Patterico's Pontifications

5/6/2017

French Presidential Election Marches Onward In Spite Of Hacking Claims

Filed under: General — Dana @ 4:34 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Apparently, we should now expect the disruption of democratic elections in the West:

Leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign said on Friday it had been the target of a “massive” computer hack that dumped its campaign emails online 1-1/2 days before voters choose between the centrist and his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen.

Macron, who is seen as the frontrunner in an election billed as the most important in France in decades, extended his lead over Le Pen in polls on Friday.

As much as 9 gigabytes of data were posted on a profile called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a site that allows anonymous document sharing. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data or if any of it was genuine.

In a statement, Macron’s political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) confirmed that it had been hacked.

“The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information,” the statement said.

In spite of President Putin’s jaw-dropping denial, “It has never occurred to us to interfere in other countries internal affairs,” eyes are on Russia:

Untitled22

The French Election Committee has instructed voters to be responsible and not share the hacked materials. Perhaps the French citizenry take their election ethics so seriously that they will resist the urge to google the documents. But wouldn’t it be irresponsible for voters to not make every effort to be as fully informed as possible before casting their votes?

“On the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot,” the French election commission said in a statement on Saturday.

And this is most interesting – Le Monde newspaper will not publish any leaked information until they deem it suitable:

“If these documents contain revelations, Le Monde will of course publish them after having investigated them, respecting our journalistic and ethical rules, and without allowing ourselves to be exploited by the publishing calendar of anonymous actors,” it said. As the #Macronleaks hashtag buzzed around social media on Friday night, Florian Philippot, deputy leader of Le Pen’s National Front party, tweeted “Will Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately kept silent?”

Suggesting that journalists may have a favorite candidate and would work toward protecting that individual doesn’t really speak to any election ethics, does it? Of course, we wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if French voters discovered less than favorable details about France’s leading presidential candidate and his campaign staff, similar to how we did last year.

On a side note, and following Macron’s lead with his political movement, En Marche! (Onwards!), comes Hillary Clinton’s new anti-Trump political PAC, “Onward Together”. Mrs. Clinton is marching onward toward 2020. Whether for herself, or on behalf of Chelsea, who knows.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

168 Responses to “French Presidential Election Marches Onward In Spite Of Hacking Claims”

  1. The NYT reports on the election. Editor missing in action:

    As French Elections Nears, So Does a Step Into the Unknown
    By ALISSA J. RUBIN MAY 6, 2017

    Dana (023079)

  2. IF they were obvious Photoshops of Le Pen in bed with a camel, they would have run them this morning above the fold.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  3. oh my goodness Max Boot’s even dumber than ivanka

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  4. Too late to make a difference. Except perhapss to put a finer point on what kind of crook the French are getting. Establishment crook, the ordinary type, presenting himself as “independent” for camouflage.

    Hint – media doesn’t bury insider dirt for real independent candidates

    papertiger (c8116c)

  5. I see that Max Boot in still in need of a mental health intervention.

    Mike K (f469ea)

  6. Le Pen. Le Pew. One skunk’s as good as another.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  7. And one ignored the deep state intervention against both fillon and le pen, which otherwise might have put the former in the runoff.

    Remind me again who sold the mistrial frigates to volodya?

    narciso (89c110)

  8. This is interesting:

    At midnight on Saturday, France entered an electoral “discretionary period” that prohibits French media from quoting the presidential candidates or their supporters until polls close at 8pm Sunday.

    This period of legal prohibition on campaign communications is observed for 44 hours before every French presidential and legislative election.

    “Starting from the night before polls open, it is illegal to publish or broadcast by all means of communication any message that may be categorised as electoral propaganda,” France’s Superior Audiovisual Council, or CSA, said in a statement.

    Dana (023079)

  9. Clinton, Obama and their agents still employed by Trump most likely have something to do with the French erection.
    Onward through the fog, pantsuit.

    mg (31009b)

  10. Yes McCain Feingold on steroids, btw did they resolve that double counted overseas vote.

    narciso (89c110)

  11. I just posted this book review of Floyd Abram’s The Soul of the First Amendment: Why Freedom of Speech Matters. The last bit is relevant to this thread as we watch what’s happening in France right now:

    Defamation law has been one of my own specialties for more than 30 years now, and I hereby testify from first-hand knowledge that Floyd Abrams is generally recognized as the dean of the practicing American bar on First Amendment issues, particularly those involving freedom of the press. Now senior counsel, formerly a senior partner, of New York-based Cahill Gordon & Reindel, he has represented the bluest of blue chip media clients in state and federal courts around the country for decades — up to and prominently including in the U.S. Supreme Court, many times.

