Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

Politico reports:

U.S. diesel fuel prices hit a record high Thursday afternoon, according to a fuel price monitoring service, surpassing the previous peak set in 2022 as surging crude oil and refining bottlenecks sent the cost of the fuel that underpins a wide swathe of the U.S. economy soaring.

Diesel prices have risen nearly 60 percent in the past 12 months as the U.S. war against Iran has scrambled oil shipments from the Middle East and Russia’s output of the fuel has dwindled because of its war against Ukraine. The new record is likely to spread through the economy and feed inflation that could damage Republican prospects of keeping control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.

Diesel now costs an average of $5.82 a gallon, according to the pricing service GasBuddy, breaking the previous record high of $5.81 set under former President Joe Biden in June 2022 when fuel costs skyrocketed amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the post-Covid global economy.

Vice President JD Vance told reporters at the White House on Thursday that gas prices are high because the Iranian regime is targeting oil tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz. He also claimed that gas prices “could have been much much higher were it not for our efforts” and downplayed the notion that the world is currently experiencing an energy crisis.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/03/diesel-prices-hit-all-time-high-as-trump-administration-brandishes-energy-policies-01063862

This may be one of the most damaging domestic consequences of the unlawful attack on Iran, because of the ripple effect throughout the economy. If you bought it, a truck brought it.

[Commenter_XY]

What unlawful attack, NG? There is no unlawful attack. You're in Martinned territory now. Take up your complaint with Congress, who seems not to agree with you. Neither does the EU.

Re: diesel...It is expensive. Wholesale inflation numbers will show it.

[Krayt]

Vice President JD Vance ... also claimed that gas prices “could have been much much higher were it not for our efforts”

And could have been much much lower were it not for your "efforts".

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I remember 2022–oil going even 1 cent higher because of a foreign war means the little guy is getting screwed while a billionaire is making even more billions. Trump ran on no more wars and he broke his promise. The solution is obvious—a windfall profits tax on Big Oil.

[not guilty]

It is unlawful according to the War Powers Act of 1973, which provides at 50 U.S.C. § 1542 that:

§1542. Consultation; initial and regular consultations
The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and after every such introduction shall consult regularly with the Congress until United States Armed Forces are no longer engaged in hostilities or have been removed from such situations. [Emphasis added]

According to § 1544(b):

(b) Termination of use of United States Armed Forces; exceptions; extension period
Within sixty calendar days after a report is submitted or is required to be submitted pursuant to section 1543(a)(1) of this title, whichever is earlier, the President shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces with respect to which such report was submitted (or required to be submitted), unless the Congress (1) has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces, (2) has extended by law such sixty-day period, or (3) is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack upon the United States. Such sixty-day period shall be extended for not more than an additional thirty days if the President determines and certifies to the Congress in writing that unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of United States Armed Forces requires the continued use of such armed forces in the course of bringing about a prompt removal of such forces.

President Trump has failed to meet his obligations as described above. In the absence of a Congressional declaration of war or a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces, the continued involvement of American forces in Iran is unlawful.

[Commenter_XY]

NG, that is a personal opinion unsupported by reality = It is unlawful according to the War Powers Act of 1973, which provides at 50 U.S.C. § 1542...

Congress is the alleged injured party. They aren't doing anything. Are you telling me that in this sue-happy society, Congress would not litigate? Please. Iran was ultimately a political decision by POTUS Trump. And Congress isn't doing 'boo' about it, aside from navel-gazing.

Vote them out. That is your remedy. This should appeal to the Yellow Dog Team D-sa side of you. 🙂

[not guilty]

XY, the continued use of military force by the United States is unlawful in the absence of a Congressional declaration of war or a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces, according to the plain language of 50 U.S.C. § 1544(b), whether the Congress sues or does not sue. That subsection is self-executing according to its own terms -- "the President shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces" absent Congressional authorization of the continued use of military force.

You may not like that, but your disagreement with the wisdom of the statutes does not spook the words off the page, nor the pixels off the monitor.

[Commenter_XY]

Call the bluff = bring suit; litigate WPA and answer the constitutional questions it raises.

Otherwise, it is hot Yellow Dog Team D-sa hot air.

[not guilty]

Here's hoping that the incoming Congress will sue next year. The group of clowns currently in Congress is hopeless.

In light of Article I, § 8 of the Constitution it should be a slam dunk.

[Martinned]

Why sue if you can just use the appropriations power?

[Bob from Ohio]

"should be a slam dunk."

Like Trump being disqualified from the ballot? Or Trump's Georgia conviction? Etc, etc.

[not guilty]

Donald Trump was never convicted in Georgia, Bob.

Do you even care whether you tell the truth or not?

[Bob from Ohio]

You can't read.

You predicted he would be, so "slam dunk" is probably in your long line of failed predictions.

[Brett Bellmore]

If you wanted to legally disqualify Trump from the ballot, you needed to convict him of insurrection, not just accuse him of it. Maybe you should ask the Biden DOJ why they didn't even try?

[Sarcastr0]

The Supreme Court did not go with this reasoning, and yet you keep on with the magic words.

[ducksalad]

FWIW I think the SC's reasoning sucked very badly and if taken seriously would bring down mountains of state law about both primary and general elections.

Anyone who follows presidential primaries, or third party ballot access, knows there is no rule being enforced that ballots need to be consistent from state to state, or that one state can't do something different just because it could affect the national result. We've had many elections where even major candidates were missing from the ballot in some states. States aren't even required to have presidential primaries at all.

OTOH, Brett has a point. *If* a state decides to have a ballot, then people who want on the ballot are entitled to equal protection, which can't be denied without due process of law. That would seem to mean some kind of fair hearing where he could make the case that he was not an insurrectionist.

[David Nieporent]

If you wanted to legally disqualify Trump from the ballot, you needed to convict him of insurrection, not just accuse him of it.

1. That is not what the Supreme Court said in Trump v. Anderson.
2. There is nothing in the Constitution that says that.
3. That is a nonsensical interpretation of the constitution, given that the provision was expressly enacted to disqualify thousands of traitors who had never been charged, let alone convicted.

[David Nieporent]

OTOH, Brett has a point. *If* a state decides to have a ballot, then people who want on the ballot are entitled to equal protection, which can't be denied without due process of law. That would seem to mean some kind of fair hearing where he could make the case that he was not an insurrectionist.

Which, to be clear, Trump got in Colorado.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Instead, it is Congress that has long given effect to Section 3 with respect to would-be or existing federal officeholders. Shortly after ratification of the Amendment, Congress enacted the Enforcement Act of 1870. That Act authorized federal district attorneys to bring civil actions in federal court to remove anyone holding non legislative office—federal or state—in violation of Section 3, and made holding or attempting to hold office in violation of Section 3 a federal crime. §§14, 15, 16 Stat. 143–144 (repealed, 35 Stat. 1153–1154, 62 Stat. 992–993). In the years following ratification, the House and Senate exercised their unique powers under Article I to adjudicate challenges contending that certain prospective or sitting Members could not take or retain their seats due to Section 3. See Art. I, §5, cls. 1, 2; 1 A. Hinds, Precedents of the House of Representatives §§459–463, pp. 470–486 (1907). And the Confiscation Act of 1862, which predated Section 3, effectively provided an additional procedure for enforcing disqualification. That law made engaging in insurrection or rebellion, among other acts, a federal crime punishable by disqualification from holding office under the United States. See §§2, 3, 12 Stat. 590. A successor to those provisions remains on the books today. See 18 U. S. C. §2383."

In case you're confused, that's the Federal insurrection statute, which Trump was neither prosecuted nor convicted under.

Per Trump v Anderson, if you want to disqualify somebody from the Presidency, you need to do it via the procedure Congress sets out in Section 5 enabling legislation, and the only current enabling legislation is the federal insurection statute the Court referenced.

So, yeah, Sarcastr0, the Court DID go with this reasoning.

And, yeah, Nieporent, that IS was the Court said in Trump v Anderson.

[TwelveInchPianist]

So the question stands, why didn't the Biden DOJ try to convict Trump of insurrection?

[Sarcastr0]

FFS Brett, did you read the paragraphs above that?

Your excerpt discusses one but not the only way to use 14A s.5.

It also does not rely on the title of the statute at all, as you do above.

So your 'you need to...' assertion is doubly wrong, according to the Supreme Court.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Under current law, the only arguable way to disqualify someone under Section 3 of the 14A is to convict them under §2383.

So why didn't Biden's DOJ do that?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Donald Trump was never convicted in Georgia, Bob."

Nothing gets by NG!

[David Nieporent]

Call the bluff = bring suit;

Once again, still not how it works.

[ReaderY]

At this point, what is lawful has nothing to do with it. What matters is what Trump can get away with. If Trump can get away with it, he can do it. All else is as relevant as debating how many angels can fit on a pin.

What can be done to stop Mr. Trump?. By what means could the courts be persuaded to intervene? Congress? If nobody will intervene, than all these scribblings on all these pieces of paper are pretty much toilet paper so far as Mr. Trump is concerned. In fact I doubt the US Code is even worth keeping in his bathroom to wipe his ass with - probably too scratchy compared to other alternatives.

[John F. Carr]

"Vote them out. That is your remedy."

The odds are good that enough of Congress will be voted out. Will the Democrats hold hearings and make speeches about how awful Trump is? Or will they sue?

Conventional wisdom is nobody wants to get a binding ruling on the War Powers Act. I don't think most judges want to get involved either. Some trial judges will enjoin anything. The Supreme Court is going to hesitate.

The ballroom makes for a much better case. The legal and constitutional issues are clear.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What people fail to understand is that the United States was never intended to have a standing army. That’s why the constitution gives Congress the power to “raise” armies (plural).

Remember that the USMC wasn’t created until 11 years after the Constitution was written, and that the Air Force initially was part of the army — the founders only planned to have a standing navy, on the high seas protecting American shipping, and everything else existing on a vote of Congress.

Congress’ say was in voting to raise the army or not, but once it had, the President could do any damn thing he wanted to with it, with Congress is only check on that being impeachment and removal.

And remember that removal would be by senators who have been elected by states, i.e. state legislature, and not the public at large.

QED the War Powers Act is unconstitutional, a position that has been taken by every president since at least 1976, and that would include the Democratic presidents, Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden‘s puppet master.

[ReaderY]

Not so. The President was the commander in chief. He is the top general. But no general, not even the top one, gets to decide whether to go to war or not. That’s Congress’ job. Once Congress decides to go to war, then (and only then) it becomes the President’s job to execute the war.

And if Congress decides not to go to war, or simply does nothing, the Constitution gives thr President no power to act on his own.

Congress can delegate its power. But frankly I think Congress has over-delegated and should take delegated powers in quite a few areas, including this, back. I think Congress should repeal the War Powers act and explicitly require Congressional approval to send armed forces into combat in any situation except an attack on the US or a treaty ally. To cover special situations like Tawain, Congress can have a secret list of additional cases that it doesn’t make public if it wants to, using its constitutional power to pass secret laws recorded on secret journals.

I think the “letters of marque and reprisal” clause ahould be interpreted broadly to cover all forms of irregular combat. I think the Framers intended to give Congress control over decisions to initiate all forms of military force, regular and irregular.

[ducksalad]

using its constitutional power to pass secret laws recorded on secret journals.

[Choking, spluttering sounds]

[ReaderY]

“Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their judgement require Secrecy.”

It’s right there in the text. Drink some water or something if you’re choking.

If you think Congress hasn’t done this, you’re very naive.

https://www.justsecurity.org/106102/congress-surface-secret-law/

[ducksalad]

OK, had a drink and not just water. Then I clicked on your link and now I need another one.

I would distinguish secret proceedings (for example, to discuss some intelligence findings) from secret laws.

A president giving secret orders, within the law, is fine, and some of the examples given in the article were really just secret guidance within the executive branch.

[John F. Carr]

There is a conflict between Congress' power to declare war and the President's implied power to protect the country. Nobody is sure how the Supreme Court will resolve the conflict. In my personal opinion Trump went too far. Will Alito agree? Will Roberts find a way to duck the question?

What if it's 3 votes to stop the bombing, 3 votes for the right of the President to attack preemptively, and 3 votes that the case is not justiciable? Then the War Powers Act is dead even though only three justices said so.

[ducksalad]

There is a conflict between Congress' power to declare war and the President's implied power to protect the country.

Some old-fashioned folk would say a written enumerated power beats an implied one, every single time.

[John F. Carr]

Five old-fashioned folk on the Supreme Court and you win. Do you feel lucky?

[ducksalad]

Do you feel lucky?

I feel depressed by these new-fangled ways.

[not guilty]

Ed, your abject refusal to discuss the explicit language of Article I, § 8 -- " and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof" -- is a silence that speaks loudly.

[not guilty]

"QED the War Powers Act is unconstitutional, a position that has been taken by every president since at least 1976, and that would include the Democratic presidents, Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden‘s puppet master."

A president's view of his own authority carries no weight as to whether an act of Congress is or is not constitutional. President Biden no doubt thought that Congress had authorized him to forgive federal student loan debts. SCOTUS ruled otherwise in Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477 (2023). President Trump thought that he was authorized to unilaterally abrogate 14th Amendment birthright citizenship by Executive Order. SCOTUS ruled otherwise in Trump v. Barbara, 609 U.S. ___ (2026).

As Chief Justice Marshall opined long ago:

It is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must, of necessity, expound and interpret the rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the Court must decide on the operation of each.

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 177 (1803).

[Dr. Ed 2]

I believe that Marbury versus Madison was unconstitutional.

[David Nieporent]

Your opinion on whether something is a dessert topping or floor wax may carry some weight, with someone, somewhere.

[not guilty]

Who cares what you believe, Ed?

[Dr. Ed 2]

I do. 🙂

[David Nieporent]

Remember that the USMC wasn’t created until 11 years after the Constitution was written, and that the Air Force initially was part of the army — the founders only planned to have a standing navy, on the high seas protecting American shipping, and everything else existing on a vote of Congress.

You've made this stupid argument multiple times, and it has never once become correct. The navy exists on a vote of Congress too. The Constitution does not discuss "standing armies." It says that any appropriations for an army can't last longer than two years.

