blood so much I had to shoot him and call him a fucking bitch!" Doesn't work.

If you are charged with a crime (like assault, or killing people), you can claim that the words threatened you (the guy said, "Ima kill you with this gun I have that Ima gonna shoot" so you killed him first, therefore self-defense) or that they provoked you and it's mitigating (the guy called me a Brett, and I lost control, so I didn't murder him, it was more of a manslaughter).

But that's not the fighting words doctrine.

[Brett Bellmore]

I did say I was a boomer. I grew up in a time when if you called somebody a pedophile to their face, you'd be lucky to walk away with all your teeth still in your jaw, and the law smiled on that. I realize the doctrine has evolved to be more insult tolerant since, but I'm still going to be "understanding" based on MY generation's values, not yours.

My being understanding won't help you in court, of course, but that doesn't make it go away.

[David Nieporent]

I grew up in a time when if you called somebody a pedophile to their face, you'd be lucky to walk away with all your teeth still in your jaw, and the law smiled on that.

The cops may have smiled on that; juries may have smiled on that. But the law did not smile on that.

[Sarcastr0]

'I grew up in a time' is a sign someone is into some retrograde nonsense and wants to pretend it's folksy.

That's not today. And if you're cool with a President acting like what seemed okay when you were a child, that's not a great sign for your ability to adapt and mature.

[Absaroka]

Wasn't there a SC case where someone was charged for telling a cop the cop's mother wore combat boots or something, and the fellow was charged with whatever the fighting words crime was called. And the SC said "The fighting words exception does not apply for comments directed towards an officer, because officers are trained professionals who won't react with violence like some undisciplined yahoo might"???

Is it unreasonable to hold presidents to a level of behavior as high as a rookie patrolman? People with nuclear footballs need to be pretty chill, I think.

I generally like Truman, but his letter was over the line.

[loki13]

Right ... that's yet another example where "fighting words" exists in theory, not in fact.

But the point is that "fighting words" (to the extent it still exists) is a FA claim- it's not a defense to committing violence. You can't say, "I murdered the guy, but fighting words!"

[DRM]

A textualist case for including trans girls on school sports teams:

1. Title IX explicitly says you can't deny people the right to participate in a school program on the basis of sex.
2. Title IX has many explicit exceptions, but school sports programs are not one of them.
3. Accordingly, every school team that excludes boys on the basis of their sex is illegal by the straightforward literal wording of Title IX.
4. However, by a similar straightforward literal reading, Title IX does not bar discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
5. So, a girls' team is not allowed under Title IX if it bans boys on the basis of their sex, but may exist under Title IX if it bans boys on the basis of their gender identity.
6. Therefore, faced with a person of male sex but female gender identity, a lawful girls' team under Title IX must allow that person to join.

Now, of course, this whole argument contradicts several decades of claims (and regulatory guidance from the executive branch) that Title IX actually requires the existence of girls' sports teams in schools. But that's because those claims (and guidance) were always wrong, at least as a matter of the text. Title IX does not in any way mandate equal participation or equal opportunities to participate to both sexes. It instead specifically, explicitly, and categorically mandates that covered programs not deny people the right to participate on the basis of sex.

[ducksalad]

Or we could repeal Title IX and abolish the offices that enforced it.

If a state directly violates the constitution, the aggrieved can sue in federal court based on the 14th amendment alone. No need for the executive and legislative branches embellishments on the 14th amendment.

[OpinionsVary]

But the protections in the US constitution represent the absolutely minimum level of protections allowed. You can never, under any circumstances, go lower than that. These are the bare level foundations here. But are absolutely allowed to go higher than that. Congress (assuming it has authority in a given area) can (and in many circumstances should) mandate more extensive protections than the lower limits in the constitution.

[ducksalad]

That last sentence is my point.

I would argue that the federal government *only* has authority to enforce the 14th Amendment protections. Since education, especially at a state university, is not a federal power, the feds can't make up additional protections.

I understand that the "hook" is federal funding but since I'd be eliminating the DoEd and its programs the hook would disappear.

[Josh R]

Title IX's text prohibits discrimination on the basis, which textually need not include all distinctions on the basis of sex. One such possibility is sports.

On the other hand similar to what Marty Lederman argued in the Gavin Grimm bathroom case, excluding someone of the opposite sex must be justified not to be discrimination, and must be justified as applied to sub classifications such as trans people.

In the present case, is it justified to exclude a boy who did not go through male puberty from a girl's team?

[David Nieporent]

and must be justified as applied to sub classifications such as trans people.

That was a key issue discussed in the Idaho oral argument, and the majority of justices don't seem persuaded by that contention.

[Josh R]

That discussion was about the EP clause, not Title IX. But yes as it relates to the EP, a majority seem to believe you can't have an as-applied EP challenge under intermediate scrutiny.

[David Nieporent]

That discussion was about the EP clause, not Title IX.

Fair enough. I doubt that at the end of the day the court's going to find any difference in the way those should be applied, but there is indeed a distinction.

[DRM]

Look, here's the exact text:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance, except that:

So, excluding a person from participating in any program or activity on the basis of sex is explicitly prohibited, unless it falls under the listed exceptions, which do not include sports programs.

Now, sure, the law also prohibits subjecting them to discrimination on the basis of their sex. And that may not prevent making "distinctions" on the basis of sex. But any exclusion from participation on the basis of sex is explicitly illegal separately from the question as to whether or not it counts as "discrimination".

So, if a boy wants to play on the girls' volleyball team, Title IX, applied exactly as written, is incredibly clear that he cannot be excluded from participation on the basis of his sex.

The best anyone can do, to allow the existence of any single-sex school sports program under Title IX as actually written, is exclude persons on the basis of something that closely correlates with sex, but not on the basis of sex itself. So, for example, someone trying to set up a "girls' volleyball" program could reserve it for those who have a female gender identity. But if someone did that, they would have to allow persons of male sex but female gender identity to participate despite their sex.

Obviously, under the usual standards of jurisprudence, trying to exclude people from participation on the basis of something that closely correlates with sex would get slapped down on the basis that it's a blatant proxy for sex. But at least exclusion on the basis of gender identity wouldn't explicitly violate Title IX.

[Josh R]

I would hazard a guess that the courts would construe "activity" to include "sports," not "women's sports."

[Josh R]

It's ends up (after reading more of the oral arguments), courts don't need to do that. In 1974, Congress passed the so-called Javits Amendments to Title IX which directed the Secretary of HEW to enact regulations supporting sex-segregated sports.

The respondent from WV argues those regulations should only apply when the state's interests in safety and fairness are justified. As such, respondent concedes that not all trans girls are permitted to play girl's sports. Only those who do not pose a safety or fairness issue are (she never went through male puberty, going instead through hormonal female puberty). Moreover, respondent is not asking for a summary judgment. A remand to review the science on whether she poses a safety or fairness issue suffices.

[Malika la Maize]

Harriman was surprised yesterday when I posted a news article that could be seen as favorable to the Trump administration yesterday. I actually agree with Trump on lots of things. AI, Tik Tok (result), in state tuition for illegals, etc.

My question is, for the Mikie Q’s, Bob’s, Bumbles, Pubes, etc, where do you agree with Democrats and disagree with Trump? You’re not hopeless toadies are you?

[ducksalad]

What does in state tuition have to do with the federal government?

The purpose of in state tuition is to account for the fact that the students (or their parents) paid state taxes that fund the schools.

It doesn't have squat to do with allegiance or loyalty. And I don't buy the crap about partial federal funding leading to federal control.

[Malika la Maize]

I didn’t say I agree the Feds should decide this only that they are right here now on it.

[ducksalad]

It's not like our laws here in Texas explicitly said "we like illegal aliens so they can pay in state tuition". The law merely said that any person living in Texas gets to pay in state. It's telling that one of the basic ways to demonstrate residency was to show a property tax bill. I don't see what's wrong with that.