    Once when I was a young BigLaw pup and he was already a legend in the profession, I was entrusted with writing a Fifth Circuit defamation brief for one of the TV networks, and the client asked that I send my final-form draft to its regular national counsel, Floyd Abrams, for review. He was, in effect, grading my papers on our joint client’s behalf, and I still count it as a professional triumph that he approved my brief’s filing without changing a comma.

    His new book is a very current and timely discussion of the First Amendment’s practical impact in modern American life, including its political life, up through and including the 2016 election cycle. Most of what he wrote about was already generally familiar to me, but Mr. Abrams has a gift of discussing difficult constitutional issues and cases in clear and well-expressed prose — which is doubtless one of the reasons he’s been so effective for so many years before so many judges. If you are familiar with these cases and issues, you’ll still appreciate how well Mr. Abrams has curated and organized them. If you’re not, you’ll learn a LOT of important First Amendment law from this short book.

    Before reading this book, I also knew, in general terms, how exceptional the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees in America are in comparison to the governing law in the rest of the world, including even the UK and its common-law influenced former colonies that share common roots with ours. Mr. Abrams does an exceptional job, though, of marshaling the specifics to help the reader appreciate just how profound the gulf is between free speech rights in the U.S. and everywhere else. And in particular, he gives dozens of very recent and very Orwellian examples of foreign courts criminalizing political speech that would be unquestionably protected under the First Amendment here.

    This very weekend, in the French national election run-off, specifics of the hacked documents allegedly obtained from frontrunner Emmanuel Macron are being legally suppressed by the government — not in defiance of, but compliance with, French law. Even those who merely re-publish the details face very serious and very real criminal penalties punishable under French statutes by fines and imprisonment. That’s not even very controversial in France, whose traditions of outright government censorship are very different from modern America’s, but unless it included national defense secrets (the proverbial “troopship routes & schedule in wartime”), I don’t believe American courts would permit anything remotely similar to the blanket ban gripping political speech in France as I type these lines.

    The book also contains a long discussion of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, a case in which Mr. Abrams filed an amicus brief on behalf of Sen. Mitch McConnell. Mr. Abrams notes that he lost lots of political friends as a result; to a considerable degree, this book is his measured response to them. Whether you find it convincing may depend on YOUR politics, but at a minimum, Mr. Abrams convincingly refutes a great many misconceptions about that case that have been political memes without legal basis.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  12. I’m rooting for Macron (to the extent I give a sou). Not only because Angela Merkel is not our enemy and Putin is. Because I admire that he fulfiiled his teenage (he was 15) crush on his high school teacher by eventually marrying her.

    nj (9651fb)

  13. That should have been nk.

    nk (9651fb)

  14. old lady teacher sex is le disgusting i think especially socialist old lady teacher sex but i think france will elect the weaker more cowardly-seeming of the two

    so nasty old lady teacher sex it is

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  15. And they are going to fight volodya, tell me another one are they closer to the 2% threshhold.

    narciso (89c110)

  16. Macron the former socialist finance minister is the centrist, like red queen?

    narciso (89c110)

  17. LePen is far less likely to fight Putin than Angela Merkel, who will have Macron’s cooperation, is.

    nk (9651fb)

  18. That only tells me that your teachers were all ugly, happyfeet.

    nk (9651fb)

  19. my brains turned out really good but i probably cheated i think

    i did diced skillet potatoes in olive oil for a bit then added fresh chopped garlic and some diced onions

    salt, pepper, and cavender’s

    i drained the brains and added them in with the vegetables, cooked for a bit, then hiked up the heat and covered until i heard popping and sizzling noises, stirred, recovered, turned off the heat and came back in 20

    had them in corn tortillas topped with shredded red cabbage

    so it would’ve been pretty hard for this to go badly

    i ate four tacos – had just a little left that i’ll probably add to scrambled eggs in the morning

    from what i could tell the taste isn’t all that yummy

    the texture was fine – i was worried about that, but taste-wise it didn’t taste like pork, it tasted more like an organ meat, which makes sense i guess

    i think i was expecting something more like cabeza, which is not rational but I think i had that in the back of my mind

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  20. To do what exactly will they follow the path to crimea

    https://mobile.twitter.com/BlaiseInKC/status/860885033418207232

    Both of them went along with the Rhodes road show which required russia’ s cooperation.