Congress’ say was in voting to raise the army or not, but once it had, the President could do any damn thing he wanted to with it, with Congress is only check on that being impeachment and removal.

But this is a new one and it's even stupider. The constitution expressly vests the power to declare war with Congress. The constitution expressly vests the power to make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water with Congress. The constitution expressly vests the power to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces (stop me if you've heard this before) with Congress. The constitution expressly vests the power to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions… with Congress. The constitution expressly vests the power to pass rules for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing them when in federal service with (you guessed it) Congress.

[Dr. Ed 2]

As you clearly lack the ability to read, let me reiterate.
Establish a Navy.
Raise armies (plural, note the “…ies).”

Do we notice the difference between those two sentences?

[David Nieporent]

Do we notice that neither one says what you claimed above, though?

[Frank Drackman]

USMC was born in Tun Tavern Filthy-Delphia PA November 10, 1775, before even the Declaration of Independence was written.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I hope the odds are "good" that Democrats will control both houses of Congress. They are likely to make speeches, hold hearings, propose legislation, ask for information and materials, and subpoena, if necessary, to obtain such things.

Senate control can also provide a check via the advice and consent power. Right now, Republicans will confirm almost anyone.

The "remedy" in this country is not merely to vote. Voting is fundamental. But it is not the only remedy. Litigation is one remedy. Judicial review is a basic part of our government.

I generally agree that litigation is a risky thing in the war powers context. It also will not be very timely.

Congress has various means to check/balance, if it has the will.

[David Nieporent]

It is unlawful according to the War Powers Act of 1973, which provides at 50 U.S.C. § 1542 that:

I must dissent here. It's unlawful according to the Constitution, which provides at Article I, Section 8 that "Congress shall have Power to Declare War." The WPA gives the president no power to start a war; it provides additional restrictions on the president, rather than additional authority. So, yes, Trump's actions vis-à-vis Iran violate the WPA, but they'd be unlawful even without the WPA.

[Mr. Bumble]

Sraight question;
Is military action always the equivalent of war?

[Martinned]

Ask Vance. In the space of about 15 minutes yesterday he went from saying that Trump wins all the wars, like Iran, to saying that no reasonable person would call Iran a war. Seems like a difficult question, even for a Yale Law grad.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Bumble, you’re asking the wrong question.

It’s not what an army may be used for, but having the army in the first place. A president wouldn’t have an army until Congress had raised it, and that is where Congress has the power to decide if there is a war or not. Remember, we never declared war onthe Barbary Pirates.

[David Nieporent]

No; Congress has the power to decide if there is a war or not based on the express power granted to it by Article I, Section 8 to declare war.

[Dr. Ed 2]

David, there is a hell of a lot of difference between “declaring war“ and military hostilities.

The US military experience in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq all serve as examples of military hostilities that did not involve a declared war.

And if you want to be partisan about this, in Korea, Vietnam, and Bosnia, it was a Democratic President who didn’t have a Congressional declaration of war, and in Afghanistan and Iraq 2 a Democratic President who continued military hostilities without a declaration of war.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Is military action always the equivalent of war?"

No. US has used military force short of a war for 2 plus centuries.

Page of history is worth etc.

[John F. Carr]

Not unless you define military action to mean something other than use of force by the military. If an armed speedboat comes at a Navy ship, are we at war when the Navy shoots at it?

One way for the Supreme Court to duck the question is to say that the power to declare war means no more than the power to formally declare that a state of war exists. Then undeclared wars, police actions, and such do not infringe on Congress' powers.

[Dr. Ed 2]

John, aren’t there some legal distinctions on things like rights of nationals of the hostile state that change once a declaration of war is made?

FDR went way overboard with the Japanese internment, but couldn’t we kick out or detain Japanese and German citizens after the declaration of war was made the way we couldn’t before? And didn’t we have the right to seize their assets in a way we wouldn’t have had before?

While there were some serious issues raised in both world war by the German submarines sinking civilian vessels, doesn’t the law of the sea change dramatically once a war is declared. I’m also thinking in terms of “harbor of safe refuge” which by international law may not be denied any vessel in distress, with the exception of enemy flagged vessels — I think, it’s been 40 years since I was dealing with Maritime law).

[John F. Carr]

In international law, modern treaties use the phrase "armed conflict" instead of "war". In domestic law, a declaration of war matters under the Alien Enemies Act. Iranians are not enemies until Congress declares war or there is an "invasion or predatory incursion" by Iran.

[Bob from Ohio]

A safe option.

Ordering the president to stop is fraught with danger to the judiciary. Educated idiots like ng don't understand that fact.

[ReaderY]

I think the courts will likely interpret it as implicitly granting the President authority. i think the situation is somewhat like the Importation and Migration Clause. It prohibits Congress from regulating importation and migration prior authorization to 1805. You coild equally well argue that’s a simple prohibition, not a grant of power. But it would be a strained reading not to interpret it as impliedly GRANTING Congress the power to regulate these things after 1805. If not, why would the clause need to be tehre?

[ducksalad]

If not, why would the clause need to be there?

To stop them from using their power to regulate or lay tariffs on international commerce, in the particular case of importing slaves?

[Dr. Ed 2]

The war powers act is illegal pursue it to article 2 of the US Constitution, which takes supremacy.

[Martinned]

Which part of article II did you have in mind?

[not guilty]

Wrong, Ed.

Article I, § 8 expressly grants the Congress the authority to declare war and to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces. It further authorizes the Congress:

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

To the extent of any inconsistency between Article I, § 8 and any provision of Article II, the framers resolved the tension in favor of the Congress.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And the interstate commerce clause can be used to forbid racial discrimination. That is not what the framers had in mind.

While I’m glad we have it, reality is that the civil rights act of 1964 is unconstitutional.

[ReaderY]

I think that Congress has the power to regulate interstate racial discrimination the same way it has the power to prohibit interstate lotteries, prostitution, ietc. As Heart of Atlanta Hotel held, these laws are simple morality legislation and Congress has power to legislate morality in interstate commerce.

I would also take a somewhat more expansive view of interstate commerce than you. Nonetheless, my view is not nearly as expansive as current caselaw. For example, i don’t think it reaches simple possession at all, absent an associated interstate commercial business. I also don’t think it reaches a local business that sells instate products only to instate customers.

[Dr. Ed 2]

George’s a big state, and 50 miles was a long way to drive back then, particularly since the cars didn’t have air-conditioning.

I can see a lot of people going to Atlanta for something and wanting a motel room the night before so they could go first thing in the morning to whatever they needed to do — Georgia residents who had not crossed the state line in the process.

I think Ollie‘s BBQ had an even better case, while I havenever seen any statistics, I’d be very surprised if the overwhelming majority of the customers weren’t both Georgia residence and lived within 20 miles of the restaurant.

[not guilty]

"I think Ollie‘s BBQ had an even better case, while I havenever [sic] seen any statistics, I’d be very surprised if the overwhelming majority of the customers weren’t both Georgia residence and lived within 20 miles of the restaurant."

Ed, if you had read Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294 (1964), you would know that Ollie's Barbecue was located not in Georgia, but in Birmingham, Alabama.

There was no claim there that interstate travelers frequented the restaurant. 379 U.S. at 298. In the 12 months preceding the passage of the Civil Rights Act or 1964, the restaurant purchased locally approximately $150,000 worth of food, $69,683 or 46% of which was meat that it bought from a local supplier who had procured it from outside the State. The District Court expressly found that a substantial portion of the food served in the restaurant had moved in interstate commerce. Id., at 296-297.

The Supreme Court opined:

Section 201(a) of Title II commands that all persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods and services of any place of public accommodation without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin, and § 201(b) defines establishments as places of public accommodation if their operations affect commerce or segregation by them is supported by state action. Sections 201(b)(2) and (c) place any "restaurant . . . principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises" under the Act "if . . . it serves or offers to serve interstate travelers or a substantial portion of the food which it serves . . . has moved in commerce."

179 U.S. at 298 [ellipses in original.]

Ollie's Barbecue was subject to the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act because of the food that it sold, a significant portion of which had moved in interstate commerce -- not because of the vicinage of its patrons.

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

[David Nieporent]

Ed, if you had read Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294 (1964),

You made a funny.

[David Nieporent]

While I’m glad we have it, reality is that the civil rights act of 1964 is unconstitutional.

Is that your professional legal opinion as a janitor?

[Dr. Ed 2]

I was a janitor when I was 16 and 17 years old.

That was longer ago than I care to think of….

What is with your truly anal fixation on janitors?!?

[Martinned]

Congress, who seems not to agree with you

Are you suggesting that Congress has declared war on Iran?

Neither does the EU.

I am not aware of any EU view on this one way or another. In that sense it belongs next to the US Congress, with the only difference being that only one of them is required under domestic law to have an opinion before hostilities can begin.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Throughout New England, heating oil prices customarily track diesel prices (makes sense, same stuff, basically), but track on the high side. Why the same fuel, bought in comparable or larger quantities, without the state or federal road use taxes, costs more than truck stop diesel remains a bit mysterious.

The best explanation I ever got, from a friendly and talkative heating oil guy, suggested the extra price for home heating oil is a cost associated with the risk taken by heating oil vendors who like to sell contracts to customers. The vendors who do that then must order enough oil in advance to serve the contracts, or risk getting stuck breaking them, or being forced to pay too much if prices surge. And if that happens, the vendors have no way to stop the customers from looking elsewhere.

So almost paradoxically, the home owner buying heating oil pays a premium to contract with the vendor, and heating oil prices stay notably above diesel sold for vehicle fuel. Plus which, that drives the market for non-contracted home delivery too, so there is no way to buy home heating oil for a road diesel price, even if you prefer to avoid contracts which seem over-priced. Except maybe figure out how to get into your basement tank hundreds of gallons of over-the-road, fully taxed diesel, which always seems to sell for notably less than untaxed home heating oil.

Expected high home heating oil prices may play a roll to decide Susan Coillins' chances to hold onto her Senate seat in Maine. Early November in Maine is fill-up season.

I expect my own winter heating costs to go up about $1,000 in Massachusetts, because Trump. I am praying nothing happens to make it far more. That's on a smallish ranch style home, well insulated, with all the windows fully modernized.

Not like in Maine, MA voting will not turn out different than it would have.

[Commenter_XY]

lathrop...May I suggest Nat Gas conversion as an alternative to heating oil? There are many northeast state based programs that incentivize conversion. And BTW, the same is true for installing high efficiency cooling systems. Ask me how I know. 😉

I expect my own winter heating costs to go up about $1,000 in Massachusetts, because Trump. I am praying nothing happens to make it far more

That is hilarious....'because Trump'. It perfectly summarizes your TDS. You're a homeowner and chose not to avail yourself of these programs, whose fault is that? You ever hear of human agency; you made your choice over the course of the years. It is more a case of 'because Lathrop' (who made bad choices).

I know MA has had conversion incentive programs. Look in the mirror.

[hobie]

Hayseeds: "Incentives for alternate energy bad."
Hayseeds: "Incentives for alternate energy good."

[Stephen Lathrop]

XY — Are you really trying to convince readers on this blog that Trump's decision to launch a war he can't win in Iran has not been the cause of a massive oil price surge? Why try to look stupid in public on purpose?

As for gas conversion, do you live in MA? If so, you ought to know that year-in-year-out fuel oil customers in MA have been getting lower heating costs than gas customers—who comprise a captive customer base exploited not only by gas delivery companies, but also by a corrupt state utility commission. No thanks to that. I prefer to deal in a decentralized marketplace featuring many direct competitors. Even wholesale oil is less centralized than gas service in Eastern MA. Over decades, my avoidance of gas has saved me many times the increase I am entitled to blame Trump for inflicting this time.

Where do you live?

[Commenter_XY]

Fine, keep paying for oil.

[Kazinski]

The difference is probably a less.efficient distribution system, and the seasonal nature of its use.

But I wouldn't rule out state regulations and taxes, as well as the costs of dealing with LUST.

[ThePublius]

Stephen, your argument doesn't hold water.

For example, I'm on the South Coast of Massachusetts. Home heating oil, per Newenglandoil.com, is around $5.00/gallon. Diesel at the gas station is $6.29/gallon, per gasbuddy.com.

If you're paying more for home heating oil than diesel at the pump, then you are probably paying for automatic delivery, or just have an ongoing relationship with an over-priced supplier.

I recommend you check Newenglandoil.com, buy at least 100 gallons to get free delivery, and pay in advance via credit card. Of course you'll have to monitor your tank yourself so you don't run out. I did this for years in Westborough, after learning I was being way overcharged by my automatic delivery company. (I usually used M.J. MEEHAN EXCAVATING in Milford.)

[Stephen Lathrop]

ThePublius — Not paying for automatic delivery—which by the way is another way to expose yourself to vendor gamesmanship. So I never do it. And of course I have to monitor my gauge.

At a previous home I put an extra 275 gallon tank in my basement, to give me capacity to bargain for larger delivery discounts, and to buy my oil during cyclical downturns which tend to happen at predictable times annually. That extra tank paid for itself in less than 4 years. Cheapest capital improvement I could make to save on energy costs, and one of the most effective possible, as it turned out.

By the way, for years I lived at a location where I could be a customer of one the names on the list your link provides. It was typically the lowest cost vendor serving my area. The talkative source I mentioned above happened to have been a former employee of that company, who went out on his own. Him I could really deal with. But he does not serve my present home location either. I don't think anyone on your linked list does.

My guess is that you live along the south coast of MA, which probably gets cheaper barge delivery and more competitive wholesale choices than the rest of the state, via easier access to New York. That picture seems to change after barges go through the Cape Cod canal.

But despite all those particulars, it remains true that many years ago (30 or more, I think) heating oil was always less expensive than diesel, and then the situation changed—for reasons featuring hilariously conflicting explanations—and since then, heating oil has remained almost invariably higher throughout all the eastern MA regions I am familiar with.

[David Nieporent]

"For example, I'm on the South Coast of Massachusetts. "

"My guess is that you live along the south coast of MA,"

[Dr. Ed 2]

Caveat — make sure you have fire department approved of that second tank, and that your insurance company knows about it.