We also had (have?) a provision in state law that granted in-state tuition for residents of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Chihuahua. But not New Mexico, Oklahoma, or Louisiana. I'm surprised the nativists aren't more angry about that one.

[Bunny495]

Not trying to answer for others. Most legislation for my recent memory is best described by Pelosi's famous comment 'we have to pass it to see what's in it'. Point is both the dems and pubs have passed so much legislation that neither side knew everything that was in it that for guys like us there may be a lot in the legislation we would agree with. Both parties have gone way past the Nyquist limit with the signal to noise ratio. As an example I am in agreement with the complete, total, absolute release of the Epstein files. Sadly, I am convinced like the JFK assignation files the release will never happen. Truth be told while I get protect the names of the exploited underage kids I am totally OK with no redactions (I do get how not everyone agrees with this). Bottom line is both the pubs and the dems have created a system where a few controversial positions are highlighted and a much larger number of positions are swept under the rug never to see the light of day.

[ducksalad]

You just triggered the frustrated professor. There is a hard Nyquist Limit but it is for sampling rate, not signal to noise ratio. On the other hand, there is a Nyquist thermal noise level but it is not a "limit", it's just that channel capacity decreases gradually as the ratio of signal to noise (Nyquist or other noise) decreases, and many modern systems operate with signal to noise ratios well under one.

None of this invalidates your correct point that there's so much government it's hard to know what's there to agree or disagree with.

[Brett Bellmore]

I disagree with Trump, and thus I assume agree with Democrats, about

1. Taking over Greenland. I'm going to assume this one is unalloyed agreement.

2. It's the Gulf of Mexico.

3. It's the Kennedy Center.

4. Blowing up presumptive drug boats in international waters. Setting aside my objections to the war on drugs, criminals should be arrested and tried, only killed if necessary to stop them from killing somebody else. I am not terribly confident that Democrats would be taking the same stance if a Democratic President had done it, however, given their reactions to Obama's various military actions.

5. Our act of war in Venezuela. Again, not at all confident we'd agree about it if a Democrat had done it.

6. Deporting illegal aliens who have not been criminally convicted to prisons in other countries. Deport them, sure, but unless they've been convicted of something, not to a prison.

I'm sure I could think of a few more things if I put my head to it.

[ducksalad]

That's a decent list.

[ThePublius]

"only killed if necessary to stop them from killing somebody else."

Bringing large quantities of fentanyl to the U.S. is inevitably killing someone.

"Deporting illegal aliens who have not been criminally convicted to prisons in other countries."

a. Do you know of a case of a non-criminal deportee being deported to a prison?

b. re-entry after having been deported is a crime.

[David Nieporent]

None of them were bringing any quantities of fentanyl anywhere, or anything at all to the United States, and that is not "killing someone" anyway.

a. Do you know of a case of a non-criminal deportee being deported to a prison?

Yes. Most of the Venezuelans being sent to CECOT purportedly under the AEA.

[ThePublius]

And you contend that all of those people are innocent? Not terrorist gang members? But your reply was not an answer to the question.

I'll ask again:
a. Do you know of a case of a non-criminal deportee being deported to a prison?

[jb]

Innocent until proven guilty, no? None of them are actually criminals until there's a trial and they're convicted.

Or is your idea that if Trump says they're a criminal we must consider them to be one for the purpose of this conversation?

[grb]

jb : "Or is your idea that if Trump says they're a criminal we must consider them to be one....."

I'm curious: Is this Trump guy the same fellah who was embarrassed after deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia against court order, so doctored a photograph of Garcia's hand as bogus "proof" of gang membership for a public speech?

If so, I'm not entirely sure how trustworthy he is.....

[ducksalad]

"And you contend that all of those people are innocent?"

Impaling a strawman on a goalpost and then moving it, all in one sentence. Well done!

[ThePublius]

I honestly don't follow that.

[John 4]

No shit.

[ducksalad]

The strawman is pretending DN claimed all of those people are innocent.

The original goalpost position was Bellmore saying people not convicted (he even italicized it) should not be sent to prison, you moved it.

[David Nieporent]

And you contend that all

Which part of "most" confused you?

And my reply was indeed an answer to the question: most of the Venezuelans sent to CECOT. AEA was utilized precisely because there weren't any other legal grounds for deportation.

[Absaroka]

"Bringing large quantities of fentanyl to the U.S. is inevitably killing someone."

As DMN says, cocaine, not fentanyl, but details.

Should we, say, drone strike the cars of people we think are serial killers in order to prevent them killing again? Or do the arrest/trial/sentence thing?

[ThePublius]

Most people driving cars are innocent.

Most people driving semi-submersed, high speed boats characteristic of drug smuggling boats, are not innocent.

Who's side are you on? Do you want that stuff in the U.S.? Are you perhaps a drug dealer?

[ducksalad]

Who's side are you on?

That's your whole problem right there in five words. You won't ever understand the rule of law if that's your only, or primary, cognitive tool.

[Absaroka]

Thanks, that was an LoL.

I'm not talking about drone striking random cars, just the car of a suspected serial killer.

I suspect most of the drone-struck boats were in fact smuggling. The question is whether we want to just drone strike suspected criminals, or arrest/try/sentence them?

Ken Ballew was suspected of having and setting off explosives, and so a risk to others. IMHO the raid was bad enough, but wouldn't drone striking him have been worse? But that's me - what was your opinion at the time? He got what was coming to him? Randy Weaver committed the crime - a serious crime, agreeing to saw off shotguns. Just drone striking his cabin would have been a lot more convenient than the resulting siege. Is that convenience worth it?

[jb]

"Bringing large quantities of fentanyl to the U.S. is inevitably killing someone."

Burning large quantities of coal is inevitably killing someone (and I'm not talking about climate change, I'm talking about ordinary pollution. By your logic, it would be okay to drone strike coal mines or trains transporting coal.

[ThePublius]

That's pretty stupid.

[ducksalad]

Yes indeed. That is jb's point exactly.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Bringing large quantities of fentanyl to the U.S. is inevitably killing someone."

And once you've located them, arresting them is just as effective at stopping those particular deaths as blowing them up is, so blowing them up is not "necessary".

And I said, criminally convicted.

[jb]

I was thinking about this the other day too.

Brett below provides a list of Trump things he agrees were bad, which is a start I guess. But do Democrats ever do anything good? Is there an example of a Biden policy that any of the MAGAs here approve of?

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5677104/trump-administration-letter-terminating-addiction-mental-health-grants

The Trump administration sent shockwaves through the U.S. mental health and drug addiction system late Tuesday, sending hundreds of termination letters, effective immediately, for federal grants supporting health services.

The regime doesn't care about the actual issues related to drug addiction in America, they just want to blow up boats.

[Brett Bellmore]

Wow, with a title like that you'd think they could have linked to the actual text of at least one of those letters...

[Sarcastr0]

Ryan Hampton, the founder of Mobilize Recovery, a national advocacy nonprofit for people in and seeking recovery, told NPR his group lost roughly $500k "overnight."

Are you saying this is a lie?

No one here is surprised that your ever tunable skepticism ends up with you being a defender of Trump yet again.

[jay.tee]

you being a defender of Trump yet again

I see. Now, attempting to actually read primary source documents before jumping to a potentially erroneous conclusion, especially when reacting to something published by an agenda-driven organization that frequently lies, means “being a defender of Trump”?

[Bob from Ohio]

"advocacy "

Oh, so they don't provide services.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'm saying I really hate it when the media have original source material, and keep it hidden. Maybe they're not lying, but they're forcing you to take it on faith that they're not.

[Sarcastr0]

Oh for fuck's sake.