    narciso (89c110)

  21. #12 a psychologist might be able to help you deal with your unreq

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  22. yes that was probably untoward of me to say, about the old teachers

    that picture i saw of him and her when he was 15 was squicky i thought

    matthew caulfield married haley mill’s sister, and she was way older than him like she coulda been his mom

    that was a judgment call on his part i guess

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  23. #12 a psychologist might be able to help you deal with your unrequited feelings for that high school teacher from your past

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  24. Have you developed any pig derived super powers? The ability to sniff out truffles perhaps?

    papertiger (c8116c)

  25. The force De frappe came into being because degaulle who it turned out had a Soviet spy ring in his inner circle didn’t trust americans

    narciso (89c110)

  26. France also legislates the time of year when French retail outfits can put merchandise on clearance.

    But to understand France, compare their version of the Bill of Rights (although it really functioned as their Declaration of Independence)–the Declaration of the Rights of Man–to the real thing. You’ll notice how often it trwsts rights as communal, not individual, and is as much a declaration of the Rights of the State as it is the Rights of Individuals. Hard to believe that Jefferson helped write it.

    kishnevi (31ec7b)

  27. no superpowers so far

    i have 3 more cans though but i should wait a good month before i go at it again cause of the cholesterols

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  28. You shoulda had a hot dog, happyfeet.

    mg (31009b)

  29. i’m kinda wary of them now after Mr. nk’s report

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  30. Aren’t they on version 8.0, now? And they also coined the word “communism”.

    nk (9651fb)

  31. I’ll try some Hebrew National, they answer to a higher authority, and report back.

    nk (9651fb)

  32. Well no, but they did try to put it in practice the Paris commune?

    narciso (89c110)

  33. good good that sounds like a good way forward

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  34. Chicago must have a super duper good hot dog joint, or sausage shop.

    mg (31009b)

  35. Franksville at Harlem and Addison. Best gyros and Italian beef too. Been going there for over forty years. Same owners — we watched each other getting older.

    nk (9651fb)

  36. Agreed, nk. Hebrew National are the best dogs IMHO. Also, their Kosher Salami, cut about 1/4″ thick and grilled on the outdoor grill. Fan-f’in-tastic.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  37. gyros with cukes, tomato, dill and tzatziki sauce, nk?

    mg (31009b)

  38. Ambiguous. In France, commune can correspond to what we call municipal or local political entities like town, city, county.
    BTW, Dana, that’s a beaux double entendre you managed in the headline. Or perhaps belle double entendre. Unlike the biological sort, my knowledge of French language gender is minimal.

    kishnevi (31ec7b)

  39. And sliced onion, mg.

    nk (9651fb)

  40. piglipsandanus
    ain’t no amount of grilling
    that will make it right

    Colonel Haiku (92ce59)

  41. But the Jacobin spirit is the predecessor to predecessor to the Soviets and the khmer

    narciso (89c110)

  42. sounds so good, nk.

    mg (31009b)

  43. but Lockeford sausage
    now you’re speaking my language
    onions peppers bun

    Colonel Haiku (92ce59)

  44. In Mexico the media black-out period extends beyond the polls closing to midnight, whereupon a spokesman from their FEC equivalent goes on television and announces a clear winner or too close to call. That made the Lopez Obrador hootenanny of 2006 even more interesting. It was tough enough to start seeing states slip from their grip by 10 pm ET, but could you imagine a 12:00am announcement sans buildup with only PA as uncertain but the clincher – you would hear agonizing screams instead of the whimpers.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  45. So I’m cutting some growth back behind the waterfall that spills into our pool and a hen duck flies out and startled me. I’m thinking, this is not good, explore further and find a nest with 9 eggs. We’ve had a mallard drake and hen that have been a real nuisance for a couple of weeks, I’ve had to chase them away and out of the pool a couple of times a day. This explains it. They could’ve been like normal ducks and set up their domicile 2 blocks away in a slough or the lake, but no.