Wow, you will never actually have it because the oil foams and prevents the tanks from being completely filled, on paper you have capacity for over 500 gallons — inside the building — and that can be grounded or denying an insurance claim if you haven’t jumped through all the hoops.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Stephen, don’t forget that diesel fuel has something like a $.57 tax per gallon on it that home heating fuel does not.

But they are not the same thing — all diesel fuel can be burned as home heating oil, but it’s not a good idea to use home heating oil in a diesel engine.

Diesel fuel has to meet Cetane ratings, something similar to octane but different. Diesel fuel has been either low, sulfur and increasingly ultra low sulfur because of the catalytic converters that are on post 2007 diesel truck engines. Home heating oil can have all the sulfur it wants to, and a lot of refineries “dump“ their sulfur in home heating oil.

Diesel fuel also needs to be hospital clean unless you want clogged injectors and a few other things, where is the annual maintenance on your oil burner includes replacing what is essentially the injector.

Because efficiency reduces cost, it’s not uncommon to sell diesel fuel, that meets all of the specifications, as home heating oil. Two different fuels sold from the same identical tank and pipes, the only difference being what it’s called and how much it costs.

But the reason why your home heater oil costs more is the cost of getting it to your house. The gas station large tanks in a 8000 to 12,000 gallon range, and it buys it by the truckload. Your home 275 gallon tank really only holds 200 because the fuel foams (worse than beer) when put into the tank, and the usual automatic delivery is only slightly more than 100 gallons.

It cost the same thing to buy/maintain a truck, hire a driver, and deliver that hundred gallons as it does to deliver 4000 to 8000 gallons to the gas station. The markup to recover this cost per gallon, thus must be much higher when delivering to your house than delivering to said gas station.

To drive the truck, one has to have a CDL with both hazmat and tanker endorsements. If the minimum wage is $15 an hour, my guess is that they’re getting probably $30 an hour to deliver fuel.

When I was delivering heating oil, we were buying the oil at the tank farm for half of what we charged the customer for it, the markup included not only all of these costs, but the profit for the folks in the office.

Now you can haul your own heating oil — it’s more common with kerosene because camp heaters only take a few gallons and need to be manually filled, but you can buy both kerosene (number one oil) and heating oil (number two oil) at gas stations in some states. There’s one on the old route one bypass going north in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It’s dyed red and sold without the added state and federal Road taxes. They used to be lots of places in Maine and Vermont doing this, except the state stomped on them because people would take the 5 gallon cans and then putting them into their diesel trucks.

But if the price of diesel fuel at the corner station is cheaper than what your heating oil companies is charging, by a bunch of plastic 5 gallon cans, yellow rather than red so as you distinguish it is diesel fuel, and pour them into the oil fill in your house.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I forgot to add that both heating oil and diesel fuel contain dissolved paraffin wax, which starts jelling into solid paraffin at about 20°F.

This isn’t an issue with home heating oil which sits in your heated basement, although people who have outdoor fuel tanks have to instead burn kerosene. Many but not all gas stations sell winter diesel, which includes additives that prevent the paraffin from forming, and prudent driver is also tossed anti-gel additives into the tanks of their trucks.

The same additives won’t harm your home oil burner, likewise, the additivesthat prevent the bacteria from growing, and I recommend throwing both in occasionally. Walmart sells them, as to most auto parts stores and truck stops.

[Frank Drackman]

That's what happens when you kick the Ear-Ron can down the road for 50 years.
You see it in Medicine all the time, people don't go to the Doctor, get their PSA/Colonoscopy/Stress Test (HT Sleepy Joe's Physician following the "US Preventive Medicine Task Force Guidelines") blow off that Chest Pain as Indigestion, Change in Bowel Habits as IBS,
When they finally go, they've got Prostrate/Colon Cancer and the Cardiologist just paid for the Overhaul on his PC-24, and the family's still bitching about the Deductible.
Won't be posting much today, got my PSA, Colonoscopy, and Stress Test (Do the Stress Test first, the "Bowel Prep" will really get you moving)

Frank

[hobie]

You got in two of your pat whatabouts, Frankie. Past admins and Biden. But where's Ted Kennedy and Laken Riley in this gas kerfuffle?

[Frank Drackman]

One's a Murderer, the other a Murder Victim.

[Armchair]

Not adjusting for inflation just demonstrates a bad grasp of economics.

Everything hits "record highs" in the future at some point, due to inflation. Everything in between is just price variability.

[Armchair]

Below are Diesel fuel prices over time, adjusted for inflation. (Second chart, first is unadjusted)

$5.82 isn't that much comparitively. Much of the Obama administration was at that level.

https://www.macrotrends.net/4394/us-diesel-fuel-prices

[Malika la Maize]

“That means we're going down and getting gasoline below $2 a gallon”-Trump 2024

[Mr. Bumble]

If you could pluck your magic twanger and set a price for gasoline, what would it be?

[Malika la Maize]

A silly question, I’m pointing out how Trump has failed to achieve his promise and failed bigly. And it’s directly due to his choices.

[Mr. Bumble]

It's a straight question, but you be you.

[Martinned]

I suppose it's like the distinction, in statistics, between accuracy and precision.

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

Your straight question very precisely misses the point, as you well know.

[Mr. Bumble]

What point? That Trump made a claim that he hasn't fulfilled?
Qualika has pointed the out numerous times and I'd just like to know what's Qualika's magic price point.

[Martinned]

What point? That Trump made a claim that he hasn't fulfilled?

Yes, that one.

[Malika la Maize]

That he continues to fail in his preposterous promises?

[Joe_dallas]

even higher prices adjusted for inflation going back to the carter adminstration

[jb]

Seems kind of circular since the price of diesel influences the prices of lots of other products.

[Commenter_XY]

Keep going...

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/sep/3/donald-trump-cuts-migrant-population-nearly-3-million-total-us/

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Still much much higher than 2016….it’s almost like Trump intentionally made illegal immigration worse by focusing on it and illegals having to figure out how to get in quasi legally. The sad thing is smartphones and free international calls and WhatsApp and crypto make stealing from elderly Americans very easy and so foreign criminals would have to be very stupid to come to America because the FBI can’t arrest them overseas.

[Commenter_XY]

There are 28 months to make up for the oversight. I've said many times, Homan talks the big game. He needs to deliver. Complain less, deport more....much more.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Why? The foreigners that come here aren’t the problem. In fact fentanyl ODs and violent crime spiked in April 2020 when illegal immigration was at record lows.

[Sarcastr0]

Richard M Re does a look at the Supreme Justices' inconsistencies:
https://blog.dividedargument.com/p/the-supreme-courts-realignment-roundup

Notes:

re: unitary execute "both Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion for the court and Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s pivotal concurrence advanced arguments that are much more readily described as pragmatic than originalist."
" liberal originalism and conservative pragmatism appear to be on the rise."

Birthright Citizenship:
"Perhaps the least originalist opinion was Kavanaugh’s separate writing, which argued in favor of “new exceptions” to the historical birthright citizenship rule."

Substantive Due Process [via a case I had missed]:
"Perhaps the biggest single instance of legal realignment this year occurred in Mirabelli v. Bonta, an interim docket case in which the conservative supermajority, over liberal dissents, enforced a novel substantive due process right."

Use of foreign law:
"was Alito’s dissent in Trump v. Barbara...embraced foreign law in two ways."
"Alito has broken from Scalian conservativism in several important ways, but his embrace of foreign law this term is among the most remarkable."

Stare Decisis:
Sotomayor: “How low this Court’s respect for stare decisis has sunk."
"Trump v. Slaughter, where the majority dismissively referred to “the dissent’s ode to stare decisis.”

Textualism/MQD:
"The signal ruling here is Learning Resources v. Trump, the tariffs case, which fractured over the atextual major questions doctrine."
"The major questions doctrine and its exceptions are now approaching the intricacy of a baroque cathedral."

And there's a TON on justiciability as well.

I've seen lots of discussion of how this Court isn't a Trump wins button. If you squint, you can see that.
But just in terms of acting like a Court, with any doctrinal consistency, the Roberts Court comes off very, very badly this term.

Worse than any right-wing cartoonish condemnation of the Warren Court.

[Commenter_XY]

There is only one problem with the analysis, Man of (political?) Science. What percent of Roberts' Court decisions are unanimous 9-0 decisions? Why, just north of 40%, which is well above the historical average.

Can you explain the logical inconsistency?

[not guilty]

Not necessarily, XY. Per Politifact on June 23, 2021:

the reality is [that] 9-0 rulings are the most common types of Supreme Court rulings, year after year. While 5-4 rulings attract the most attention from the public and the media, there’s a good chance that a larger number of cases you never heard about were decided on a unanimous basis.

* * *

Between 2008 and 2019, which is the last year for which SCOTUSBlog has published the data, the percentage of all Supreme Court rulings that were 9-0 ranged from a low of 36% and a high of 66%. (Technical note: These figures include rulings in which justices voted with the majority but may have written their own opinions to explain their reasoning.)

By contrast, the percentage of 5-4 rulings ranged from 5% and 29%. And the percentage of rulings with any other numerical breakdown ranged from 20% to 51%.

In the term that ran from the fall of 2018 to the summer of 2019, the breakdown was 36% 9-0 rulings, 21% 5-4 rulings, and 43% any other ruling.

Put a different way, in most years, the share of 9-0 rulings amounted to a plurality. Even in the years when it wasn’t a plurality, 9-0 rulings accounted for 30% to 40% of decisions.

This is pretty consistent with the historical pattern. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1121&context=nulr

Divided decisions get a lot more media attention than unanimous ones. During the early month of each term, unanimous decisions actually predominate.

[Commenter_XY]

NG, with a running average over 40% unanimity for Roberts' tenure, and a historical average 25% less than that compared to other Court tenures. And you think it is just coincidental?

Sorry, no. Nominee John Roberts told America that he would seek consensus as Chief. He has done so. The historical record does not lie.

The Man of (political?) Science wants to smear SCOTUS. The problem is, the historical record doesn't show it, and neither he, nor you, can explain that one. The historical record is the record. It doesn't lie.

[Stephen Lathrop]

XY — I can explain it. Roberts votes all-but-invariably pro-Republican in any case with power to affect, or even to effect, election outcomes. To cover for that plainly intended bias, Roberts spreads the rest around, and makes a special effort to obscure his Rs-win-elections pattern by pissing off right wingers in culture war cases. Also, Roberts is more pro-Republican than pro-MAGA, but given the colleagues he has to work with, that rarely makes a voting difference these days.

[Sarcastr0]

You are drawing an unwarranted inference.

9-0 decisions tell a bit about when the Court grants cert; not much beyond that.

[Joe_dallas]

Additional problem with the analysis -
"Stare Decisis:
Sotomayor: “How low this Court’s respect for stare decisis has sunk."

Bad Stare Decisis decisions provide the vehicles for even greater stray from the constitution. Kelo being a prime example.

[Sarcastr0]

So the inconsistency Prof. Re noted as compared to past opinions on stare is that the precedents before the Court suddenly became bad ones this term.

OK, Joe.

[Joe_dallas]

What are you trying to explain ?
Bad decisions do not deserve to justify making more bad decisions.

Kelo was supported by erroneous stare decisis - when it was directly contrary to the plain language of 5A - Is that why you think consistency should override the adherence to the constitution?

[Sarcastr0]

'We only follow good decisions not bad ones' is not an argument, it's just wind.

Check out Chesterton's Fence sometime.
What it does not say:
-All fences are involate
-Tear down only bad fences and keep the good ones.

[Joe_dallas]

Man of Science NOT!

do you understand the inanity of your responses?

[Malika la Maize]

The SEC sued LSU in U.S. District Court in Alabama on Thursday, alleging the university is violating the league's First Amendment right of expressive association by ignoring SEC rules that prohibit signing and playing former NFL players.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/49816309/sec-files-suit-vs-lsu-school-intent-play-pro-athletes

Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris are currently cleared to return to college football after brief stints in the NFL, according to a judge's orders issued Thursday evening, setting up a dramatic showdown between the SEC and LSU leading into its season-opening game this weekend

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/49807088/judge-grants-injunction-pro-players-seeking-lsu-return

[Frank Drackman]

They're going from one Professional Foo-bawl League to another, what's the problem? If it was Nick Satan doing it instead of Lane, everyone would be saying what a Genius he was.

Frank

[Bob from Ohio]

"First Amendment right of expressive association"

Say what?

[Malika la Maize]

Hey, maybe we’ll get an EV post about SEC football!

[apedad]

Expressive association refers to right to associate for expressive, often political purposes The right to expressive association refers to the right of people to associate together for expressive purposes – often for political purposes.

The U.S. Supreme Court recognized this right in NAACP v. Alabama (1958), reasoning that individual members of the civil rights group had a right to associate together free from undue state interference.

https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/freedom-of-association/

[Bob from Ohio]

Its a sports alliance, to play games. Its not for "expressive purposes – often for political purposes".

Seems its strictly contractual. Does the charter/constitution/base agreement [whatever they call it] permit such regulations, was it adopted as per that document, and is LSU bound to follow them.

IMHO, using "First Amendment right of expressive association" is just a transparent way to get it out of state court, create a federal issue.

[Josh R]

The SEC argues their prohibition on professional athletes (even those who signed NFL contracts but never played in the NFL) expresses the idea that:

college athletics is reserved for students who are actively pursuing an education while competing for their universities. The Professionalism Rules preserve competitive fairness, protect opportunities for high school students and current college athletes, and maintain the distinction between college and professional sports. That distinction is critical to the SEC’s member institutions, their Presidents and Chancellors, and their fans.

I too would like to see Eugene's comments on this claim.

[Bob from Ohio]

Me too!

[Frank Drackman]

Hey, Bo Jackson got his Degree in "Family and Child Development", only took him 9 years, the SEC/MLB/NFL Schedules made it tough to get all of his Classes in. (When DID he go to School? NFL/SEC runs July-December, MLB March-October.)
OK, he went January and February, explains it.
Brian Bosworth is still trying to get the number of the Truck that ran over him (34)

Frank

[bernard11]

Did the SEC write that with a straight face?

What a joke.