You're going to accuse a ton of organizations of lying just because you didn't see the original letter.

This is just the Obama delivery room all over again.

You're such an outcome-oriented tool.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'm going to accuse a ton of organizations of making sure I can't TELL if they're lying. Apparently, the distinction between that and accusing them of actually lying is too complex for you to wrap your head around.

I don't like it when the media force me to take their word for something, because I'm 67 years old, which means I have encountered way, way too many times when the media outright lied.

It's of a piece with the increasing tendency of news reports to use paraphrases instead of actual quotes. They are actively hiding from their readers anything that might allow the readers to form an independent opinion, and, I. Don't. Like. That.

[Sarcastr0]

'print the letter of termination' is not a standard you've ever brought up before, and it's not the standard any media follows.

They got a ton of similar reports, all on the same day, all about the same cuts. The admin refused to comment.

The media isn't forcing you into anything, you're just tuning up the skepticism because it's a bad story for Trump and you just gotta go to bat for the guy.

They are actively hiding from their readers
They are not, you fake outrage toolio.

[bernard11]

You know what? I agree with Brett here.

The media can tell us what the letter says, and so on, but I'd really prefer to read it myself.

I absolutely hate it when I have to rely on a reporter's summary or the like. Just point me to the damn letter.

[Michael P]

In other antisemitism news, UK police lied about using generative AI to produce a report (that cited a hallucinated soccer match) that resulted in Israeli fans being banned from a game because of supposed risk.

https://www.theverge.com/news/861668/uk-police-microsoft-copilot-error-mistake

[Bunny495]

See my post below about constructing AI prompts. While I generally support LEOs (even those that go unarmed) I would not turn to them if I needed a good AI prompt.

[Bunny495]

In my ongoing quest to justify my spending big bucks for a entry level AI machine I have been spending too much time refining the prompts I use when I have a task for AI. Using Grok I got a suggestion to preface the prompt with a disclaimer asking AI to edit the prompt to make it better and end the prompt with the same disclaimer. I tried this with a prompt about the size of this paragraph. Here is the result. It illustrates the level of detail AI thinks is needed for an acceptable prompt, something of an eyeopener to me.

I am an AI enthusiast with a BIZON workstation running Ubuntu, equipped with a Threadripper CPU and RTX 5090 GPU, plus preinstalled AI stacks. I've set up ComfyUI with the Manager extension and installed dependencies for various workflows/templates. Additionally, I have Ollama running with the dolphin-llama3 model (which I believe is based on a 70B parameter variant).
My goal is to create high-quality AI-generated videos/movies, emphasizing strong storytelling as the core element. My current pipeline is:

Generate initial images using a text-to-image model like Flux or Stable Diffusion (via ComfyUI workflows, e.g., WanD 2.2 or similar).
Convert those images to short video clips (e.g., 5-second, 1280x720 segments) using image-to-video models like SVD or AnimateDiff in ComfyUI.
Assemble and edit the clips into a full video using DaVinci Resolve Studio.

However, I'm facing two major roadblocks that I need detailed, step-by-step guidance to overcome:

Story Development and Scripting:
I'm using dolphin-llama3 via Ollama to generate stories, which I then attempt to convert into scripts with scene breakdowns and storyboard descriptions for feeding into text-to-image prompts.
The generated stories often feel generic, lacking depth, character development, plot twists, or emotional resonance—despite my belief that a compelling narrative is essential for great movies.
Please provide optimized prompting techniques for dolphin-llama3 (or suggest better open-source models compatible with Ollama/ComfyUI on my setup) to create richer stories. Include examples of multi-stage prompts for iterative refinement (e.g., outline → full story → script → storyboard panels with visual descriptions).
Also, recommend ways to integrate this with ComfyUI for automated storyboard generation, and any extensions/nodes that could help visualize or export storyboards.

Audio Workflow:
Audio is currently my biggest pain point—I have no reliable end-to-end process for generating voiceovers, sound effects, background music, or syncing them with video clips.
Suggest a complete, beginner-friendly workflow tailored to my Ubuntu setup, including:
Recommended open-source tools/models (e.g., via ComfyUI audio nodes, Tortoise TTS, Bark, or alternatives installable on my system without internet dependencies beyond initial setup).
Step-by-step installation and integration if needed (e.g., with Ollama for script-to-speech).
Prompting strategies for generating natural-sounding dialogue, ambient sounds, or music that matches the story's tone.
Methods to sync audio with video clips in DaVinci Resolve, including handling timing, lip-sync if possible, and exporting final mixes.
Any hardware optimizations for my Threadripper/5090 to speed up audio generation.

Focus on practical, actionable advice that builds on my existing tools, prioritizes free/open-source options, and includes troubleshooting tips for common issues like model compatibility or quality degradation. If web searches or X ecosystem insights are needed for the latest tools/techniques, please incorporate them.

[Sarcastr0]

Federal agents allegedly drive off with baby in car after father detained in Cypress Park raid
https://abc7.com/post/federal-agents-allegedly-drive-off-baby-car-father-detained-cypress-park-raid/18140560/

If ICE were trying to foment violence against them, I don't know what they would be doing differently.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"[The father] was detained last Tuesday for allegedly throwing rocks at agents. He says agents then drove off in his car, with his 1-year-old daughter in the backseat...The baby was released to her family. Her grandmother says she had a bruised cheek, but is otherwise OK"

What do you expect them to do with the baby, especially if local authorities aren't cooperating? (And tbh, it's probably better that they don't give the baby to local authorities.)

[Sarcastr0]

Just don't steal cars, much less with babies in the back seat.

[ThePublius]

How was this stealing a car? The driver was taken into custody. What were the agents supposed to do with the car?

Having your car towed or driven away when you've been taken into custody is not car theft.

[John F. Carr]

Usually police have the car towed instead of driving it away.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Towing seems to be the more common practice.

[ThePublius]

They aren't the police, and the local police have apparently been uncooperative and not even present. ICE agents probably wouldn't have the local tow operator's and storage yard's numbers handy.

I suspect immediacy was a concern, as well as the fact that there was a child in the car. Also, we don't know where he drove the car to; it could have been just "out of the way." Do you know where they drove it to?

[SRG2]

They aren't the police,

So yes, they stole the car and kidnapped the baby. Thanks for the clarification.

[ThePublius]

You can't honestly believe that, can you? You're just being contrary and belligerent. And intellectually dishonest. There is no way in this universe that it was either kidnapping or car theft. The interesting thing to know would be why do you say that?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Well, when none of the things that are true support their position, they have to say things that aren't true.

[SRG2]

So the agents didn't drive the car away? There wasn't a baby in the back seat? None of that was true? But then you're a cultist, so your idea of truth is only ever likely to coincide with actual truth by accident.

[SRG2]

When you have no legal authority to drive the car away, and there's a child inside the car and you are not acting in loco parentis, you have committed theft and kidnapping. I imagine you can find an online dictionary to confirm this.

[TwelveInchPianist]

OK. How about if they seize them incident to arrest instead, which is what appears to have happened here.

[ThePublius]

Of course you, Sarcastr0, are outraged, telling half the story. How is it that ICE is fomenting violence against themselves when the father threw rocks at the agents before they took him into custody, for throwing said rocks, and drove off with his car and baby? Who fomented violence in this case?

[TwelveInchPianist]

This is what happened when the left-wing brain gets ginned up in a tizzy.

Sarcastro posts a story about a perfectly innocuous and normal response by agents getting rocks thrown at them as if were some kind of scandal.

[ThePublius]

It's worse:

1. Agents have rocks thrown at them: agents are fomenting violence against themselves;
2. agents move car of detainee: car theft.

Now, that's derangement, in spades.

[Sarcastr0]

It isn’t a normal thing that the police arrest Someone and drive off in their car with their baby in back seat.