    Colonel Haiku (92ce59)

  46. Narciso, I would say it’s the immediate ancestor. Did you ever read Schama’s history of the Revolution?

    kishnevi (31ec7b)

  47. Onions and Orange Peppers steamed but allowing for carmelization are the go-to for both round steak and for Italian sausage for me.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  48. Careful, Col. You may find your backyard declared a wetlands.

    kishnevi (31ec7b)

  49. Oh God no! lol, kishnevi!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  50. Robins used to set up a nest between my porch light and adjoining wall every spring. Before the days of selfie sticks, would always crane the arm to catch a picture of four blue eggs in the nest and then the chicks once born.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  51. Just checked Google. Duck eggs take 28 days to hatch. Unless they turn out to be Muscovy, in which case it’s 35.

    kishnevi (31ec7b)

  52. Yes and winik who pointed out the sjw nature of the leader of the terror, somewhat like the people’s will a century later attempted

    narciso (89c110)

  53. All I get on my patio are spider webs.

    kishnevi (31ec7b)

  54. @ kish (#27), this is from Abrams’ book:

    … Suppose the Bill of rights as a whole and the First Amendment in particular had been phrased differently. Suppose, instead of stating in unambiguously negatives terms that Congress could not abridge freedom of speech or press, the First Amendment had been phrased affirmatively. What if it had been written this way: “Every person shall have the freedom of speech and expression, which include the freedom of the press and other media.” Or, more simply, this way: “Citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, demonstration, and association.”

    ….

    [W]e should not be too easily misled into thinking that the language of a constitutional provision will necessarily guarantee its realization in practice. The first articulation above is from article 19 of the constitution of Eritrea, the second from article 67 of the Constitution of North Korea. They rank, in a recent assessment by Reporters Without Borders, as the two most brutally repressive states in the world, with neither permitting any expression of views inconsistent with that of their governments and both rooted in the notion that all media outlets are nothing but government mouth-pieces. The freedom-protective language in their constitutions are empty conceits, see-through camouflage of nations that are rooted neither in any concept of law nor in that of individual liberty.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  55. Just like freedom of worship means practically nothing.

    narciso (89c110)

  56. that barack guy is interfering with an international election
    on top of that, he’s revealing his misogyny by opposing the female candidate
    i’m sure the media will hammer him for it

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  57. Does Eritrea have a functional government?
    The French version is instructive. Notice how the left hand in the last clause has the ability to take away what the right hand of the firstclause gives in both articles.

    Article X – No one may be disturbed for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law.

    Article XI – The free communication of thoughts and of opinions is one of the most precious rights of man: any citizen thus may speak, write, print freely, except to respond to the abuse of this liberty, in the cases determined by the law.

    (Wikipedia here:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen)

    Just like freedom of worship means practically nothing.
    But freedom of religion can be pushed too far. Hobby Lobby represents the idea that a person can pick and choose whatever laws he wants to obey by claiming religious freedom. Ultimately that destroys the rule of law.

    kishnevi (31ec7b)

  58. It’s much more nuanced than that. It was an attempt to crush public religion expression that runs counter to the latest fad.

    narciso (89c110)

  59. Raw story gives morbo , irregardless not the softest move on Hanskell’s part.

    narciso (89c110)

  60. You got that exactly wrong kishnevi. I’m not surprised.

    What part of free exercise do you not understand?

    NJRob (68f3b2)

  61. 58. kishnevi (31ec7b) — 5/6/2017 @ 7:58 pm

    Does Eritrea have a functional government?

    It does, but it doesn’t function any way anyone would want a government to function.

    All males and all females withot children are drafted into the army for very long periods – something like the cantonists in Czarist Russia only worse.

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2014/03/national-service-eritrea

    Everyone under the age of 50 is enlisted for an indefinite period. Around one in 20 Eritreans currently live in vast barracks in the desert. They work on reconstruction projects, such as road building, and earn no more than $30 a month. They cannot go to university or get a formal job unless they have been officially released from military service. Since conscription became open-ended in 1998, release can depend on the arbitrary whim of a commander, and usually takes years.

    It’s basically slavery, under another name, and there are no individual owners, in theory.

    However, for money, it is possible to bribe people to escape the country. Avoiding the draft or deserrtion is not that firmly aestablished as grounds for asylum.

    Many many people outside the country become some sort of criminal.

    Sammy Finkelman (845007)

  62. Incidentally, Eritrea comes up in a what the Wall Street Journal called a real case of defamation by Alex Jones against the Greek yogurt company Chobani..

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/chobani-vs-alex-jones-1493589530

    or https://www.facebook.com/wsj/posts/10155907354943128

    They claimed Chobani had brought Syrian refugees to rape. Chobani didn’t actually bring anybody – they just volunteered to emply people, and rapists were neither Syrian nor employed by Chobani. They were Eritrean and Iraqi. The interesry=ting thing here is the the actual story does not back up the headline. But there a real attempt to defame and to have consequences for the business – although the real target of the defamation was Syrians. And they wanted everybody to be cold to them.