[apedad]

Woman who shot veteran in self-defense over a Walmart parking space cannot be prosecuted

A Broward woman who shot and killed a 62-year-old veteran during a dispute over a parking space at a North Lauderdale Walmart cannot be charged because she is immune under Florida’s stand-your-ground law, the Broward State Attorney’s Office announced Thursday.

The woman, Melissa Payne, shot Lauderhill resident Bart Diguglielmo in the abdomen as he approached her in the parking lot of the Walmart in the 7900 block of West McNab Road.

Assistant State Attorney Stephen Zaccor filed a closeout memorandum outlining the state’s decision not to file charges against Payne, concluding that she acted in self-defense and the state’s stand-your-ground law immunizes her from prosecution.

Under the law, Zaccor noted, Payne does not have to prove she is immune from prosecution: “The state has to prove she is not.” In this case, Zaccor concluded, the state could not eliminate self-defense as a motive for the shooting.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2026/09/03/woman-who-shot-lauderhill-veteran-in-self-defense-over-a-parking-space-will-not-be-prosecuted/

Dying over a parking space is stupid and the guy was on drugs.

And the lady even backed away and he followed her around.

Appropriate decision.

[Martinned]

Imagine living in a country that values human life so little.

[Michael P]

Imagine living in a country where drugged-out stalkers are free to attack cars and drivers while demanding to be shot, and when seconds count, police are only minutes away.

Wait, you probably don't need to.

[Sarcastr0]

I think Michael might be posting from Detroit in the first Robocop movie.

Things seem dire where he is.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Forget Detroit, there are a lot of places in Maine where this happens now, and then be more if there wasn’t the concern that someone might just shoot back.

[Michael P]

I'm not sure what the grey box said, but apedad said the guy was on drugs, and the other elements of my description came straight from the article. He went into the store, came back out, waited for the lady, menacingly approached her, threatened her car and her, told her to shoot him, and kept pursuing her as she retreated.

[jb]

[ducksalad]

The man quite literally asked her to shoot him, in addition to his other behavior. What is the law in the Netherlands when someone requests assistance in dying?

Presumably your objection is just that she was not a licensed medical practitioner and the paperwork was done after the fact.

[Martinned]

What is the law in the Netherlands when someone requests assistance in dying?

That gunning someone down in a supermarket parking lot isn't it.

[ducksalad]

I understand there are sound policy reasons to not allow it to be done in a supermarket parking lot with bystanders around, by an untrained person who might botch it. And to get all i's dotted and t's crossed to make sure there is no miscommunication.

But seriously, what input does someone asserting their Dutch right-to-die have on methodology? If all the paperwork was properly signed and approved, could they request to be shot in a safe and controlled environment?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Look up “death by cop.“

That apparently is real….

[Frank Drackman]

So tell us, what's it like?

[Dr. Ed 2]

If she backed away, and he pursued her, that absolutely is self-defense in my book.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Since the link was paywalled, I tried to find a version of the news story I could access.

The paywalled article was "woman shoots veteran, escapes justice!!!"

The article I found had a slightly different focus:

"‘Reasonable Fear’: Black Woman Who Killed White Man at Florida Walmart Over Parking Lot Dispute Escapes Charges Due to ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law...

"The encounter between [Melissa] Payne and [Bart] Diguglielmo began when they both tried parking in the same spot. According to the state attorney’s office, Payne was with a niece and her niece’s daughter, while Diguglielmo was alone.

"After a brief stalemate, Payne and Diguglielmo exited their respective vehicles.

“'BD inexplicably abandoned his car in the through lane of travel, walked toward the shopping cart area, retrieved a cart, and walked into Walmart. During his absence, MP was able to successfully park her vehicle,' the memo said.

"The office says that about a minute later, Diguglielmo returned to his car and threatened Payne.

“'Witness A.S. reported she heard BD threaten “I’m gonna f–k your sh-t up.; Witness H.S. reported she heard BD threaten he was going to ;mess her car up.' Witness M.J. reported she heard BD threaten that he was 'going to f–k her sh-t up.'

"Diguglielmo then drove away and parked a few rows over from Payne. Instead of going to Walmart, he went back to where Payne was parked with her niece’s *infant daughter.* [emphasis added]

“'BD then walked across the aisle and remained standing, smoking a cigarette, under another tree. Witness A.S. described him as ‘visibly angry’ and that he was shaking as he was watching MP.'

"Once Diguglielmo made his way back to Payne’s car, the memo states that she exited the vehicle with her phone in her left hand and firearm in the right.

"A witness reports that they heard Payne tell Diguglielmo, “If you keep coming up to me, I’m going to f–king shoot you!” Despite those warnings, Diguglielmo still continued to approach Payne.

"The memo states that Payne continued to back away from Diguglielmo, but he kept advancing towards her.

“'MP made it completely around the vehicle and BD pursued her the entire time. BD then walked up to MP’s vehicle and, with keys in his hand, motioned as if he was going to damage it,' the memo said.

"It was at that point that Payne shot Diguglielmo in the abdomen.

Payne then placed her firearm on the roof of her vehicle and was briefly taken into custody by the Broward Sheriff’s Office."

https://atlantablackstar.com/2026/09/03/black-woman-who-killed-white-man-at-walmart-escapes-charges/

So, the moral is that if someone warns you not to keep approaching her in a confrontational situation which you're choosing to escalate, or else she'll shoot you, then do as she says, EVEN IF YOU'RE A WHITE MAN AND YOU HAVE TO SUFFER THE HUMILIATION OF BACKING DOWN IN FRONT OF A BLACK WOMAN.

Have our leftist commenters suddenly grown color-blind? Why did they leave out the racial data in this incident? Is it because their ideology required that they make the Black woman look bad, while they wanted the White male "veteran" to look like a victim?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Martinned, are you willing to reassess your judgment of a country in which, sometimes, Black lives matter and Black people get to defend themselves against Whites, even "veterans"?

Is the Netherlands still the country which used to have "Zwarte Piet"?

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

Never mind Zwarte Piet, give me Homey Claus any day.

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

[Frank Drackman]

Dude FA'd and FO'd.
Before I even saw the Video I knew she had to be Black and he (was, well he still is, but not in the usual meaning) White. If it was the other way around you'd have every Jig-a-Boo Race Hustler from Sharpton to Jizz-man Crockett down in Broward.
Good for her.

Frank

[Malika la Maize]

The Catalina Island Conservancy, a nonprofit that owns 88 percent of the island off the coast of Los Angeles, said Tuesday that it would begin the first phase of a multiyear project to kill nearly all of the island’s 2,000 deer. The eradication is part of an effort to restore natural ecosystems and reduce fire danger on the 75-square-mile island.

A Los Angeles County judge issued a tentative ruling on Tuesday denying a preliminary injunction requested by opponents of the plan. After a hearing in the case, the conservancy said it had decided to proceed with plans to kill the first 200 deer between now and the end of October.

The judge’s final ruling on the injunction is expected within 90 days.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/01/us/catalina-island-deer.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

[Ska]

That seems a little drastic... The main touristy and townie part is by the harbor and below the huge cliffs. Is it because the Wrigley family (or whoever owns the top of the mountains now) are sick of deer? I guess I did see wire fences in the less habitable parts of the island. What a weird story.

Not really buying the fire hazard rationale.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Dear eat the brush that becomes a forest fire, too many deer will clean a whole place out.

Shrubs and branches that the deer have eaten can’t burn because they’re not there anymore.

[apedad]

(And here's a case where the shooting was [appropriately] found to be not justified.)

Off-duty security guard who stood over teen returning a BB gun at sporting goods store and decided to shoot him 'over and over' learns his fate

Aaron Brown Myers, 52, was sentenced Wednesday to more than 25 years behind bars for the shooting death of 17-year-old Hazrat Ali Rohani outside Big 5 Sporting Goods store in Renton, a Seattle suburb, according to court records.

As he held them at gunpoint, Rohani, who went by Ali, dropped the fake gun and held up his hands.

"When Ali turned to walk away, Mr. Myers decided to shoot him once, twice, over and over and over, continuing to shoot as Ali fell to his knees and hands, continuing to shoot as Ali fell face down to the ground," Lee said.

In all, Myers fired 10 times, "landing seven of those shots in the center mass of Ali's back," Lee said Wednesday.

Mark Middaugh, Myers' defense attorney, reportedly told jurors that Myers "needed to act" based on what he saw. Middaugh also noted that the BB gun looked real.

https://lawandcrime.com/crime/off-duty-security-guard-who-stood-over-teen-returning-a-bb-gun-at-sporting-goods-store-and-decided-to-shoot-him-over-and-over-learns-his-fate/

As soon as the weapon was on the ground AND the kid was walking AWAY there was no immediate threat.

[ducksalad]

As soon as the weapon was on the ground AND the kid was walking AWAY there was no immediate threat.

Not sure Myers would have an excuse even if the weapon was NOT on the ground, and the kid continued walking toward the store.

What are the rules when two people doing legal open carry are both walking toward the same gun shop? It can't be that each is entitled to shoot the other.

[Martinned]

What are the rules when two people doing legal open carry are both walking toward the same gun shop? It can't be that each is entitled to shoot the other.

Why not? I would think that that's the ultimate Wild West scenario that Brett and his friends aspire to.

[ducksalad]

It's a serious question. I don't own, much less carry a gun, but I do respect others' right to do so, and some of my close relatives routinely carry.

Back when Governor Abbott pardoned a right-winger who went to a left-wing rally with a gun, and then shot one of them for having a gun, I asked the same question.

The right-wingers cheering the murder and the pardon threw up a bunch of terminology harvested from military drill manuals to try and justify it, but it sounded like an attempt to baffle with bullshit, and anyway, drill manuals are not state law. I really want to know the answer.

[jb]

If the description of the Florida stand your ground law above is correct, then if this had happened in Florida it seems like both would be entitled to shoot each other. The state would have to prove that you're NOT acting in self-defense. Seems reasonable that both of them might have some fear of being killed by the other so why shouldn't they be able to stand their ground and blast away?

But yeah, fetishistic gun culture with this mix of open carry and making it hard for people to be prosecuted for killing others is leading to some "fun" outcomes.

[ducksalad]

Seems reasonable that both of them might have some fear of being killed by the other

That's the part I disagree with. If open carry is legal (and I don't have a problem with it) then someone else's possession, alone, can't be reasonable fear.

[jb]

Why not? Guns are dangerous. Just because you're legally allowed to own one and carry it around doesn't mean that you aren't a risk to kill someone with it.

If you had self defense laws with a duty to retreat then the situation wouldn't be so absurd since you'd have to make some effort to get away from the danger, but if the default supposition is that it's self defense if you feel threatened I don't see how the legality of gun possession changes anything.

[David Nieporent]

Why not?

Because if carrying guns is illegal then there's a reasonable probability that someone who is carrying a gun intends to do something nefarious with it. If it's legal, then trillions of law-abiding people will be carrying them and the odds that this particular person is a threat based solely on the fact that he is carrying are low.

[jb]

Cops shoot people who are legally carrying guns and not otherwise doing anything particularly dangerous somewhat regularly. Why should normal citizens be less afraid of people legally carrying guns than the police?

[ducksalad]

Why should normal citizens be less afraid of people legally carrying guns than the police?

The practical answer is that you don't enjoy the immunities that police officers do, and that most prosecutors give them more deference than they would you. So it would be wise to develop a bit more risk tolerance. (If you choose to carry, otherwise feel free to tremble away at the sight of a gun.)

The ethical answer is that those cops did wrong, and you doing it would also be wrong.

[jb]

I thought you were after the legal answer, though?

[ducksalad]

What I'm after is legislatures and/or courts to provide some clarity.

[Brett Bellmore]

Do anti-gunners ever get tired of militantly not understanding stand your ground laws?

So, two people are both in a place where they're entitled to be. Neither has to retreat. But, if neither attacks in the first place, neither has cause to shoot the other, since stand your ground applies to defensive violence.

[Sarcastr0]

Are you realy giving no weight to the shifting of the burden of proof?!

[TwelveInchPianist]

What shifting of the burden of proof?

There's no shifting of the burden of proof.

[jb]

It looks like in Florida you just need to have a reasonable belief of imminent harm, so no one actually has to attack you. And the state has to prove that you didn't have such a reasonable belief; you don't need to prove that you did.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"And the state has to prove that you didn't have such a reasonable belief; you don't need to prove that you did."

That's almost always the case. See here.

[jb]

No, in Florida stand your ground isn't just an affirmative defense in front of a jury, it provides immunity from prosecution in the first place. The DA has to present evidence to a judge to overcome a claim of self defense before they can even prosecute you.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Not sure what that has to do with the portion of your comment that I quoted and responded to.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Is anyone other than the defendant and his lawyer trying to justify what this defendant did?

[TwelveInchPianist]

The mere act of holding a gun should almost never constitute a threat.

People do it for all sorts of reasons, like to put them in their cars to go hunting or shooting, buy and sell them, take them to the store to return them or have them fixed, etc.

[not guilty]

United States District Judge Noël Wise of the Northern District of California has declared portions of the federal statutes that the Trump administration used to target hundreds of other student visa holders to be unconstitutional as applied, at least to the extent that enforcement is based on protected speech. The Court at this time denied injunctive relief requested by the Plaintiffs. https://www.fire.org/sites/default/files/2026/08/Memorandum%20of%20Decision%20-%20Stanford%20Daily%20Publishing%20Corporation%20et%20al.%20v.%20Rubio%20et%20al..pdf

Because this is a final judgment, it is appealable as of right to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

[Commenter_XY]

Those foreign nationals will be gone; foreign nationals do not have the same 1A protections and privileges as American citizens. This judge got it wrong (to me). The 9th circuit will address promptly.

[Malika la Maize]

Big fan of cancel culture after all, huh XY?

[Commenter_XY]

Foreign nationals who trash my country, or support terror groups like hamas and hezball-less can do so from their home country. That is who we are talking about.

[Martinned]

Content based restrictions FTW!