Read what the fuck you are saying.

[ThePublius]

Under the circumstances its perfectly normal. The guy was detained for throwing rocks at officers; that he did so with his child in the car could be grounds for a charge of child endangerment. But once detained, what are they supposed to do with the car and the baby? Where did they drive it to? How far? Perhaps just out of the way.

Are you saying they should have not detained him, let him get back in the car and drive away? So the baby becomes a shield? You know that people are bringing children to these so-called protests as shields? Don't you?

Read what the fuck you are saying!

[David Nieporent]

The guy was detained for throwing rocks at officers;

Presumably you just accidentally forgot the "allegedly."

[ThePublius]

Oh, give it a rest, DN.

[John 4]

Yeah, DN! Due process is a thing of the past. Get over it!

[grb]

Besides, we know how honest and committed to truth ICE is!

[loki13]

To be clear, in almost every case of ICE "arresting" a citizen, it was an illegal arrest. They are abducted and released (sometimes after being unlawfully held or beaten, or threatened, or illegal demands or made to provide names of people that are minorities or protesters).

If there are charges (OBSTRUCTION! ASSAULT OF AN OFFICER) ... case records have shown that those cases have almost universally been dismissed when ICE had to present evidence.

Usually, these "charges" are to cover up for ICE acting illegally- they will often charge victims after they have been shot or assaulted.

It's pure thuggery.

Also also? If the administration alleges something, especially if it comes from McLaughlin, you can be guaranteed it is a lie.

[grb]

loki13 : "To be clear, in almost every case of ICE "arresting" a citizen, it was an illegal arrest."

Another brand new example here:

https://digbysblog.net/2026/01/14/a-common-occurrence/

[ThePublius]

Look, I'm not a reporter or a government official or anything like that, I don't have to qualify everything I say with 'alleged,' especially when it's crystal clear what was happening. Such demands are the last refuge of a party on the losing side of an argument.

If he really wasn't throwing rocks, like, if he was waving his hands, or even just waving a rock, that will come out in the end. But that's what he was detained for, no?

[David Nieporent]

But that's what he was detained for, no?

I have no idea what he was detained for. I recognize the link says "He was detained last Tuesday for allegedly throwing rocks at agents," but it's not clear whether the reporter is quoting a court document or what. He could easily have been detained for looking Hispanic.

[Brett Bellmore]

When you're detained for a crime, they are alleging that you committed the crime, but the crime is not "allegedly" doing some act, it's actually doing the act.

[SRG2]

You have a point inasmuch as "allegedly" is reflexively over-used - possibly to avoid defamation. If someone is arrested by the police, the reason for the arrest is doing X. One can qualify later by noting that the police allege this or that. The most idiotic example I came across today was a line saying, roughly, "Ross allegedly shot Good".

However, if one remove the "alleged" in reference to the reason for the arrest, one cannot then write as though the offence were proven. We do not know whether the man did throw rocks. We have evidence from an unreliable source. That does not rise to the level of knowledge.

We do know that the agents drove off in the car with the baby inside. Prima facie this was theft and kidnapping. Perhaps it will make its way into the next edition of a well-known video game.

[Absaroka]

"Federal agents allegedly drive off with baby in car after father detained in Cypress Park raid
https://abc7.com/post/federal-agents-allegedly-drive-off-baby-car-father-detained-cypress-park-raid/18140560/

If ICE were trying to foment violence against them, I don't know what they would be doing differently."

Taking the facts as presented, are you objecting to:

1)Arresting people for throwing rocks at other people?
2)When arresting someone who has a kid with them, driving the kid to the family, as opposed to calling CPS or something (I haven't kept up on CA's co-operation with ICE ... would CPS respond?)?

or something else? Given the arrest, what would you like to see? Or is arresting people with kids just a no go in all cases?

[Sarcastr0]

driving the kid to the family is quite an assumption to make, based on the linked article and video.

[Absaroka]

"The baby was released to her family"

Again, the police are arresting someone who has a kid along. What would you have them do?

[Sarcastr0]

ICE arrested someone, and drove off in the arrested guy's car with the baby in the back.
Later the kid was released to the family.

'driving the kid to the family' is not what that implies.

And that's also not normal procedure.

I don't yet have a kid, but I don't care if I threw rocks at them, ICE randos driving off in my car with my kid in the back seat is outrageous behavior.

[ThePublius]

"ICE randos driving off in my car with my kid in the back seat is outrageous behavior."

Well, don't throw rocks at officers when driving around with your (future) kid.

[Absaroka]

Again, the police are arresting someone who has a kid along. What would you have them do?

[Bwaaah]

Reality is complicated. Sarc implies he knows better. It would appear that he doesn't.

I don't mind saying I'd be shocked if the ICE officers mistreated the kid. I've never seen law enforcement officers mistreat little kids. I'm not saying that's never happened. But speculating that they did mistreat the kid defies the extreme unlikeliness of that, even under the current administration.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I don't yet have a kid, but I don't care if I threw rocks at them, ICE randos driving off in my car with my kid in the back seat is outrageous behavior."

Most people who get arrested find the cops' behavior outrageous.

I don't know what the normal procedure is for ICE arresting someone with a kid, but it sounds like a reasonable and safe way to remove the vehicle and kid from the scene.

[Bwaaah]

If you have a kid, you might want to avoid forcing him into your political engagements (especially if they might involve violent or unlawful behavior). Dangerous assholes do otherwise with their children. That's a pretty bright line there.

[ducksalad]

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/politics/prosecutors-couple-had-14-year-old-in-tow-at-capitol-riot/2899338/

Federal prosecutors said Thursday that a North Carolina woman deserves a prison sentence for bringing her 14-year-old child into the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot.

Virginia Marie “Jenny” Spencer and her husband, Christopher, had the child “in tow” when they joined other rioters who overwhelmed a line of police officers, invaded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office suite and demanded entry to the House chamber, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.

Final outcome of the case: she was pardoned.

[Bwaaah]

That's what I meant. It's not at all ambiguous. What those people did, in having brought their non-adult child into their escapades, was very wrong, even after setting aside any alleged political context.

[David Nieporent]

1) These aren't the police.
2) The normal thing to do is to try to find someone (e.g., family or friend) to come to the scene to take the kid, and if they cannot, to call social services. Not to just steal the car and drive off.

[Absaroka]

"The normal thing to do is to try to find someone (e.g., family or friend) to come to the scene to take the kid, and if they cannot, to call social services. Not to just steal the car and drive off."

I'll buy that (with, perhaps the caveats that I dunno how stable the scene was, and I dunno if California Social Services would respond if ICE called. I would hope they would ignore a 'Don't Help ICE' policy (if there is one), but bureaucrats going out on a limb to do the right thing isn't assured).

[ThePublius]

Damn it, it's not car theft! why do you lie like this?

[SRG2]

Did they have authority to move the car? If they did not, it's theft. As so far neither you nor anyone else here has provided evidence that they had such authority, theft it is.

[Bob from Ohio]

Sarcasto thinks they should have just left the baby there. I gues that's one way to handle it.

[Bunny495]

I am calling bullshit on this. Woops I am calling bullshit in November since it happened in November. Once again when the facts come out there is a massive difference from what the libtards claim. Here is a little more about the clown who was arrested.

"1. Criminal Charges Against Dennis Quiñonez
Following his arrest, federal prosecutors moved forward with a specific criminal complaint. As of the most recent updates:

Federal Charge: He was officially charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a person previously convicted of domestic violence (a violation of federal law commonly referred to as a "Lautenberg Amendment" violation).

The Evidence: Federal affidavits state that during the arrest, agents found a loaded pistol (with five rounds) in his car that was reported stolen out of New York.

Assault Allegations: While he was initially detained for investigation of assault on a federal officer (throwing rocks/wielding a hammer), the federal firearm charge became the primary legal lever for the prosecution.