    Sammy Finkelman (845007)

  63. NJRob (68f3b2) — 5/6/2017 @ 10:07 pm

    The proposition in Hobby Lobby is that someone can exempt themselves from obeying a law on the grounds it violates their freedom of religion, with no need to prove that it actually does so, and without regard to any detriment to any one else.

    Suppose that Jihadi Jamil is arrested for beheading Christian Charlotte, and claims that his freedom of religion exempts him from obeying the law against murder, despite the obvious detriment to Christian Charlotte.

    Now, no one except a jihadi would accept that claim. But there is no way to distinguish Jihadi Jamil’s claim from that of Hobby Lobby, except by the assertion (and necessarily arbitrary, at that) that freedom of religion does not apply to homicide cases. Jihadi Jamil is merely an extreme version of Hobby Lobby: the principle is the same.

    So either Jihadi Jamil’s freedom of religion allows him to behead whomever he wants, or Hobby Lobby was wrongly decided.

    I say Hobby Lobby was wrongly decided.

    kishnevi (d764f4)

  64. Congress shall make no law probiting the free exercise of religion does not mean either that all laws can ignore the impact it may have on a religious belief, or that if someone has a religion that says he has a religious duty to kill people that can’t be made illegal for him.

    Somehow courts maage to thread their way through this.

    Sammy Finkelman (3fda43)

  65. Not quite. The government did not demand that Hobby Lobby refrain from government-disapproved conduct, it demanded an affirmative act from Hobby Lobby which was against its principals’ religion. The proper analogy is not prople who kill in the name of their religion, it is people who refuse to kill because their religion forbids it even though the government orders it. Such as conscientious objectors to military service.

    nk (9651fb)

  66. And whereas the defense of our country from foreign enemies is a compelling governmental interest, what is the government’s interest in forcing Hobby Lobby to insure that its employees don’t get pregnant?

    nk (9651fb)

  67. Jihadi Jamil will respond that allowing infidels to live is itself an affirmative action. And the Hobby Lobby rule doesn’t allow you to argue he’s wrong. And ensuring that an employer who offers prescription coverage does not interefere with their private medical choices (in this case, whether or not to use birth control) is a governmental interest, as much a governmental interest as keeping Charlotte alive.

    I repeat: the proposition behind Hobby Lobby is the idea that people can pick and choose what laws to obey, something that undercuts the whole idea of rule of law.

    kishnevi (d764f4)

  68. hobby lobby is good for crafts and stuff

    i don’t know if you can get pregnant there or whatever

    it’s a good place for to get artificial flowers for mom and dad cause of real ones are banned cause the deers eat em up

    personally i think mom would get a kick out of deers eating up her flowers

    rules are stupid

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  69. If I had my druthers nobody would ever cut on my schmeckle.

    But when you’re two weeks old nobody asks your opinion.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  70. Hell, I’m just glad Jews don’t cut off their ears to signify their covenant with God.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  71. Or gouge out an eye.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  72. The French polls have closed as of t minus oh. Belay that. T plus 9

    papertiger (c8116c)

  73. i have no opinion on the circumcisions in norway at all

    in michigan they cut off clitorises, which is shocking to me

    probably not so shocking to Justin Amash but to me it is very shocking

    i’m like you did WHAT

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  74. Franceinfo took six minutes from the close of polls to declare Macron the winter.
    The Telegraph gives Macron 65.5 percent to LePen 34.5, with large numbers of voters not showing up to vote.

    kishnevi (d764f4)

  75. I repeat: the proposition behind Hobby Lobby is the idea that people can pick and choose what laws to obey, something that undercuts the whole idea of rule of law.

    Wrong. The proposition behind Hobby Lobby was that lawyers for leftists can force Christians to finance abhorrent, immoral acts for other people against their will and against their religion. All they need to do was compromise and remove all the birth control and abortion crap and there was no problem. But that wasn’t a good enough compromise. They had to force leftist dogma down the throats of everybody. There is nothing “unreasonable” about not covering something that previously was not covered. But the point was never to cover contraception. Hell, it’s only a few bucks. The point was to do harm through lawfare against leftist enemies and therefore diminish America.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  76. no way Le Pen would’ve won if Putin hadn’t released that little boy’s emails

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  77. Hoagie, you’re so overwrought that you managed to get right and left mixed up in that last sentence. The court rejected the argument you put into the the mouths of “leftists”. Or more precisely, the Court said Hobby Lobby’s owners could exempt themselves from a law based on the owner’s own say so that it was immoral and abhorrent, and without any regard to the effects on others, or the reasonableness of the exemption.