[Martinned]

Here's a case from 1995 about an MEP who travelled all the way to French Polynesia to protest against nuclear tests, and was kicked out for disagreeing with the government:

76. The Court reiterates that freedom of expression constitutes one of the essential foundations of a democratic society, one of the basic conditions for its progress. Subject to paragraph 2 of Article 10 (art. 10-2), it is applicable not only to "information" or "ideas" that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb. Such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no "democratic society" (see the Castells v. Spain judgment of 23 April 1992, Series A no. 236, p. 22, para. 42). A person opposed to official ideas and positions must be able to find a place in the political arena. "While freedom of expression is important for everybody, it is especially so for an elected representative of the people ... Accordingly, interferences with [his] freedom of expression ... call for the closest scrutiny on the part of the Court" (ibid., pp. 22-23, para. 42).

Freedom of political debate is undoubtedly not absolute in nature. A Contracting State may make it subject to certain "restrictions" or "penalties", but it is for the Court to give a final ruling on the compatibility of such measures with the freedom of expression enshrined in Article 10 (art. 10) (ibid., p. 23, para. 46).

77. In the Court’s opinion, the political atmosphere prevailing in French Polynesia at the time and the prospect of the two sets of elections are factors of some weight (see paragraph 9 above). The conduct of the applicant, whose political ideas were well known, could undoubtedly have had a special impact on the political atmosphere. Furthermore, she was requested on her arrival to show some discretion in what she said in public.

Nevertheless, the utterances held against Mrs Piermont were made during a peaceful, authorised demonstration. At no time did the MEP call for violence or disorder; she spoke in support of the anti-nuclear and independence demands made by several local parties. Her speech was therefore a contribution to a democratic debate in Polynesia. Moreover, the demonstration was not followed by any disorder and the Government did not show that the stances taken up by the applicant caused any unrest in Polynesia. According to the Papeete Administrative Court, her utterances were "not in any way seditious and could not in themselves constitute a serious threat to public order". Furthermore, although the expulsion order was served just before the applicant’s departure, it was made the day after the demonstration in issue. There is nothing to show that the intention of the High Commissioner of the Republic had been to take a purely symbolic measure.

A fair balance was accordingly not struck between, on the one hand, the public interest requiring the prevention of disorder and the upholding of territorial integrity and, on the other, Mrs Piermont’s freedom of expression.

78. In short, since the measure was not necessary in a democratic society, there has been a breach of Article 10 (art. 10).

https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-57925

[Malika la Maize]

“who trash my country”

How very free speech of you!

[David Nieporent]

"Yes" would've been a shorter and just as accurate answer.

[jb]

"Racists who say racist things can do so from their couch after they get fired. That is who are are talking about here."

Trying to understand why you think your statement is meaningfully different than the above.

[John F. Carr]

I would not count on the Ninth Circuit to save a Trump policy, right or wrong. Decisions by conservative panels on politically sensitive subjects get reversed en banc.

[Sarcastr0]

You should know by now that the 9th is no longer an outlier circuit.

It’s not even the most liberal circuit.

[not guilty]

"Those foreign nationals will be gone; foreign nationals do not have the same 1A protections and privileges as American citizens. This judge got it wrong (to me). The 9th circuit will address promptly."

Commenter_XY, in the context of aliens who may be refused entry into the United States vis-a-vis deportation of noncitizens who are present here, SCOTUS has long distinguished between First Amendment protections applicable to the two categories.

As SCOTUS has recognized:

The distinction between an alien who has effected an entry into the United States and one who has never entered runs throughout immigration law. . . . It is well established that certain constitutional protections available to persons inside the United States are unavailable to aliens outside of our geographic borders. See United States v. VerdugoUrquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 269 (1990) (Fifth Amendment's protections do not extend to aliens outside the territorial boundaries); Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 784 (1950) (same). But once an alien enters the country, the legal circumstance changes, for the Due Process Clause applies to all "persons" within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent. See Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 210 (1982); Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 77 (1976); Kwong Hai Ghew v. Golding, 344 U.S. 590, 596-598, and n.5 (1953); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 369 (1886); cf. [Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel.] Mezei, [345 U.S. 206,] 212 (1953)] ("[A]liens who have once passed through our gates, even illegally, may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness encompassed in due process of law").

Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 693 (2001).

Like it or not, XY, “Freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.” Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 148 (1945). As Justice Frank Murphy, concurring in Bridges v. Wixon, wrote:

The power to exclude and deport aliens is one springing out of the inherent sovereignty of the United States. Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U.S. 581. Since an alien obviously brings with him no constitutional rights, Congress may exclude him in the first instance for whatever reason it sees fit. Turner v. Williams, 194 U.S. 279. The Bill of Rights is a futile authority for the alien seeking admission for the first time to these shores. But, once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country, he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders. Such rights include those protected by the First and the Fifth Amendments and by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. None of these provisions acknowledges any distinction between citizens and resident aliens. They extend their inalienable privileges to all "persons," and guard against any encroachment on those rights by federal or state authority. Indeed, this Court has previously and expressly recognized that Harry Bridges, the alien, possesses the right to free speech and free press, and that the Constitution will defend him in the exercise of that right. Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252. [Emphasis added]

Since resident aliens have constitutional rights, it follows that Congress may not ignore them in the exercise of its "plenary" power of deportation.

326 U.S. at 161 (Murphy, J., concurring). SCOTUS later approvingly quoted from this concurring opinion in Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding, 344 U.S. 590, 596 n.5 (1953).

[apedad]

"It is well established that certain constitutional protections available to persons inside the United States are unavailable to aliens outside of our geographic borders. See United States v. VerdugoUrquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 269 (1990)"

I disagree with this case (not with not guilty!) in that I believe the Constitution follows the Flag, i.e., US power (FBI, military, DEA, etc.,) must obey constitutional law REGARDLESS where they operate in the world.

The Constitution limits US power and DOES NOT have a geographic limit.

[Martinned]

I agree, and have argued that (on this blog and elsewhere) as far back as when we were discussing GITMO.

This has also long been a tricky problem under the European Convention for Human Rights, because art. 1 of the Convention explicitly limits the states parties' obligations to " to everyone within their jurisdiction". It's safe to say that the ECtHR's interpretation of that article has not been consistent over time. Deciding that a UK-run prison in Basra was within the UK's jurisdiction was a relatively easy one by comparison.

Annoyingly, I remember seeing a very interesting case this week, where a claimant was found not to be within the defendant state's jurisdiction for the purposes of art. 1. Unfortunately, I can't find it now, nor do I remember what it was about.

(Other than that the Court mentioned the right, codified in art. 3 of Protocol 4, to re-enter the state of one's citizenship as an exception to art. 1, because that right logically presupposes that the claimant is outside the state at the time of his claim.)

[Martinned]

Ah, found it. The case is Al Hashimi, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWCA Civ 943 (22 July 2026).

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2026/943.html

The question was whether the claimant, a Somali citizen resident in UAE, was unlawfully deprived of UK Citizenship contrary to her rights under art. 8 of the Convention. The England and Wales Court of Appeal held that she was not within the jurisdiction of the UK for the purposes of the Convention, and rejected her claim on that basis.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The specific quote says that "certain" protections are available to "aliens" only inside our geographical borders.

It is somewhat question-begging to say the "Constitution follows the flag" if the Constitution itself draws that line.

The quote regularly arose when the U.S. obtained new territory. I think "geographical borders" should clearly include U.S. territory.

A place like GITMO, which we "rented" for around 100 years, should apply as well. The case cited, however, involved searching some place in Mexico. That's a tad more complicated.

Also, to be clear, U.S. officials still have to obey constitutional law (and any other restraints in place). The question there is whether "aliens" specifically can raise a claim.

[Nelson]

“ foreign nationals do not have the same 1A protections and privileges as American citizens”

They absolutely do. This comfort on the right for considering the Constitution a list of suggestions is sickening to me. The argument that infringing the rights of anyone outside of specific, adjudicated, and broadly applied exceptions is establishing a slow erosion of people’s natural rights.

Once you start making arbitrary distinctions about who is or isn’t worthy of Constitutional rights, you set a precedent that is begging to be abused.

Surrendering principles for outcomes always ends badly.

[Commenter_XY]

They absolutely do not. They can (and will) be deported. This judge made an erroneous decision. It happens.

[John Rohan]

If you are a foreign national entering the country is a privilege, not a right.

[jb]

That's a completely separate question than if the Constitution protects them once they've entered.

[Josh R]

It's deja vu all over again (including the confidence of the comments that their position is right).

[The Margrave of Azilia]

A situation where I agree with "not guilty" in supporting immigrants' First Amendment rights even if they're not citizens.

I won't repeat my Supreme Court quotes which, combined with the Declaration of Independence, suggest that immigrants legally residing in the U. S. are part of "the people" and protected by the Bill of Rights.

They are, roughly speaking, citizens in embryo. And just as you can't just kill embryos because they are inconvenient, you can't suppress the rights of an embryonic citizen just because those right are inconvenient. I'm sure "not guilty" would agree.

[Malika la Maize]

The Supreme Court’s conflation of the president with the federal government is the latest iteration in the Court’s steady embrace of the unitary-executive theory and the accompanying expansion of executive power. This theory maintains that all executive power resides in the president, and that Congress cannot limit the president’s exercise of that power. Yet these days, the president, occasionally with the Court’s blessing, is claiming to possess legislative powers too. That is the case when the president declines to spend funds that Congress has obligated or when the president decides to spend funds that Congress has not authorized. Under the Constitution, Congress, not the president, has the power of the purse. Nevertheless, the unitary-executive theory unites all government power in the president, paving the way for an executive unbound by law.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/09/scotus-separation-powers-ballroom-trump/688499/?gift=ofn0wcL5RvgDp4E2LQQEMT5yCHX3eIfDEljXLOC8UVA&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

[Sarcastr0]

Stewardship is not ownership.

This holds true for public money and buildings and the government generally.

It’s a fundamental principle of the republican form of government and the Court seems to have decided otherwise.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Truman gutted the White House — totally gutted the interior.

[Bored Lawyer]

and that Congress cannot limit the president’s exercise of that power

That's not correct. Congress can change the law, and the president has to act within the law. If Congress appropriates money for X, for example, then the president can't spend it on Y. Or, if Congress would legalize marijuana use, then the president could not prosecute someone for using marijuana.

What Congress can't do is pass a law, and then invest its execution in a person or entity beyond the president's control. Control including instructing them what to do, and firing them.

[Martinned]

What Congress can't do is pass a law, and then invest its execution in a person or entity beyond the president's control.

Where does it say that? (Other than in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence.)

[Sarcastr0]

the president has to act within the law. If Congress appropriates money for X, for example, then the president can't spend it on Y.

The court's latest deployment of standing doctrine renders that 'has to' more aspirational than descriptive.

[Brett Bellmore]

Not really, The Court's standing doctrine is essentially that offended randos have no standing. Congress, acting as an institution, certainly would.

Your problem is that they don't want to exercise that standing. Not that they lack it.

[Sarcastr0]

Scalia disagreed in Lujan. Not that this Court much likes Scalia precedents.

You keep saying the check on the President acting ultra vires is that Congress can sue.
You should check out the precedents about that sometime.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

What? Disrespecting St. Scalia? Isn't that blasphemous?

Anyway, more on something I referenced before:

https://www.dorfonlaw.org/2026/09/the-renaming-of-lake-ontario-is-even.html

[Glaucomatose]

By that construction, Congress no longer must authorize the executive to spend money; rather, the executive has the ability to spend whatever it chooses to, and a majority of Congress has the ability to sue to stop it.

While I agree with you that this is how the Court has operated under Trump, it should not be controversial to say that this is not how the Constitution envisions the process, nor is it how things worked prior to Trump.

[apedad]

DOJ turns on its own ICE agent after a shooting it can no longer defend: report

In a rare reversal, the Justice Department has secured a federal grand jury indictment against an ICE officer accused of lying about a shooting during last winter's immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

According to The New York Times, a grand jury indicted Christian Castro on charges of "making false statements" about the January shooting, marking an unusual instance of Trump's Justice Department accusing one of its own agents of criminal wrongdoing on the job.

https://www.rawstory.com/ice-agent-shooting-lies/

This is the guy that TX gov Abbott let walk instead of honoring an extradition request from Minnesota.

At least the feds (finally) get it right even though "top Trump administration officials initially came to Mr. Castro’s defense. . . . But in contrast to the administration’s position in other shootings, federal officials publicly distanced themselves from Mr. Castro in the weeks that followed."

[Malika la Maize]

In the weeks that followed, but what about the days?

[ducksalad]

At least the feds (finally) get it right

Sure, if by getting it right you mean charging him with a non-violent crime with no mandatory minimum prison sentence. Rather than, you know, shooting someone.

Before giving the DoJ credit I'd like to hear from the legal experts here whether this could be a ploy to protect him from state charges:

- Do the MN charges get deferred while the feds are prosecuting him, and if so, is some kind of clock timing out?
- Assuming the feds at some point take him into custody, who decides whether or when the feds hand him over to MN authorities?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

MN went after the assault.

As for the feds doing the bare minimum here, we shall see. Seems like a ready-made pardon opportunity.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Perjury and murder are two completely different things.

[David Nieporent]

Also murder and non-fatally shooting someone are two completely different things.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Not necessarily.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"This is the guy that TX gov Abbott let walk instead of honoring an extradition request from Minnesota."

In Puerto Rico v. Branstad, 483 U.S. 219 (1987), the Supreme court, rejecting years of precedent, allowed federal judicial review if a governor refused extradition to another state.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1986/85-2116

So the final decison of letting this Castro fellow "walk," even in the situation described, rested with the judiciary, not Abbott.

But I'm glad you criticize Abbott for being too deferential to federal power and failing to give due allowance to the prerogative of a state to prosecute alleged crime withing its boundaries, even when the alleged crime is committed by a federal official.

apedad sounds like a supporter of a balanced federalism, which some call "states' rights."

[not guilty]

David French's New York Times opinion column from yesterday illustrates that "principled conservative" is not necessarily an oxymoron.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/opinion/trump-rubio-free-speech-judges.html

For those who wish to bypass the paywall, this link may be helpful. https://paywallskipper.com/bypass-nyt-paywall (I haven't tried it, so I don't know whether the suggested methods work or not.)

[Mr. Bumble]

French is as much a "conservative" as you are.

[Malika la Maize]

What makes him not a conservative?

[Commenter_XY]

Applied corpus linguistics = What makes him not a conservative?