Bond Status: Quiñonez was released on a $10,000 bond in late 2025. He remains out of custody while the case is being litigated in the Central District of California."

Only a retard like Sarcastr0 would bring up this case.

[loki13]

When people don't understand how to read criminal charges and understand facts .... how to understand all of this?

1. There was a car that was reported stolen out of NY. By whom? Why are there no charges regarding the supposed stolen car?

2. He was then arrested for "assault on a federal officer." However ... they are no longer pursuing those charges, are they? The actual reason they supposedly arrested him and detained him ... have vanished.

3. Luckily, they now have a new magical charge to justify all of this! Is there actual evidence of this? Who knows. Maybe it's BS, like the assault and the car, and it will disappear as well. OTOH, maybe it's real, but it's not what it appears to be ... for example, let's say that he was driving a partner's car, and ICE decided to falsely claim it was reported stolen (because they went to the house and the partner said he was driving it around) .... and then in the trunk was a gun that was his partner's, but because he was driving the car at the time he was in possession.

I honestly don't know. But what I do know is that the normal DOJ practice is to STACK charges, not to have things mysteriously disappear that were the entire basis for an arrest.

But hey, Bunny here knows that this DOJ and administration never lies, right? Just us "retards" (btw, nice word usage... hard to tell you're a Trump supporter!).

[Brett Bellmore]

It's not that complicated, constructive possession is open and shut, it's very hard to dispute, and carries a fairly hefty penalty.

OK, so let's say this, and let's say that. Great, he can say this and that in court, and maybe he will. Or maybe he can't, because this and that are provably untrue.

Sure, the administration lies. They also tell the truth. Don't confuse them with a character in a logic puzzle.

[loki13]

What's not complicated is that all the "facts" and "evidence" that undergird the entire reason for the stop and arrest have disappeared.

That's what I see. But what do I know? It's not like I know much about the law or stuff. Heck, it's also not like this DOJ has a pattern and practice of charging people that ICE arrests and then dropping those charges because ICE and the DOJ lie about the charges.

Oh wait, I do know a little about the law. Also? The DOJ has ... what ... had to dismiss more than 90% of those cases? Because it's just ICE and the DOJ covering up heinous misconduct and lying, and don't survive in court?

Oh yeah.

[David Nieporent]

1. There was a car that was reported stolen out of NY. By whom? Why are there no charges regarding the supposed stolen car?

The almost-certainly-false DHS statement is written so badly that either the car or the gun could've been stolen.

2. He was then arrested for "assault on a federal officer." However ... they are no longer pursuing those charges, are they? The actual reason they supposedly arrested him and detained him ... have vanished.

He (a) was in criminal possession of a weapon; and (b) attacked ICE agents with rocks and a hammer; but… he was immediately released from custody?

Well, actually… per the link below, the whole assault with a hammer is complete bullshit:

Federal authorities detailed in an affidavit that Quiñonez was yelling at the agents while holding a hammer “in a threatening manner,” about 100 feet away from them.

The dreaded long range hammer! Oh, and the "rocks" he supposedly threw at them? Not actually rocks.

As they were driving away, the agents observed Quiñonez put the hammer into the trunk of his car then throw two “rock-like” objects at their vehicle before getting back into the driver’s seat of his car.

And then… instead of just continuing to drive away… they decided to go after him for contempt of cop:

​​It was at this moment that a team of agents boxed in Quinoñez’s vehicle to prevent him from leaving.

https://thelalocal.org/immigration/father-toddler-reunited-cypress-park-los-angeles-immigration-raid/

[TwelveInchPianist]

If they falsely arrested him, that's bad, but that's not what Sarcastro was initially complaining about, and that wasn't in the article he linked. You guys are throwing so much bullshit around that it's hard to keep up.

And in any event, it's still illegal to throw rock-like objects at people.

[SRG2]

And in any event, it's still illegal to throw rock-like objects at people.

Yes. But as we have good evidence that he didn't throw rocks, the illegality is likely irrelevant.

[ThePublius]

Oh? I haven't seen that there's evidence that he didn't throw rocks. Where did you learn that?

[SRG2]

In the lack of charge, obviously. Authorities in possession of as much information as could be gleaned did not charge him. That is evidence that he didn't throw rocks at people, obviously.

[loki13]

Right. But the point, as always, is that this administration can tell the lie, and people like Bunny (and Brett) will parrot it. Always.

Because the lie keeps traveling. Despite the fact that anyone with a tenth of a braincell knows that all they do is lie, and we've seen it over and over and over again.

I swear to god... they don't even bother with plausible lies. At least when local LEO engages in testilying or a coverup, they usually try and make it plausible! Here, it's always calling people domestic terrorists, or claiming someone rammed their car (when video footage shows them, as they always do, ramming someone's car) and so on.

I guess that's the point, right? If you can make the morons swallow the biggest lies, you've got them right where you want 'em. I feel like this someone wrote about this ....

[TwelveInchPianist]

SCOTUS had a case earlier this year where a cop pulled someone over for toll violations, then jumped on the car's door sill and shot the driver when the driver tried to take off. Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence about the dangers cops face when cars try to flee.

On remand, CA5 found that the cop acted reasonably and gave him summary judgement. I suspect people would be shocked at the type of stuff courts find reasonable.

[John 4]

So how’s MAGA feeing about Greenland today? Did y'all get your talking points yet?

[ducksalad]

In the interest of fairness, it should be noted that a lot of Trump supporters are deserting him on this one. Brett and Kaz have said it's impeachment worthy if done using military action not authorized by Congress, and Brett appears to be against acquiring it through other means. A lot of prominent R senators are flatly and openly against it.

[jb]

Kaz said Venezuela was impeachment worthy, and then changed his mind about 24 hours later after it became clear that wasn't the party line. I wouldn't expect anything different to happen with Greenland.

[Kazinski]

What actually changed my mind was that contrary to early reports it wasn't an invasion, it was a "brief incursion", which is a much less egregious offense.

Well that and the fact they killed 34 Cubans.

[ducksalad]

jb, I apologize for using Kaz as an example. Consider it withdrawn.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Is that like when a senator (for a few hours) was "concerned" about Trump, and it was impeachment-worthy regarding Venezuela, and the person then moved on to how it was impractical, and anyway, things seem okay now? In "fairness," these people are like Lucy and the football regarding any real limit on Trump.

[Brett Bellmore]

To be clear, if it was a deal where we BOUGHT Greenland, with the agreement of Greenlanders, I'd think it was something we didn't need to do, but it wouldn't be terribly objectionable. I just think it's unnecessary.

[ThePublius]

Yes, why buy the cow when the milk is free?

[Sarcastr0]

So much for the DEBT.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, what part of "I don't think they should do it anyway" are you having trouble with? It just wouldn't be a heinous crime if it were a voluntary purchase.

[ducksalad]

Are we agreed that voluntary means with the agreement of the Greenlanders *and* Americans as represented by Congress?

Illegal spending of money on a major project roughly 85% of Americans aren't interested in strikes me as moderately heinous. Not at the war criminal level but at the impeachable level.

And it's no excuse if he does it with off-the-books funds from selling "taken" oil or Qatari donations or whatever, because having off-the-books funds to evade Congressional oversight is also wrong at the impeachable level.

[ThePublius]

How about this for 'deep state:'

"U.S. Secret Service Agent Assigned to VP JD Vance Leaks Sensitive Security Information to Undercover Reporter.

Escotto is a holdover from the Biden administration and stated that he voted for Joe Biden, while expressing opposition to ICE & the Trump administration’s immigration policies. “I hate that [ICE] sh*t.”