    Again: the premise of Hobby Lobby is that people can pick and choose what laws they will obey.

    kishnevi (d764f4)

  78. drudge already has a pic up of macron and his mom before the votes are even all tallied up and counted using the french number system

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  79. papertiger (c8116c) — 5/7/2017 @ 11:06 am

    I’m just glad Jews don’t cut off their ears to signify their covenant with God. </blockquote. That's only for a slave who refused to go free.

    Now here's where something that Rabbi J. H. Hertz, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire around 1935, pointed out:

    The last article of the code of Hammurabi (whom he says is Amraphel * in Gen 14) says that slaves who tried to escape has their ears cut off.

    http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp

    282. If a slave say to his master: “You are not my master,” if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear.

    There seem to be a number of different versions of this.

    Now the official (short) code laws starts with the case of slave who does NOT want to go free:

    http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0221.htm

    5 But if the servant shall plainly say: I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free; 6 then his master shall bring him unto God, and shall bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for ever.

    Now the point of all of this is:

    http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0523.htm

    Deut: 23:16 16 Thou shalt not deliver unto his master a bondman that is escaped from his master unto thee; 17 he shall dwell with thee, in the midst of thee, in the place which he shall choose within one of thy gates, where it liketh him best; thou shalt not wrong him. {S}

    Now if someone comes looking for a slave, or for slaves who escaped from Babylonia, he’s going to see someone with a partially cut off or damaged ear, but they are not going to be slaves who wants to escape – just the opposite. The bounty hunting is frustrated. Even of the damage is not the same, and maybe it was.

    And this is maybe what Moses was referrinbg to in his first farewell address Deut 4: 5-6

    5. Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the midst of the land whither ye go in to possess it. 6. Observe therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, that, when they hear all these statutes, shall say: ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’

    Now what statutes are they going to find out? They’re going to find out this little thing that frustrates the hunt for escaped slaves. Now actually they didn’t invent them on their own, but Moses does justify the term great nation.

    ——————————–
    * The lead king was actually another king, Chedorlaomer, but Amraphel was remembered in the days of Moses, this would probably be because of his code of laws – also his imppact in other ways – so it says the days of Amraphel)

    Sammy Finkelman (3fda43)

  80. The eye (most vauable part that does not heal) – or the tooth (least valuable part that does not heal) had to be ransomed in certain cases. This system fell apart in later years.

    Sammy Finkelman (3fda43)

  81. Vladimir Putin doesn’t know a thing about winning elections. Does he really think that releasing random em-mails, even maybe seeded with forgeries – is going to swing votes? There’s got to be a reason for people to switch votes. (He was for Le Pen, and had even gotten her a lot of money. And now this release of e-mails, like it was magic bullet.)

    https://www.ft.com/content/010eec62-30b5-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a

    In Wednesday’s debate, Mr Macron accused Ms Le Pen of being “subject to the diktats of Mr Putin”.

    Over the past several years, the Russian leader and the far-right politician, who share a similar nationalist outlook, have developed close ties. These links have been cemented by complex financial arrangements and overwhelmingly positive coverage of Ms Le Pen in the Russian state-backed media…These ties have become so close that Ms Le Pen met Mr Putin in a surprise visit to Moscow in March…Her links with the Russian leader date back to 2011, when she took over the party from her father Jean-Marie. Until then, the FN had an informal alliance with far-right leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. As part of her efforts to detoxify the party, she sought to build a relationship with Mr Putin’s ostensibly more centrist United Russia.

    This relationship was largely limited to sporadic visits until 2014, when Ms Le Pen backed Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

    “Mr Putin is a patriot,” she said, endorsing Russia’s claim to the territory and calling for western sanctions to be lifted. At the same time the party — perennially short of cash as French banks refuse to lend to them because they fear the reputational risk — secured a €9.4m loan from the Moscow-based First Czech-Russian Bank.

    Text messages between Russian officials — leaked online and seen by the FT — appeared to indicate that the loan’s approval was a gesture of thanks from the Kremlin for her support. Ms Le Pen has called those claims “outrageous and offensive”.

    The fate of the loan has been unclear since last year, when Russia’s central bank shut down the First Czech-Russian Bank, citing fake accounting and a Rbs26.5bn ($463m) hole in its balance sheet.