[Moderation4ever]

I have noted that it is not uncommon for commentors here to apply their own judgement to others political philosophy. David French is a rather well established conservative but if you don't like his column then he is not.

[SRG2]

The cultists here think only they are true conservatives - which is odd given that they're not conservatives.

[Malika la Maize]

For them conservative is about bowing to their wannabe king.

[Bob from Ohio]

"What makes him not a conservative?"

"In an August 2024 The New York Times op-ed titled "To Save Conservatism From Itself, I Am Voting for Harris," French announced his voting decision. " Google AI

[Malika la Maize]

And that article was all about his rationale that that didn’t make him not a conservative

[Moderation4ever]

Especially since Trump is hardly a conservative.

[Bob from Ohio]

And Harris?

[Moderation4ever]

At this point Kamala Harris is looking more conservative than Trump. If Harris were President I don't think we would have a goofy one-off war with Iran, or that we would have tariffs on and off, or that we be pissing off our allies. You can point out liberal things about Kamala Harris but in total she likely be more conservative than Trump.

[Bob from Ohio]

"in total she likely be more conservative than Trump"

Delusional.

Trump is only selectively conservative at best but advances conservative goals even when he likely disagrees.

[Glaucomatose]

What conservative goals does he advance?

Is giving the President the unfettered power to impose taxes, or spend funds, without Congressional authorization, or impose speech codes on private enterprises, a conservative goal?

[Bob from Ohio]

"What conservative goals does he advance?"

Cutting planed parenthood funding, immigration enforcement, appointing judges who got rid of Roe, fighting men in women sports, opposing affirmative action, opposing Hamas, opposing Iran, cutting federal employee levels.

[Sarcastr0]

What a telling state of affairs that the conservative agenda is nothing but culture war stuff, and veiled anti-Dem attacks like 'opposing Hamas.'

'Opposing Iran' is a laughable 'not a war!'

[Krayt]

If you keep voting for the lesser of two evils, you keep getting evil.

Both sides the last few elections: "If you vote for a third party, you're functionally voting for the bad guy!"

Everyone can fuck off. That your person isn't the other bad guy, here's the smallest violin, you power hungry thugs.

[Bob from Ohio]

A conservative would not vote for Harris. QED

He can rationalize it any way he wants. Whatever let's him sleep at night I guess.

[Sarcastr0]

I guess we're gonna need Brett to talk to you about how weighing and picking the lesser of two evils can still leave you ideologically pure.

Take a seat; it could take a while.

[SRG2]

A conservative would not vote for Harris. QED

You've demonstrated nothing. A conservative who accounted stability of institutions, and the importance of character, salient factors in voting - which are after all supposedly conservative principles - might readily vote for Harris when the alternative is Trump,

[JoeFromtheBronx]

"A conservative would not vote for Thomas Jefferson."

Someone talking to Alexander Hamilton in 1801.

[Bob from Ohio]

Harris is pro-abortion without any restrictions, that alone disqualifies her as a conservative voting alternative.

And she utterly lacks any good personal "character".

[SRG2]

Not all conservatives oppose abortion. She may not have a conspicuous good character, but Trump has a conspicuous malignant one.

[Bob from Ohio]

How many conservatives support abortion "without any restrictions"? You can always find a few in any group with different views but Harris opposes waiting periods, parental consent, "born alive" protections, restrictions on post viability abortion, any upper limit on abortion and supports government Planned Parenthood funding.

Abortion on demand and without restrictions is not conservative no matter how a lib like you says it is.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Many conservatives think abortion is moral in certain situations. Some also think that even if it is not, it is a personal matter, perhaps between you and your God, and, in a general sense, the government should not interfere.

[Moderation4ever]

Bob, we know that many true conservatives have voted for candidates other than Trump. The only real conservatives that have voted for Trump usually have taken that vote more for political reasons than for philosophical reasons.

[Bob from Ohio]

Not voting for Trump is 100% different than voting for Harris.

[SRG2]

100% of people who voted for Harris did not vote for Trump.

[Bob from Ohio]

I mean declining to support Trump is different than an actual vote for Harris.

[Krayt]

They could. George Will disengaged from the not-at-all-conservative Trump, and you treated him as a traitor rather than engaging with his conservative arguments.

I'm more libertarian and I weakly endorsed Harris because I was no fan of apparently throwing in with Putin, the dealbreaker for me.

[CountmontyC]

What makes him a conservative?

[bloocow2]

If you're a NYT subscriber, you can just send a gift link. Like so: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/opinion/trump-rubio-free-speech-judges.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-lA.SBLl.Cf2wfijmplRi&smid=url-share

There used to be a limit per month on how many you could share, but I think that's gone now.

[Mr. Bumble]

Yhe gift link still requires you to provide your email to read the article.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

It has also been archived.

https://archive.ph/99PPe

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Is there a lawyer in the house?

Can anyone say whether its legal to bypass the NYT paywall?

It should go without saying that I support the NYT's right to defend its intellectual property even if I don't always agree with what the NYT has to say.

[Malika la Maize]

A Pennsylvania police officer committed voluntary manslaughter when he shot a 22-year-old college student who had tried to enter the wrong house after a night of drinking, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The officer, Sean Farrell, 58, of the Upper Pottsgrove Township Police Department, could face as much as 20 years in prison in the Aug. 23 killing of Glenwood Pysher IV, known as Bubba. Mr. Pysher, a collegiate baseball player, was preparing for his senior year at Saint Elizabeth University in Florham Park, N.J.

Police officers are rarely charged after on-duty shootings because they have wide latitude to use force. According to Mapping Police Violence, a research collaborative, officers are charged in less than 1 percent of killings.

Most officers who are charged are not convicted. One study of police shootingsfrom 2005 through June 2019 found that out of 104 officers charged in murder or manslaughter, a third were convicted. Prosecutors generally bring cases only when they have strong video evidence that show they did not need to use lethal force to defend themselves.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/01/us/officer-charged-shooting-baseball-player-wrong-door.html

[Mr. Bumble]

Anyone want to have a go at this?
"Holy Moly, the Missouri Supreme Court issued a first-in-history opinion that risks creating chaos in Missouri. Missouri amended its election maps this year. It held primaries. Now, the Missouri Supreme Court is ordering the General Election to use *different* maps. This is wild"
https://x.com/EWess92/status/2095637350579642454?

[John F. Carr]

I said yesterday, with the death of the independent state legislature theory this is purely a question of state law. The Secretary of State intentionally delayed judicial review hoping courts would think the redistricting challenge came too late. If he had acted promptly last winter the primary and general elections could have used the same map.

https://reason.com/volokh/2026/09/03/open-thread-316/?comments=true#comment-11575290

[hobie]

You clearly didn't read the opinion.

[Mr. Bumble]

Who are you responding to?

[hobie]

You

[Mr. Bumble]

No. I didn't read the opinion and put it out there for someone with more knowledge on the subject to explain it. (Anyone want to have a go at this?)
Did you read the opinion? Do you have a take on it?

[hobie]

Basically, there was a map in place. Missouri hayseed insurrectionists swapped it out with an unapproved map. State Supreme Court said cannot use new map because was not approved by voter referendum.

[Mr. Bumble]

...but the "new" map was already used for the primaries.
If I understand this correctly now people who won in the new districts will be running in the old districts. How will that work?

[Josh R]

The secretary of state intentionally delayed by 9 months deciding whether the new map has to be approved by referendum so that courts would have to introduce this chaos late in the game if they held a referendum was required.

We shall see from SCOTUS whether the Purcell principle (federal courts cannot make late changes in election rules) applies to state court decisions on federal elections. Given the intentional delay by the SoS, he ought to lose.

As to the practical question, I would defer to Missouri state law which i am not familiar with.

[ducksalad]

As to the practical question, I would defer to Missouri state law which i am not familiar with.

Don't know about MO but in many other states, if for any reason the candidate selected in a primary becomes unavailable or gets disqualified, the party selects a replacement.

[John F. Carr]

There is an argument to disqualify the primary winners because the primary used the wrong maps. I also don't know about Missouri election law.

[Moderation4ever]

My guess is that Trump doesn't care. He pushed the redistricting with little consideration of the consequences.

[David Nieporent]

If I understand this correctly now people who won in the new districts will be running in the old districts. How will that work?

Well, districts have no constitutional significance; unlike with respect to some state legislatures where the members are required to live in their district, members of Congress can reside anywhere in the state. So I don't think it poses a legal problem.

[ducksalad]

If the districts are very different it might not be clear which candidate goes with which district, unless one thinks the arbitrary numbers on the districts are the important principle and the candidate must follow the district number.

In a drastic case you could have someone elected in a NW rural primary running in a SE urban district that never would have nominated him if the vote had been held there. Not a constitutional issue, as you say, but it's arbitrary and not very democratic - it defeats whatever purpose there was in having primaries held in districts. Seems better to have the parties just re-pick nominees, they must already have procedures on the books for cases where a nominee dies.

[David Nieporent]

Seems better to have the parties just re-pick nominees,

That does seem better! But that's not a legal argument, let alone a constitutional one, so the Missouri Supreme Court should have the last word on the matter.

[Commenter_XY]

I have a technical question for lawyers who draft legal briefs, and use AI. Is there a particular agent you use? I use several different AI models (for different kinds of tasks). I think I better appreciate how hallucinations happen now.

Example: I hand an AI Agent a tech spec to design an import process. It takes my spec, my example file, my business rules and maybe 30 minutes later, hands me back completed product, ready for acceptance testing. I do now in 20 minutes what took days.

Suppose I have a subscription to an advanced Claude model (btw, I do). And I want to draft a legal brief, say an amicus brief. What kind of prompt do you even use? Can 'Joe Schmoe' send SCOTUS a legal brief on a pending case? If not, why not? Prisoners petition SCOTUS and get their cases heard. 🙂

[ducksalad]

Is there some particular case where you feel none of the lawyers are adequately representing your views at SCOTUS?

[John F. Carr]

My understanding is submitting papers to the Supreme Court costs thousands of dollars, largely because of the cost of printing and binding briefs to the Court's standards.

Filing as an indigent prisoner is cheaper.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I know that was true 40 years ago, but today we have things like Adobe InDesign which can take basic MS word document files, and produce a printer quality document that you simply email as a .pdf file to your printer. That’s what newspapers are doing now.

The quality you can produce is actually superior to what a lot of set-type printers could do 40 years ago, you have access to a damn near any font you could possibly ever want, you can specify page layout to be anything you want to be, and the only thing left is the binding or saddle stapling, and high-quality photocopies can do that now.

As long as it’s only a reasonable quantity of copies that are needed, i.e. under 100, I will be very, very surprised is it cost more than a few hundred dollars to hire someone to lay this out in InDesign. Memory of the package cost about $350, that may be an educational use price, but if lawyers are willing to pay several thousand dollars for these documents — Heck, I’ll start printing them….

As to indigents, memory is that Gideon filed his in handwriting on prison issued letter paper.

[John F. Carr]

The Supreme Court has a request from the government to stay an injunction against new rules governing mailed ballots. Plaintiffs' merits brief is due September 8. The government requested an administrative stay from Justice Jackson. Plaintiffs replied that the Post Office isn't ready to implement its new rules so it can't be harmed by a short delay.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/26a297.html

[Moderation4ever]

Is all this hullabaloo from the Trump administration about the Post Office anything more than sowing chaos? I really think the strategy here is to get people so confused that they give up voting. I hope that people will hang in there and vote no matter what Trump throws at them.

[Josh R]

If Trump gets his way, it's far worse than sowing chaos.

The EO also has a section requiring DHS to create a federal database of eligible voters, which is almost certain not be accurate. At some point, the list of people receiving mail-in ballots from USPS will be compared to the DHS list and legitimately eligible voters will be disnenfranchsied.

For the time being, the rule requires states to upload who will be receiving mail-in ballots before giving those ballots to USPS. Then, postal workers must compare who gets ballots to the previously uploaded list before mailing out the ballots. You might ask won't the previously-loaded list always match who gets the ballots so what's the big deal?

Perhaps that could be true down the road (absent the check against the DHS database). But for now, the implementing systems have not been completed and the training for both election officials and postal workers on those systems has not happened. It's a rush job that will not likely work for the states who start sending ballots out 2 weeks from now.

[ducksalad]

2 weeks? I believe North Carolina is starting today.

[Moderation4ever]

Trump doesn't have to get his way the chaos is sown already.

[ducksalad]

The key word is "administration". Trump's handlers might have intentionally timed things for chaos. But Trump himself is no longer that intelligent, I believe he really just wants to get anything at all he can call vindication on election fraud. "There was fraud and I stopped it, for the first time in history".

Just like the birthright citizenship and the Iran war, he keeps pushing his staff to get a win and they keep narrowing the goals in the hope of getting the SC or the IRGC to sign off.

Eventually the SC will allow him to deny citizenship to children born to a US surrogate using diplomats' egg and sperm, Iran will agree to renew their pinky swear not to seek nuclear weapons in return for a complete withdrawal, and states will agree to let the post office not deliver outgoing ballots that have Chinese postage stamps on them, and then Trump will have his wins.

[Josh R]

The district court has now issued a preliminary injunction on the merits. As such, the argument made by the USPS that the TRO acted as an injunction need no longer be considered.

[Estragon]

https://nypost.com/2026/09/03/media/maria-bartiromo-out-at-fox-news-after-more-than-a-decade-at-cable-giant/

LOL the post trying so hard to briefly note this and move on. Maria wanted to push a story about Don’s 2020 China election argle bargle and Fox didn’t feel like getting sued again. This of course goes a long way towards explaining why it barely made the Post originally and why even around here among the ultras it faded away in about a day. Maybe Don can make her a US attorney somewhere.

[ducksalad]

Clearly there's no requirement for US Attorneys to be competent or remember anything, but don't they still need to have a law degree?

[David Nieporent]

More specifically (based on what I've read): when Trump held that primetime news conference a month or two ago to talk about stolen elections and there was a collective yawn from the media, apparently Fox management sent out a message to all the staff to give it the attention it was worth (i.e., none). And Bartiromo — confused about which sie she was working for and the proper role of the media — leaked that internal message to the White House. So Fox canned her for the leak.