Tomas Escotto, a current U.S. Secret Service agent on Vice President JD Vance’s protective detail, was recorded on hidden camera providing an undercover journalist with sensitive security information, including protective formations, shift schedules, travel plans, & real-time locations.

The Secret Service agent detailed how the Vice President is physically surrounded, described multiple daily shift changes, & disclosed advance security procedures.

In addition to past movements, the agent revealed future travel plans, sometimes days in advance. Escotto even sent images from Air Force Two while onboard with the Vice President."

https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/2011154810641203660

Watch the video. He met this woman on Tindr, and apparently on the first date spills all these secrets to a stranger.

I would like to follow up and see what happens to him. He should be prosecuted and do jail time, in my opinion. Perhaps even denaturalized and deported (he became a citizen in 2018).

[ducksalad]

If it's true (keeping in mind this is O'Keefe) then I'd have to agree that firing is the absolute minimum and it could go beyond that. Haven't looked at the details, if he was just trying to impress a potential girlfriend it's less serious than if he thought he was talking to someone wanting to breach security. The first is bad enough (because he could not know for sure it wasn't a ruse) but the second would deserve prison time.

Now let's talk about what O'Keefe did. As you know I'm a big fan of the Rule of Goats. If using subterfuges and lies to extract security information is wrong, then it's wrong regardless of whether you're doing it to get the details or to make the deep state look bad. O'Keefe can't know whether his own organization has been infiltrated by people intent on doing something harmful. Or who simply have loose lips and would reveal the obtained info just to prove what a cool undercover reporter they are.

[ThePublius]

The USSS seems to think it's true, as Escotto has been put on leave, his clearance revoked, and his ability to access facilities revoked.

[ducksalad]

It at least means they think there is enough evidence to start the process. We'll know they've finally decided it's true when the leave turns into a termination.

[Bored Lawyer]

Did O'Keefe dig out any security information? Or just the fact that security information was leaked by someone else?

The linked article is perfectly fine and reveals nothing about Vance's security (other than it has a big leak).

[ducksalad]

I assumed the undercover reporter was paid and operating under instructions from O'Keefe. If that's wrong, OK, change my complaint to the reporter rather than O'Keefe himself.

[David Nieporent]

I don't know about this beyond what I read here, but I saw a tweet from O'Keefe where he posted what he implied (I think; I frankly didn't read too carefully) were text messages from the agent to the honeypot. And in those messages, he made clear that he couldn't give out any details for security reasons. He gave out less information than Hegseth texted to a reporter about a military strike.

[ThePublius]

It's true you don't know much, if anything about this. Yet you post anyway. Why not just watch the video?

[David Nieporent]

Standards.

[Bored Lawyer]

I thought your complaint was that O'Keefe and his reporter dug up and maybe spread sensitive information. Which is not necessarily the case.

Undercover work per se is no illegal.

[ducksalad]

I agree undercover work per se is not illegal. Honeypot schemes to extract important secret information....maybe. Certainly outright spies go to jail. Does it depend on the second step of transferring the information to a third party?

Does it depend on being a reporter with a sincere journalistic purpose? How about a reporter for a "legit" Russian news organization, can they do it? How about if I'm a US reporter for my own small-circulation US newsletter, and it just so happens my few paid subscribers are all anonymous and overseas? I really don't know where to draw the line, it's a tough 1A question.

During the Greenwald and Snowden cases I heard claims that it's the combination of the reporter soliciting the information while knowing the person revealing the information is committing.

I should admit plainly that I opposed prosecuting Greenwald and Snowden, so maybe this one is OK also. OTOH I don't think Greenwald and Snowden engaged in deception of their source to get the target so it's not really the same thing.

I can't help suspecting that the real line is the Publius standard "Who's side are you on?"

[ThePublius]

So, somehow a reporter asking questions and the subject spilling secret information makes the reporter somehow complicit in the subject's crime? Who knew.

[jay.tee]

Beyond what happens to Escotto, what happens to the USSS going forward? Do new administrations, upon taking over from the opposition party, start purging the USSS to reduce risks like the ones Escotto pose?

[SRG2]

What crime should the undercover journalist and O'Keefe be charged with? As they're private citizens, they don't have a defence when they procured Escotto's crime. Conspiracy? Aiding and abetting? Obviously you don't think they're innocent, right?

[ducksalad]

He gave his answer to all questions upthread:

"Who's side are you on?"

[ThePublius]

The publication of classified information is not, in fact, a crime. AT ALL. You know that, right? First Amendment.

O'Keefe helped the USSS, is cooperating with them, and redacted information that the USSS requested.

How else can you catch leakers?

It's funny, the same people who were outraged at the Washington Post's reporter's apartment being searched (with a valid search warrant) are now outraged at O'Keefe's reporting.

[SRG2]

The publication of classified information is not, in fact, a crime.

I didn't claim that the publication would have been illegal. The journalist and O'Keefe assisted Escotto in his crimes by asking him to commit them. That's separate from publication, obviously. If WaPo had persuaded Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers, rather than publish them as leaked, they could have been charged.

You're smart enough to know the difference, from which it's obvious you're intentionally moving the goalposts to avoid an unacceptable conclusion.

O'Keefe helped the USSS, is cooperating with them, and redacted information that the USSS requested.

O'Keefe is not part of the US government, and his later redaction is irrelevant to his earlier abetting.

[ThePublius]

I honestly don't know about the legality of this situation, but I'm glad O'Keefe, et.al. did it, and I think the USSS is glad, too. It's a public service to have outed this guy.

[SRG2]

Ah. the "public service" defence for private individuals. Must be a new one. Got a link to the Federal court decision which created it?

[Bunny495]

There has always been both legit and uncalled for questioning of the SS. Hillary was infamous for treating her SS protection badly and Clinton was said to get cover from SS agents when he was bonking his conquests. In general the pubs always got better grades on their treatment of SS guys than the dems. I am not buying that spilling the beans is more justifible when done to get some babe into the sack than for other reasons. It has long been a staple of spycraft to use females (or males) to get information. I am not sure just what this guy is guilty of but he definitely sets off my criminal stupidity meter. From what has been made public the O'keef plant was not getting a one sentence answer but she was pumping this guy for all he was worth on multiple topics. Even if some babe asked a single question about sources and methods it should set off red flags but it seems like this conversation dragged on forever.

[John F. Carr]

Greenland Annexation Act. "The President is authorized to take such steps as may be necessary, including by seeking to enter into negotiations with the Kingdom of Denmark, to annex or otherwise acquire Greenland as a territory of the United States." After annexation the President shall ask Congress for a law admitting Greenland as a state.

https://fine.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=118

[Mr. Bumble]

Just what we need a new state with a population of 60,000.

[Brett Bellmore]

The only thing I can say in favor of it is that the per capita GDP in Greenland is comparable to the US, so it's not like we'd be taking on a territory that was economically dependent and likely to stay that way.

[loki13]

FFS, Brett. Can you do more than a minimum of googling before making confident assertions?

Look up "block grant" and educate yourself about the relationship between Greenland and Denmark, and then tell us about economic dependence.

[Absaroka]

"After annexation the President shall ask Congress for a law admitting Greenland as a state"

I thought this must be a Dem poison pill, by adding 3 Dem congresscritters, but the sponsor is an R.

Partisan shenanigans aside, that's a lot of congressional oomph for 57K people. People complain about Wyoming at 10 times that.

[OpinionsVary]

I think there comes a point when the low population of a state loops back around politically speaking. At 57K pop, you can likely take the state over via people moving there. So the test is can Republicans move more voters there than Democrats. My gut is yes, since Democrats (correctly) see Trump's land theft at the point of a gun as a massive moral abomination. You might mumble something about negotiations at this point but Greenland isn't going to 'negotiate' itself into the USA at anything less than a gun.

[Mr. Bumble]

Annex Canada and Greenland then combine with Alaska to create a continent spanning state of Alcanaland.