    Prosecutors filed criminal charges after the central bank accused executives of using the temporary moratorium period commonly imposed on troubled lenders by Russian regulators to strip the bank’s assets…During the moratorium period, the bank sold the FN loan to Konti, a near-bankrupt car rental company about which almost nothing is known.

    One thing, by the way, that this lek shows you is what is wrong with blackout periods for campaigns.

    Over the past several years, the Russian leader and the far-right politician, who share a similar nationalist outlook, have developed close ties. These links have been cemented by complex financial arrangements and overwhelmingly positive coverage of Ms Le Pen in the Russian state-backed media.

    Sammy Finkelman (3fda43)

  82. Did LePen ever say she “would be more flexible” after the election, Sammeh?

    Colonel Haiku (92ce59)

  83. overwhelmingly positive coverage of Ms Le Pen in the Russian state-backed media

    Which means what? That they didn’t introduce her as Hitler’s god-daughter, or make clear her first name isn’t Far-right Le Pen?

    papertiger (c8116c)

  84. Nothing spells gestapo quite like “French banks refuse to lend to them because they fear”.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  85. Yes tiger if they could kick out a well meaning sort like Lieberman out of the Democratic party, JFK would be a far right candidate by their lights.

    narciso (4abc80)

  86. By happenstance I clicked on C-Span Presidential Historian Survey.

    They list Obama at #12 just behind #11 Woodrow Wilson, and #10 Lyndon Johnson.

    Who comes up with this crap? How could they be that twisted?

    Turns out they’ve got a page to answer that question. https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2017/?page=participants

    Many of them are history teachers at colleges – tiny obscure colleges. I don’t feel qualified to credit their opinion.

    But there are a few names in there I did recognize.

    Hiltzik, Michael
    Journalist and Author

    Roberts, Cokie
    Journalist and Biographer

    Sabato, Larry
    University of Virginia Center for Politics

    Suddenly the cockeyed list of best to worst Presidents becomes crystal clear.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  87. It’s Macron May, knit-wits.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  88. North Korea nabs another American

    The reported detention comes as tensions on the Korean peninsula run high, driven by harsh rhetoric from Pyongyang and Washington over the North’s pursuit of nuclear weapons in response to what it says is a threat of U.S.-instigated war.

    The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) was founded by evangelical Christians and opened in 2010. Its students are generally children of the country’s elite. [same school the other victims were nabbed from]

    The volunteer faculty of PUST, many of whom are evangelical Christians, has a curriculum that includes subjects once considered taboo in North Korea, such as capitalism. The college is an unlikely fit in a country that has been condemned by the U.S. State Department for cracking down on freedom of religion. [and just plain freedom]

    A message by Kim Hak Song [the latest kidnapping] dated February 2015 on the website of a Korean-Brazilian church in Sao Paulo said he was a Christian missionary planning to start an experimental farm at PUST and was trying to help the North Korean people learn to become self-sufficient.

    At a certain point you have to write these guys off. Like that dude who moved to Alaska to live a year with the grizzly bears, or people who nap on train tracks.

    Nothing screams BAD IDEA like “Christian missionary planning to”.

    I don’t think it reflects poorly upon the Lord for me to say so.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  89. Quite an achievement, overcoming an Obama endorsement.

    “That makes one in a row for you, Wild Bill.” –

    Jack McCall, Deadwood series episode 4
    \

    papertiger (c8116c)

  90. Haven’t sold you, eh, kishnevi? But wait, there’s more. The Hobby Lobby case was not decided under the First Amendment. It was decided under the RFRA. Which is Congress placing a blanket limitation on its own legislation, in this case the ACA. And however Jihadi Jamil might interpret it, I doubt that any court would interpret it as Congress’s intent that it would be a license to commit murder provided it was for religious reasons.

    nk (dbc370)

  91. Many of them are history teachers at colleges – tiny obscure colleges. I don’t feel qualified to credit their opinion.

    Size matters, eh.

    Purdue? Notre Dame? Gettysburg College? William & Mary? Rice? Clemson? Princeton? Duke? Brown? Univ., of Texas? Duquesne? Penn State? U.S. Naval Academy? Naval War College? Iowa State? Howard? Univ. of Pennsylvania? Georgetown? Pepperdine? Hunter? MSU? Stanford? Hell, even the Herritage Foundation.