[ducksalad]

Brendan Carr will need to look into any broadcast licenses that Fox owns.

[Estragon]

Yes. Fox is very good at helping Don politically, and sometimes that includes NOT amplifying what he is saying in certain situations. But eventually, one begins to believe the lies. You become who you were merely pretending to be. The cognitive dissonance becomes too great to manage internally, too taxing mentally. It starts to be easier to surrender and merely believe without reservation. One can vividly observe that process around here. This is why I keep saying that Trumpists engage in their games (utterly defeated! Prostrate like a goat! Mamdani will send us to camps!) at their own peril. It exacts a mental price and the bill comes due, eventually.

[Sarcastr0]

Trump says he was at the Democratic Convention 18 months ago and his friend (a Democrat who probably voted for him) came up and had a huge ID around his neck so heavy he could barely walk and it had so much information on it, maybe his SSN. You need ID like that for groceries.

When the Secretary of the Army wanted to talk to Trump about Iran and Hegseth, all Trump was interested in was the ballroom.

All the extreme overdone stuff about how bad Biden was is being demonstrated by Trump out in the open.
MAGA would rather have America burn suffer and fall than have someone else be in power.

[Frank Drackman]

I hate to admit it, but like Dr. Strangeglove and his Mineshaft Plan Dr. Ed 2 has an astonishingly good Idea with his Proposal of Bounties on Illegals (and Overstaying a Visa is the very Definition of "Illegal") At the worst it'd just concentrate them into the "Sanctuaries" (I'd call them "Preserves").

Frank

[hobie]

So boxcar the brownies and ship them to concentration camps, Frankie?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Irish & Poles & Ukrainians & Russians are all white.

[Estragon]

Yes, I expect the GOP to formally propose this forthwith

[Martinned]

I often say that the US has it easy, having an ocean between itself and any enemy. But that's before I learned that Canada is the US's biggest enemy. A much bigger enemy than Russia or China.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2245304/trump-warning-canada-mark-carney

[hobie]

The only way anyone is gonna beat the US is if you were to foment some kind internal anti-everything, Pro-Putin faction that wants to kill science, education, dismantle voting, create fascism, install an authoritarian government, alienate all allies, dismantle the government....you know, basically destroy democracy.

But what are the chances of that happening?

[grb]

hobie : ".... you know, basically destroy democracy."

It also might help to have a president so ludicrously buffoonish that he embarrasses & humiliates the United States before the entire world. Hell - disgraces the very idea of democracy itself! Someone so clownish that a Putin or Xi can smirk & point as support for their totalitarian rule.

But what are the chances of that happening?

[apedad]

I'm not so pessimistic about America's future though as I think a lot of the current disagreements are not about WHAT Trump is doing (which we still can disagree with) but HOW he's doing it.

For instance the stupid ballroom or Kennedy Center issues.

If he had gone through the regular processes, then the opposition would have been much more muted (and hopefully the regular processes would have prohibited some of his actions).

[ducksalad]

I think a lot of the current disagreements are not about WHAT Trump is doing (which we still can disagree with) but HOW he's doing it.

I object to the what, the how, the why, the when, the where, and the who.

[hobie]

I think if the hayseeds had elected DeSantis, they might have been able to actually pull off the Final Solution. But they threw their lot in with a man so cartoonishly stupid and corrupt, that it is imploding. We should be grateful Trump is such an idiot, or we would all be doomed

[Dr. Ed 2]

You cannot believe in the final solution if you believe in the right to life.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Canada is increasingly acting as a Chinese and Muslim proxy.

The country has changed to the point where Mandarin should replace French as the official minority language. People don’t realize that.

[David Nieporent]

People dp not realize most of the things you make up.

[Mr. Bumble]

"After weeks of intense fighting, the Israeli military has captured Hezbollah’s main stronghold in southern Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Thursday evening announced that it has “completed the clearing of Hezbollah’s underground infrastructure in the Ali al-Taher Ridge area and is operating to neutralize it.”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/09/israel-captures-hezbollahs-main-terror-command-center-in-south-lebanon/

[Commenter_XY]

Iran has directly threatened Israel with a military response if they moved on Ali al-Taher Ridge. The bluff was just called. Allegedly, there were some senior Iranian IRGC present. Maybe they need to leave.

[grb]

One of those cartoons that says it all:

https://x.com/mluckovichajc/status/2095595607561846878

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Elon Musk being associated with something called "X" is a bit ironic given his anti-trans rhetoric

[John F. Carr]

He should pitch a service to Hegseth for military use called "M" or "XY".

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I know some appealing celebrities have died recently, but don't worry. Bad people are dying every day, too.

[Moderation4ever]

We are lucky to have had the time of some of these people. They have made the world better and that is a good thing.

[apedad]

Judge declares mistrial in Lindsay Clancy case, allows defense to seek emergency stay

The judge has declared a mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy case, but he gave the defense one hour to seek an emergency stay.

Around 11 a.m., jurors sent a note to Judge William Sullivan saying they remained deadlocked. and Sullivan declared a mistrial after hearing from prosecutors and the defense. Prosecutors argued in favor of a mistrial, but defense attorney Kevin Reddington argued for additional deliberations.

Before the jury was brought in, Reddington asked the judge to hold off on bringing in the jury and Sullivan agreed to delay the proceedings by one hour to allow Reddington to seek an emergency stay of his decision from a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-stream-live-updates-as-verdict-watch-continues/6543999/

Tough case for the jurors as how are they to decide if she's mental or not.

[John F. Carr]

SJC interventions of this sort are rare but procedurally allowed. For example, if the judge enters a finding of not guilty on some counts before the jury begins deliberations the prosection can ask for an emergency order reinstating the charges.

[Mr. Bumble]

Could the recalcitrant juror been replaced with an alternate?

[John F. Carr]

If I recall correctly, a juror who refuses to deliberate can be replaced with an alternate and the jury will be instructed to restart deliberations from the beginning. A juror who has a sincere disagreement with the majority can not be replaced for disagreeing. When a juror is replaced over the objection of the defense (not in this case) there is a good argument on appeal.

[Moderation4ever]

I think is likely a good case for the prosecution to refile and look for a plea deal. It seems likely there is no chance for a conviction and maybe even no chance for an acquittal. Maybe both side should find a good middle ground.

[John F. Carr]

Some DAs are willing to plead difficult murder cases down to manslaughter despite the lack of evidence for the lesser crime.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I’m thinking civil suit here, and now that they are divorced, is there anything preventing the father from filing a wrongful death suit against her?

And wouldn’t a conviction, even manslaughter have the same effect as criminal convictions in assaults and rapes, i.e. eliminate any deliberation of fault due to the lower preponderance standard, with the only issue being the damages due?

What would a not guilty by insanity judgment do to a wrongful death suit?

[John F. Carr]

If she manslaughtered the kids she's liable in tort. But the father can't squeeze blood from a stone. Her net worth is likely to be negative. Murder defense costs can be several million dolllars. She'd have to get a big movie deal to pay her lawyers. Which could happen. As I recall Karen Read's lawyers have a lien on her publicity income.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Don’t forget that she has a malpractice claim pending against both the hospital (which I believe is limited at $10,000 as a charity) and several voodoo scientists individually. I don’t believe that claims against individual doctors are limited, are they? And I’m wondering why there are no suits against the pharmaceutical companies here…

And if she gets another jury packed with mind-dead feminists, I would not be at all surprised to see a seven or eight figure judgment come out of that. As they say on Beacon Hill, “real money.”

But wouldn’t both the defense attorneys and the tort settlement be considered equally as unsecured creditors — along with medical bills not covered by insurance, which at this point are probably significant — with everyone getting an equal percentage of their claim.

And aren’t there legal procedures where he could prevent her from paying her attorneys because of his filed lawsuit? I know her attorneys will fight to get their money, but I’m thinking of other third attorneys fighting to get their third of the tort settlement.

[BrotherMovesOn]

"I’m thinking civil suit here, and now that they are divorced, is there anything preventing the father from filing a wrongful death suit against her?"

Yes, but empathy, compassion and practicality are foreign concepts to you so of course you would be confused.

"And aren’t there legal procedures where he could prevent her from paying her attorneys because of his filed lawsuit?"
No.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Yes, but empathy, compassion and practicality..."

Ah yes, toxic empathy.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"And if she gets another jury packed with mind-dead feminists..."

Fortunately in this case a man was available to limit the damage, but that might not be the case in the next trial.

[hobie]

Apparently, according to the defense attorney, all the jurors but one are for innocent

[Moderation4ever]

Twelve angry men except in reverse.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Nine rabid feminazis and two men lacking testicular fortitude.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Dr. Ed, have you been mixing the chlorine and bleach again? Maybe it's time to take the desk job and leave the actual janitorial duties to the young fellers.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Looks like we got us a chemist here, folks.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Tough case for the jurors as how are they to decide if she's mental or not."

A Guilty but Mentally Ill verdict option would further justice.

[Moderation4ever]

James Carville has suggested that Trump is trying to have the Republicans lose the 2026 midterm elections. Now Carville is quite a character but does his suggestion have merit? First Trump knows that most Presidents lose Congress in the midterms, so why fight it. Trump therefore continues to push unpopular actions like the war with Iran and tariffs. Trump refuses to waste his money supporting Republican candidates. While impeachment is possible, removal from office is most unlikely. There is little Trump needs from Congress and little Congress can do while he holds a veto. Finally, Trump has been helped in the past by having an opposition that causes his supporters to rally around him. So, while Carville's suggest is unlikely it is not without merit.

[ducksalad]

There's no such plan, or any plan. It's just floundering, by a man whose abilities and influence are declining.

[apedad]

Yup.

Trump likes to zig when it's expected he'll zag - BUT - good leaders will have a strategic plan so the zig/zagging ultimately makes sense and supports a long-range policy.

Trump just zigs for the surprise effect - not because it makes any strategic sense.

[John F. Carr]

From some Republican fundraising spam: "The quiet plot to seize the Senate and completely paralyze President Trump is moving twice as fast as the media is admitting." I recall Hillary Clinton's complaint about a vast, right-wing conspiracy known to some as the Republican party.

Much political spam reminds me of a comment about Nigerian 419 scams. The first message is intentionally unbelievable. They don't want to waste time on less gullible people who might back out before sending money. I know that Donald Trump did not personally call me and fail to get through. Somebody who believes that might be easily persuaded to give money to the cause. (I don't know what I would say if he did call me.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

I’d probably say “Cute. Now who are you really and why are you bothering me?”

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The sequel, directed by Susanne Bier, follows the fourth book in Alice Hoffman’s “Practical Magic” series and sees King, 27, and Williams, 29, play Sally’s daughters, Kylie and Antonia (portrayed as children in the first film by Evan Rachel Wood and Alexandra Artrip). This time, the Owens women — including the wise great-aunts (Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest) — try to destroy the family curse for good after Kylie’s boyfriend has a tragic accident.

[NYT]

I would probably give the original around two stars out of four, maybe 2.5 if I was generous. It was, as I recall, sort of lame.

Good cast. I didn't think it was a leading option for a sequel, but the leads are stars, and there are lots of films out there. Why not?

I enjoyed some of Alice Hoffman's books, including Practical Magic. I was not aware there was a series.

Special nod to Evan Rachel Wood, who is a very good actress and singer. I liked her on the show Once and Again, which you can check out on YouTube.

[grb]

Latest Bling Palace news (aka ballroom) :

Trump did an interview with New York magazine exclusively about his precious ballroom. Most reporting about the piece focuses on DJT's plaintive whine (said several times previously) that he has to build monuments to himself because nobody will after he's gone. But what stood out for me is this :

"During a reporter’s tour of the White House, Trump detailed some of his plans, including his hope of having his name slapped on his rising White House ballroom and underground military bunker, and him saying he may “fix” the White House’s front columns so they’re more ornate, featuring acanthus leaves at the top."

“The White House should have used Corinthian,” he said of the iconic white columns. “It’s a luxury house, a house of luxury, and they used Doric, which is not as nice. Maybe I’ll fix that, too.”

Some points :

1. The White House Residence (the central iconic building) uses the Ionic Order, not the Doric. Trump knows the term "Corinthian" because he's been told it's the "bestest" & "yugest" of those classical column-thingies. But that's where his knowledge peaks and (predictably) pure ignorance follows. Has there ever been a president this stupid in U.S. history?

2. As noted before, the classical orders have a traditional precedence : Doric, Ionic, and then Corinthian. In buildings where all appear, that's how they sequence from lowest to highest story (see the Colosseum in Rome). In a grouping of buildings, the primary one is given the Corinthian Order. Trump had to know that when he demanded his ballroom have Corinthian columns.

3. Of course Irish-born architect James Hoban knew the ranking (even better) when he designed the original White House in 1792. The decision to use Ionic was a conscious choice. The president's house would not be “a luxury house, a house of luxury". That was world of European palaces the new country sought to leave behind.

4. And guess what? In a non-Disney world, you can't just switch-out Corinthian for Ionic. All three orders are supposed to have their own proportions, with height governed by thickness. An Ionic column's height is typically nine diameters tall; a Corinthian column's ten diameters tall. There are also distinctive proportions for the base and entablature.

5. And non-Disney was supposed to be what we were getting back when the ballroom sat 400-600 and Classical expert James McCrery was the architect. But non-Disney wasn't good enough for the Vulgarian-in-Chief, so he fired McCrery and every member of every Fine Arts Board that would review it.

And that's how one of the most important buildings in U.S. history became a playtoy for Trump to debase, degrade, and destroy.

https://www.aol.com/articles/disturbing-report-details-trump-obsession-143911000.html

[Estragon]

Yesterday, the GOP’s largest political donor ran a poll on his social media site. It was entitled “are Jews white?” I thought it might be interesting and illuminating to throw that question out to our resident Trumpist denizens. Please respond below!

[Estragon]

“People are what they appear to be. Beyond that, unless they can cite specific ACT sequences for their cell or mitochondrial DNA that
somehow defy appearances, it's all in their mind. I've met so many people who look extremely European in every way and tell me they're Jewish. Well, maybe there are a few OG "Jewish ACT"
sequences in there somewhere, but clearly not many!”