[ducksalad]

The day after shiva ended, [Florida Republican congressman] Fine formally jumped into the race. He had been fully prepared to move his family to Israel in the event Kamala Harris had won the presidential election, he says.

He’s been the target of a state ethics commission, and, last year, video emerged of Fine appearing to avoid a subpoena by hiding behind his desk (he claimed he had been following safety protocols related to antisemitic threats he had received for his support for Israel).

https://www.jta.org/2024/12/06/politics/is-randy-fine-the-pugnacious-florida-lawmaker-the-future-of-republican-jewish-politics

----
Randy Fine has denounced Ireland as a state that supports terrorism.

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/2024/08/27/jewish-gop-lawmaker-blasts-desantis-trip-to-antisemitic-ireland/74965048007/

----
Randy Fine denounced Ron DeSantis for being insufficiently anti-anti-semitic.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/24/florida-jewish-republican-trump-desantis-00123221

---
Maybe we don't need to worry too much about Fine's bill going anywhere. Unilateral unauthorized executive action is the primary risk here.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Randy Fine has denounced Ireland as a state that supports terrorism."

He's right. Pro-Hamas, joined the ICC case against Israel, recognizes "palestine".

[David Nieporent]

When I read the quoted text, I thought it was proposed by a Democratic member of Congress to make clear how stupid Trump was, and perhaps force GOP members to either vote for a retarded bill or break with Trump.

But then I saw it was Randy Fine, the man doing his level best to disprove the stereotype of Jews being smart.

[SRG2]

He looks as though he never met a kneidlach he didn't like.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Don't they want to determine if Greenland will vote Republican first?

[Bored Lawyer]

Indeed. My guess is this would add two Democrat senators.

[Frank Drackman]

Probably not Black though

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The musician Yo Yo Ma was on Late Night with Stephen Colbert.

That is his actual name. His sister also has "Yo" (which appears to mean "friendly") in her name. His parents emphasized it for him. "Ma" is his family name.

[SRG2]

Nowadays he has a vibrato you can drive a bus through.

[Bunny495]

Kelly is no longer the Lone Ranger

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/elissa-slotkin-says-she-s-under-federal-investigation-too/ar-AA1Ud7H9

[M L]

ICE Arrests Worst of Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens Including Pedophiles, Violent Assailants, and Human Traffickers https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/01/07/ice-arrests-worst-worst-criminal-illegal-aliens-including-pedophiles-violent
ICE arrests dozens of criminal illegal aliens convicted of murder, child rape and more in sanctuary state Minnesota https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-arrests-dozens-criminal-illegal-aliens-convicted-murder-child-rape-and-more
ICE Arrests Worst of Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens Including Pedophiles, Rapists and Violent Assailants https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/12/17/ice-arrests-worst-worst-criminal-illegal-aliens-including-pedophiles-rapists-and

These updates have been nonstop for a year now. And that is all great. But, with all the brouhaha, a few things stick out.

It appears Trump hasn't outpaced Obama on deportations. Why not? The resistance judges, open borders lobby, and street-level useful idiots are a factor. There is a mass of morons that would oppose cute puppies to the death, if Trump came out for cute puppies.

But the bigger issue is, it seems like there should be a much easier way to instantly get all illegals to self-deport. That would be to go after anyone who employs them. Turn off the electromagnet, and all the pieces of metal drop off instantly. Simple.

ICE operations are great for the worst criminals, and they're also fine for those who just violated immigration laws, if reasonably conducted. But there's far too many illegals present, especially after traitorous Joe took the long-running open borders scheme for the mass importation of illegals to unprecedented new heights. So, it seems like you need some more systemic approaches to dealing with the issue. And I do think the shock and awe ICE actions are trumped up for show.

[Sarcastr0]

ML with no Brietbart.

This ICE shitshow must be looking dire.

traitorous Joe
Mmm...maybe another spin by the writers room on that one.

[M L]

I forgot I promised to always post a Breitbart link if I come here, just for Sarcastro. Obviously you've been deprived your fix, sorry!

Here you go: https://www.breitbart.com/tag/ice/page/3/

Minneapolis Council Member: ICE Isn’t Getting Bad Guys, ‘They Are the Bad Guys’
Dem Rep. Kelly on Minneapolis ICE Agent Being Dragged Earlier: He Shouldn’t Have Stood in Front of Car
Antifa Activist: ‘This Is What the Founding Fathers Gave Us the Second Amendment For’. -After an ICE protester claimed it is time to “show up with guns and end this,” an antifa activist says we have the Second Amendment to fight “occupation.”
WATCH — Leftist Admits Protesting at Minneapolis ICE Facility Is Her Job: ‘I’m Getting Paid Right Now!’
Watch — Crowd Chants ‘Kristi Noem Will Hang’ at NYC Protest
Randy Clark: Democrats Cry ‘Murder’ in Minneapolis ICE Shooting to Distract From Massive Minnesota Fraud Scandal
Minnesota Police, Peace Officers Release Statement Slamming Politicians’ ‘Reckless Rhetoric’ Against Law Enforcement
‘Stoking the Grievance Industry’: Leftist Groups Mobilize After ICE Shooting in Minneapolis
Nolte: Ashli Babbitt Had No Gun or … SUV

[M L]

1995. Presidential Radio Address.

Clinton: It does not matter if they have committed crimes while here. They came here illegally. That's a crime. They have to go.

In 1995 the entire country agreed with this. It was common sense. Now Democrats call this fascism and hate speech.

https://instapundit.com/769240/

It's really quite amazing to see how far lunatic the left has become.

[jb]

The fascism isn't deporting people who are here illegally--as you point out, Obama was quite effective at that.

The fascism is masked goons going door to door, or plucking teenaged citizens from their jobs and dumping them across town, or launching criminal investigations against people administration has wronged (see Abrego Garcia and now Becca Good). There's plenty more in that vein as well. The fact you can't tell the difference between objecting to immigration enforcement and the wholesale trampling of the Constitution shows you're either not listening at all to what people are complaining about or just choosing to ignore it because they happen to be on the other team.

[M L]

I'm fine with the idea that there are valid process or method related objections to the immigration enforcement actions happening now. But it's not a fraction of the amount of "fascism" that we saw in the last administration.

The fact that you try to pretend it's all about that though, shows you're not paying attention at all or choosing to ignore reality. The same people have been just as shrilly denouncing the mere idea of enforcing immigration laws and not having open borders as racist, Nazi, fascist etc for the last 10 years plus. Many things are fascist according to them, like enforcing laws generally, failing to mandate sick and deranged gender ideology in libraries and schools, etc.

Do you agree with 1995 Bill Clinton?

[jb]

I'm struggling to remember when Biden was sending armed federal agents door to door to make sure people were wearing their masks or stopping people on the street to show their vaccine papers and then hauling them off to jail if they didn't comply. Maybe you can help elaborate on the much worse fascism that you remember.

As for this claim, though: "The same people have been just as shrilly denouncing the mere idea of enforcing immigration laws and not having open borders as racist, Nazi, fascist etc for the last 10 years plus." it's just absurd. There are, I'm sure, some open borders advocates, but that's a far less common view than, say, Obama is a secret Muslim. Importantly, there's essentially no elected officials or (when Democrats are in the Presidency) senior officials with that view. On the other hand, there's plenty of cheerleading for ICE's current tactics from throughout the Republican party. I do agree that terms like "Nazi" and "fascist" are overused, but masked goons demanding papers of citizens in their homes and on the streets isn't a situation where it's far off the mark, I don't think.

[Bunny495]

Trump has recently created the Fraud Division to go after the Somali leering centers employing the fraudsters. Seems like whistle blowers pointed out to Waltz that while there are 1.2 million kids in Minn these clowns were getting paid for feeding 18 million kids and he ignored it. Any chance Waltz will self deport.