[grb]

No guesses needed on who said that. But if you need a hint, picture someone enthusiastically giving a fascist salute to praise The Leader (Trump).

[Mr. Bumble]

So what are you talking about?
Ethnic Jews or or those who are Jews based on their religion (like Ivanka.Kushner)?

[Frank Drackman]

David Lee Roth lights the menorah
So do James Caan, Kirk Douglas, and the late Dinah Shore-ah
Guess who eats together at the Carnegie Deli
Bowzer from Sha Na Na and Arthur Fonzarelli
Paul Newman's half Jewish, Goldie Hawn's half too
Put them together, what a fine lookin' Jew
You don't need "Deck The Halls" or "Jingle Bell Rock"
'Cause you can spin a dreidel with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, both Jewish!
O.J. Simpson, NOT a Jew
But guess who is? Hall of Famer Rod Carew, (he converted)
We got Ann Landers and her sister Dear Abby
Harrison Ford's a quarter Jewish, not too shabby
Some people think that Ebenezer Scrooge is
Well he's not, but guess who is, all Three Stooges
So many Jews are in showbiz
Tom Cruise isn't, but I heard his agent is

Frank

[Beezimette]

Spock's mother, Jane Wyatt, was a Catholic. So, even if there were Jews on Vulcan (a possibility), I'd say Spock was, at most, a halfie Jewalotto.

[Mr. Bumble]

Wrong Spock?Wrong Jane Waytt? Just wrong?
"Leonard Simon Nimoy was born on March 26, 1931, in an Irish[19] section of the West End[20][21] of Boston, Massachusetts, to Jewish immigrants from Iziaslav, Ukraine.[22][23][24] His parents left Iziaslav separately, his father first walking over the border into Poland while his mother and grandmother were smuggled out in a horse-drawn wagon by hiding under bales of hay.[25]: 7  They reunited after arriving in the United States and later married in 1925.[26] His mother, Dora (née Spinner; 1904–1987), was a homemaker, and his father, Max Nimoy (1901–1987), owned a barbershop in the Mattapan section of Boston.[27][28] He had an elder brother, Melvin (1926–2022).[1]
Wikipedia

[Beezimette]

Well, in favor of your theory, Mother Jane could really lay on the guilt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-mrwQPevwg

[Frank Drackman]

That's very illogically Earthling of you.

[SRG2]

No. We pass for white, but we're brown. In my case, extremely pale brown.

[grb]

For Secretary of Defense, Trump nominated someone who had never commanded anything higher than a platoon. His only executive experience was briefly heading a small non-profit before being canned for drunkenness, misbehavior, and incompetence. The result, Pentagon management-wise, has predictably been a cluster***k disaster.

As Dan Driscoll repeatedly told Trump while Secretary of the Army (that service's top civilian post). So now Driscoll is out and DJT just named Adam Telle as acting replacement. Did Trump look for qualifications this time?

Not a chance. It's still DEI for political hacks (a Republican Protected Class). Telle has no executive experience other than years bouncing around Congress as a political aide. As near as I can tell, his main qualification is saying he “spends his free time enjoying the Gulf of America.” in his official Army biography.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/09/04/adam-telle-former-senate-staffer-now-acting-army-secretary/

[Frank Drackman]

Barry Hussein's final Sec Def, Ash Carter didn't serve in any Military Service.
Or the Air Force.

[Kazinski]

The August Jobs report is out, here is the headline takeaways:

"The US labor market grew by 162,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in the month of August, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) — far outpacing economists' forecast of 55,000.

Additionally, the unemployment rate remained steady at 4.1%, and average hourly wages rose by 0.3% as expected."

https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/live/august-jobs-report-live-updates-labor-market-155619193.html

Even labor force participation was supposedly up slightly. (I am pretty skeptical that surveys like this are granular enough to detect .2% changes in any measurement m/m).

The stock market is down in reaction because a strong job market makes it easier for the Fed to raise rates, as you might remember the weak jobs report last month made the market go up. But that weak July number has been revised up too, change for July was revised up by 44,000, from -23,000 to +21,000

https://www.bls.gov/news.Release/pdf/empsit.Pdf

If the jobs report was bad news, like last month supposedly was there would have been a few comments already about 'why hasn't Kaz posted about the jobs report yet', its not even 11 out here in the west, and i'm just getting a cup of coffee now.

[Kazinski]

One note about the numbers, Federal Employment as a percentage of civilian employment hit a new postwar low of 1.7%.

[Moderation4ever]

Problem isn't Federal Employment but who the Federal Government employs. I am guessing the reduction was in the useful people who get the work done.

[Bob from Ohio]

"useful people who get the work done"

Are we talking about useful people who get the work done or federal employees?

[Kazinski]

What I would like to see is the stats on "Non-profit leaches funded by the Federal Government as percentage of civilian workforce".

[Sarcastr0]

The latest right wing outgroup conspiracy is thinner than usual, even.

[Sarcastr0]

Of course you are right Moderation.

In my office the technical staff suffered some but the admin staff got wrecked.
IT, contracts/grants officers, finance, schedulers…

And with all the new politicals the executive workforce has ballooned.
Government has not been made smaller or cheaper, it’s just worse and slower.

But an outgroup got made miserable so a certain set here celebrates.

[Ska]

And yet the federal government hasn't collapsed. Imagine how much better it will be when they finally get to the useless people, too!

[Commenter_XY]

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2026/09/04/federal-workforce-down-11-2-since-trump-took-office/

That is what I call a good start. Now reduce it by another 50%. 🙂

[ducksalad]

The largest number of workers are in the parts you probably like, given your foreign policy preferences. Something like 70% in the military, military support, and VA. You aren't getting 50% without laying into those.

[Dr. Ed 2]

CIVILIAN governmental workforce?

[ducksalad]

If that's what XY and Breitbart meant, that's what they should have said. Even searched for the word "civilian", came up 0/0.

[Michael P]

Apparently not. There are (now) about 2 million in the civilian workforce (a third in DOW) plus 1.3 million active duty military. The numbers in that article are for a total over 3 million.

[grb]

On the senility-front, there's new gibberish from our addled halfwit president. Today, Trump threatened to stop trading with other countries if the Federal Reserve doesn’t lower interest rates:

“Lower the interest rates because the U.S.A. is a much stronger credit than it was just a short time ago!” he said in a rambling Truth Social post Friday morning. “A STRONG COUNTRY MEANS A LOWER INTEREST RATE - IT’S A BETTER CREDIT…Very simple!” the post continued. “We should have the LOWEST RATE of any country in the World, like ‘the old days.’”

Then our cognitively-impaired CINC threatened to stop trade altogether if he doesn’t get his way:

“LOWER THE RATE OR I’LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT, which the U.S. Supreme Court, in its ridiculous and very costly Tariff decision, strongly acknowledged ‘the President’ has an absolute right to do.”

His brain has rotted down to worm-ridden mush.

[Estragon]

Friend-of-Epstein Kevin Warsh richly deserves the abuse coming his way.

[ducksalad]

I've got a general comment about these emergency economic powers that give him the power to shut down trade. Many of the enabling laws apply whenever the President "determines" that there is an emergency.

"Determines" and "declares" are different verbs with different meanings, and Congress picked the former. Determine, to a normal person, implies that there was an attempt to come to a truthful or correct conclusion through reasoning, examination of evidence, weighing of considerations, etc.

We would never say that a rotting tree stump "determined" anything. I picked a rotting tree stump since you mentioned worm-ridden mush.

We would also not accept that an embezzler "determined" that the money was really his, because the rational process had to be directed toward a truthful, correct conclusion, not a self-serving one.

I would say that Trump's determinations fail in both ways.

[bernard11]

Hey. He plays three-dimensional chess, someone claimed yesterday.

I doubt he can spell "chess."

[John F. Carr]

A 75 year old judge showing her age. "We'll fill in the deets shortly, but the SparkNotes is this." SparkNotes? The cheating sites and publications are so pre-AI. Kids these days can ask several agents to write papers or summarize assigned reading.

Judge Thompson in Instituto Médico del Norte v. Greengift Capital. In substance the case is about an ambiguous agreement.
https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/files/opnfiles/23-1314P-01A.pdf

[Estragon]

From WaPo:

“In one episode, Chavez-DeRemer asked to visit an Oregon strip club with her security detail. Once there, she took money from her purse, handed it to her driver and instructed him to give it to a performer. When the driver resisted, the bodyguard told him to comply. Chavez-DeRemer then handed the driver more money and instructed him to drop the bills one at a time onto the partially nude woman.”

We have been having a jolly time here in Oregon this morning trying to figure out which strip club this occurred at. The obvious guess given its proximity to Lori’s old stomping grounds is Jiggles, but that closed a few years ago. Devil’s Point is the current best guess.

https://www.devilspointbar.com/

[ducksalad]

In my childhood people called them "Men's Clubs". Times have changed, not that it's a bad thing. Equal access to public accommodations and all that.

Anyway, asking a staff member to help with a minor personal task doesn't really bother me, even though it's technically illegal and in this case could be called harassment of the driver.

What's amazing is the mindset. How in the world did she think she would not get called on this? Dozens of witnesses both inside and outside of government.

[Estragon]

Yeah, there are a lot of those types of establishments in and around the Portland area. Not uncommon to see women patrons. A few of them have decent food! But, yes, aside from the terrible judgement it definitely could be construed as harassment of the driver. I hope she has a long and happy career as a data center advocate. Her time as a politician is over, at least in Oregon.

[Frank Drackman]

I thought Oregon didn't allow "Self Service"

[SRG2]

This is funny - someone hacked the GOP Convention website http://www.gopdallas2026.com so that it redirects you to the DOJ site for the Epstein files.

[Michael P]

https://www.arabtimesonline.com/news/jordan-intercepts-eight-missiles-after-iran-claims-attacks-on-us-bases/

Jordan intercepts eight missiles after Iran claims attacks on US bases

Got envy, LeBron?

[Estragon]

Hooooooo boy this one aged well!!

Mr. Bumble 6 days ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Well, I could support John Fetterman if he remains a Democrat and wins the nomination.

[John F. Carr]

The Appeals Court of Massachusetts ruled that the Commissioner of Insurance was within his rights to require that car insurance not pay an insured for medical expenses actually paid by health insurance. Contract language approved by the state is not construed against the insurer. The contract is not illusory because the insured might not have medical insurance or might not collect from insurance.

Under prior law an insured was entitled to double recovery.

https://www.mass.gov/doc/bosquet-v-commerce-insurance-company-ac-h25p1008/download

[Dr. Ed 2]

“Actually paid” means that they did get the money from the insurance company, does it not??

Back many years ago, I seem to remember language that Blue Cross Blue Shield could subrogate any medical expense damage that I won in a lawsuit to reimburse them for what they had paid for the same medical expenses. Is this no longer true?

[Frank Drackman]

I-ANAL
and my Legal Ed-jew-ma-cations from years of "Perry Mason" "Law and Order"(Closing Cell Door Sound Effect) "Boston Legal" (Denny Crane!) and "Rockford Files' re-runs.
But isn't Lindsay Clancy's Suicide Attempt just weeks after the Murders textbook
"Consciousness of Guilt"????
Good for that one Juror, I hope they DO "Dox" him
I know it's a "him", that Slimy Defense Shyster said so, I'd like to strangle HIM with an exercise band (Literally of course, or is it "Figuratively"?? the one that doesn't get me the Chair)
And Queenie, I'm on Drugs* so please "86" the Grammar Lessons.

Frank

*Legal Schedule 2 Ones, given by an actual Doctor

Frank

[grb]

Google Translate supports 249 languages, dialects, and language varieties. It didn't recognize this babble as any of them.

[Frank Drackman]

That's strange, I understood your babble perfectly (and I'm on Drugs)

Frank

[John 4]

That’s because you grew up in a German circus family. Everyone writes like that there.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The slimy defense shyster should be disbarred!

[Josh R]

This one is just plain weird. The UN votes 164-1 with 6 abstentions to no longer use the Mercator projection map. The lone dissent came from the USA. The abstentions came from Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Morocco, Serbia and Ukraine.

Did we vote no because the new map is "woke," like the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario?

[Sarcastr0]

The US cannot abide Flemish erasure.

[Josh R]

It was Moldova, not Morocco that abstained. The abstaining countries all have border issues with the new map.

[Mr. Bumble]

I thought the problem with the Mercator projection was that it tended to distort the size of various areas.

[Michael P]

It does, but it preserves lines of bearing. All projections of a sphere onto a plane compromise somewhere. Mercator is probably the best for navigation.

[Josh R]

I agree. But, that doesn't explain why the USA voted no.

[ducksalad]

Stated reason:

“This resolution mocks the work and purpose of this institution,” the American representative said, arguing that what was presented as an innocuous attempt to update cartographic proportions was part of “the much larger and more radical ideological project it belongs to.”

The representative singled out the resolution’s references to reparations and “cognitive justice,” calling initiatives like it “barnacles on our work here and the reason this institution is losing its credibility.”

Actual reason?

Trump still hopes to acquire Greenland and the new projection makes people realize it's not all that large.

[David Nieporent]

Actual reason?

Trump still hopes to acquire Greenland and the new projection makes people realize it's not all that large.

That was my assumption also as to the real reason.

But given that this is the Trump administration, spite can never be ruled out as the explanation for their decisions. If everyone wants it, then Trump's against it.

[David Nieporent]

Mercator is probably the best for navigation.

I mean, GPS is probably the best for navigation. I don't think there are many sailors pulling out a paper map to find their way across the ocean anymore, so there's really no reason to concern ourselves with that.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Only Trump can change maps.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/04/world/un-vote-new-world-map-intl-scli

I don't think it is weird. Trump, or whoever is behind this decision, probably thought it was too "woke."

The abstentions as noted can be explained.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Maybe the whole Greenland thing is "the" reason Trump is particularly concerned.

But this issue has been a longstanding debate; I think it popped up on the West Wing television show.

The stupid-sounding anti-woke official statement is very likely a major concern here, too.

[Beezimette]

Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain worked as a bellboy at a Catskills resort.

[Frank Drackman]

You mean Wilt worked "it", like Johnny worked it at Kellerman's.