[loki13]

I thought that this was interesting-

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/before-and-after-the-trigger-press-that-killed-renee-good

It's a breakdown of the ICE Actions leading up to the shooting of Renee Good in a dispassionate way, without analyzing whether the use of force was justified. What it does do, however, is illuminate, in excruciating detail, exactly why everything leading up that point is ... just horrendously unprofessional and why ICE's actions (I would call it blatant thuggery) is what caused her death.

I would note that while the initial analysis doesn't really go into the constitutional framework (it deals mainly with policies and procedures, although it does note that the legal framework re: state crimes and that there was no "obstruction" under the relevant legal framework) ... the biggest problem, as far as I am concerned, is that these thugs should never have thought they had the authority or the ability to attack her in the first place.

But they did. As do the thugs in ICE around the nation. We are allowing, with some people here cheering on, a culture of lawless violence perpetrated against Americans. From kidnapping, to assault, to maiming, to murder. Deploying chemical weapons at protesters, and at kindergartens. The message is clear- comply, or suffer. Perhaps ... die. And know that the thugs will never be held responsible.

If this isn't a problem for you, maybe you never really liked this country, or the people in it, very much.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I'm more liberal than you, but also share your anguish at the utter unprofessional nature of this administration. And how much they lie. And are utterly horrible in a multitude of ways.

"The message is clear- comply, or suffer. Perhaps ... die. And know that the thugs will never be held responsible."

The pardons of the 1/6 crew were so horrible in part because (contrary to some naysayers) a lot of effort was made to hold people responsible. Then, the Supreme Court stepped in. And then Trump comes in and waves his magic wand.

It's both very American and anti-American, in its own way.

[Frank Drackman]

How many were killed by the 1/6 Crew? NONE, Nada, Zilch,
Speaking of Magic Wands, how about the one Sleepy gave Dr. Faux-Chi??
I get not prosecuting for the millions he killed with Covid, but why does the Pardon go all the way back to 2014???

[Bunny495]

Once again the libtards FAIL to include the relevant evidence that destroys their claims. This paragraph is telling:

"Why was ICE interacting with Good in the first place?

The question isn’t rhetorical. Video footage shows that she was clearly—at least for a few moments, if not longer—blocking traffic by positioning her car in the middle of the road; furthermore, she was doing so while in the presence of law enforcement vehicles with lights and sirens activated. Such behavior would appear to be a prima facie violation of Minnesota Statute 169.20 §5, a misdemeanor punishable by a $300 fine, and perhaps diversion to a remedial driving school. If a peace officer with the appropriate authority ordered her to move, and she chose not to comply, she also may have been violating Minnesota Statute 169.34 §1(11)."

And even more so this sentence "Video footage shows that she was clearly—at least for a few moments, if not longer—blocking traffic by positioning her car in the middle of the road; furthermore, she was doing so while in the presence of law enforcement vehicles with lights and sirens activated."

This is not the first time I have posted about the existence a video prior to the ICE agents arriving showing for a good three minutes or more Good was blocking the road. Not only blocking the road but honking her horn, along with another half dozen other cars honking their horn, along with pedestrians on the street loudly blowing whistles. These actions are all known to be tactics of the ICE Watch group Renee and Becca Good were associated with and consistent with ICE Watch creating a hostile environment for the ICE officers to perform their duties. ICE agents may not have jurisdiction over local traffic violations but they do have authority to remove obstructions on a route ICE is using to transport detainees. No one questions both Goods and there fellow activists were working against ICE activities. The questions about who had jurisdiction where pale compared to an obvious effort to hinder the ICE agents. While Renee was at least not outwardly taunting the ICE agent at the window of her care Becca made comments like 'come at me'.

Ignoring how long Good was perpendicular parked, how coordinated the horn honking was, how coordinated the whistle blowing was and the obvious taunting by Becca Good destroys any credibility about a dispassionate analysis. ICE agents had been subject to at least ten vehicles driven by "protestors" hitting ICE vehicles, so it seems reasonable for agents to keep that in mind. Since the roads were icy and just prior to the shooting Renee was revving up her engine, and her rear tires were spinning on the ice it is reasonable to think she might not have complete control of her car. Botton line is so many mitigating factors left out points to the "dispassionate" analysis being a hit job. Making a case against Ross is fine, making a case against the activists is fine, but don't pretend you are unbiased when you are making a case for either side. One more time for anyone who has not seen it, this video is going to be shown to the judge who may throw the case out on its merits and to the jury who will have to listen to the incessant horn blowing and see just how quickly the shooting happened before being reminded about Graham and the don't use 20/20 slow-motion hindsight to second guess split seconds by LEOs.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/minneapolis-ice-shooting-video-dhs-212009618.html

It is amusing for anyone to claim this analysis is dispassionate. This sentence alone is enough to show obvious bias:

"Why was ICE interacting with Good in the first place?

The question isn’t rhetorical. Video footage shows that she was clearly—at least for a few moments, if not longer—blocking traffic by positioning her car in the middle of the road; furthermore, she was doing so while in the presence of law enforcement vehicles with lights and sirens activated. Such behavior would appear to be a prima facie violation of Minnesota Statute 169.20 §5, a misdemeanor punishable by a $300 fine, and perhaps diversion to a remedial driving school. If a peace officer with the appropriate authority ordered her to move, and she chose not to comply, she also may have been violating Minnesota Statute 169.34 §1(11).

[loki13]

How do you say that you don't know any law, or you didn't even bother reading the article?

Well, when it's Bunny, you just post. It's almost like this exact question was addressed in the post. But since you are reading-impaired, ICE does not have authority to enforce state laws in general.

[not guilty]

Thank you for the link to the Lawfare article. It illustrates how Agent Ross was as heedless of his own safety as he was indifferent to the constitutional rights of Ms. Good.

[John F. Carr]

From Massachusetts, where ICE hasn't shot anybody recently:

The Burlington Police Department also maintains a presence [at the ICE facility]. Chief Thomas Browne assigned a captain and a lieutenant to oversee any issues with the facility, and the department is in regular contact with protest organizers. Burlington police have done an exceptional job keeping the peace there, [Select Board chair Mike] Espejo said.

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2026/01/14/amid-fears-of-escalation-local-and-state-leaders-remain-stymied-by-feds-over-burlington-ice-facility/

[Frank Drackman]

On February 22, 2024, Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta University Nursing student, was attacked and murdered while she was jogging at the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia, United States. Her body was found in Oconee Forest Park near Lake Herrick; her death was caused by blunt force trauma and asphyxiation (NOT drowned, there's a difference). The perpetrator, José Antonio Ibarra, was a 26-year-old Venezuelan man who had entered the United States illegally. He was arrested by UGA police and charged with 10 counts, including felony murder, malice murder, false imprisonment, aggravated assault with intent to rape, and kidnapping. Ibarra was found guilty on all charges on November 20, 2024, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

[Frank Drackman]

State of the Union, March 12, 2024

"Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal, that’s right.
But how many thousands of people are being killed by legals?
To her parents, I say, my heart goes out to you having lost children myself. I understand."

That's the NY Times Transcript, even they heard it as "Lincoln Riley", Yes, the USC Foo-Bawl Coach, who was probably wondering what the Fuck he did to get mentioned in Sleepy Joe's Speech.
Love how Sleepy had to make it about him, comparing the Rape/Murder of a young woman to his Daughter, killed by her mothers negligence, and 2 Sons, 1 with an unfortunate, but unrelated to Illegal Immigration Brain Tumor, and the other with a Drug Addiction, that would be much harder to feed, without Illegal Immigration. (Your Cue Dr Ed, tell me about all the Domestic Cocaine Production)

Frank

[Bunny495]

woops