    Dallek? MacDougall? Brinkley? Farber? Richard Norton and Lou Cannon, etc? Ignorance is bliss, fella, so you must be one happy clam:

    Ackerman, Kenneth
    Lawyer and Historian;
    Anthony, Carl Sferrazza
    First Ladies Library;
    Arnold, Peri
    University of Notre Dame;
    Ayers, Edward
    University of Richmond;
    Borneman, Walter R.
    Lawyer and Historian;
    Brennan, Mary
    Texas State University;
    Brinkley, Douglas
    Rice University;
    Burton, Vernon
    Clemson University;
    Calhoun, Charles
    East Carolina University;
    Cannon, Lou
    Journalist and Biographer;
    Clements, Kendrick
    University of South Carolina;
    Clinton, Catherine
    The University of Texas at San Antonio;
    Cordery, Stacy
    Iowa State University;
    Cramer Brownell, Kathryn
    Purdue University;
    Crapol, Edward
    The College of William & Mary;
    Dallek, Robert
    Historian and Biographer;
    Edwards, Laura
    Duke University;
    Edwards, Lee
    The Heritage Foundation;
    Egerton, Douglas
    Le Moyne College;
    Farber, David
    The University of Kansas;
    Fauntroy, Michael
    Howard University;
    Felzenberg, Alvin
    Historian and Author;
    Ferguson, Andrew
    Journalist and Author;
    Fleming, Thomas
    Historian and Author;
    Folsom, Burton
    Hillsdale College;
    Gellman, Irwin
    Historian and Author;
    Goodrich, Debra
    Historian and Author;
    Gordon-Reed, Annette
    Harvard Law School;
    Gormley, Ken
    Duquesne University;
    Greenberg, Amy S.
    The Pennsylvania State University;
    Greenberg, David
    Rutgers University;
    Greene, J. Robert
    Cazenovia College;
    Greenstein, Fred
    Princeton University;
    Guelzo, Allen
    Gettysburg College;
    Hamby, Alonzo
    Ohio University;
    Hamilton, Nigel
    University of Massachusetts Boston;
    Heclo, Hugh
    George Mason University;
    Henriques, Peter
    George Mason University;
    Hiltzik, Michael
    Journalist and Author;
    Hoff, Joan
    Montana State University;
    Holt, Michael F.
    University of Virginia;
    Holzer, Harold
    Hunter College;
    Hubbard, Charles
    Lincoln Memorial University;
    Jackson, Maurice
    Georgetown University;
    Jeansonne, Glen
    University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee;
    Kaufman, Robert
    Pepperdine University;
    Kengor, Paul
    Grove City College;
    Kennedy, David
    Stanford University;
    Knott, Stephen
    U.S. Naval War College;
    Madonna, G. Terry
    Franklin & Marshall College;
    Mann, James
    Journalist and Author;
    Maranto, Robert
    University of Arkansas;
    Marszalek, John
    Mississippi State University;
    McDougall, Walter
    University of Pennsylvania;
    Medford, Edna
    Howard University;
    Merry, Robert
    Journalist and Author;
    Miroff, Bruce
    University at Albany, State University of New York;
    Morris, Seymour Jr.
    Historian and Author;
    Neuman, Johanna
    Historian and Journalist;
    Newby-Alexander, Cassandra
    Norfolk State University;
    O’Mara, Margaret
    University of Washington;
    Painter, Nell Irvin
    Princeton University;
    Pika, Joe
    University of Delaware;
    Pious, Richard
    Barnard College;
    Pitney, Jack
    Claremont McKenna College;
    Randall, Willard Sterne
    Champlain College;
    Renshon, Stanley
    CUNY;
    Ritchie, Don
    Senate Historian – retired;
    Roberts, Cokie
    Journalist and Biographer;
    Roberts, Randy
    Purdue University;
    Rockman, Bert
    Purdue University;
    Sabato, Larry
    University of Virginia Center for Politics;
    Seale, William
    White House Historical Association;
    Sheldon, Garrett
    University of Virginia at Wise;
    Shirley, Craig
    Historian and Author;
    Sibley, Katherine
    Saint Joseph’s University;
    Simpson, Brooks
    Arizona State University;
    Smith, Richard Norton
    Historian and Biographer;
    Stuckey, Mary
    Georgia State University
    Symonds, Craig
    U.S. Naval Academy;
    Thomas, Evan
    Journalist and Author;
    Troy, Gil
    McGill University;
    Troy, Tevi
    Historian and Author;
    Warshaw, Shirley
    Gettysburg College;
    Watson, Robert
    Lynn University;
    Waugh, Joan
    University of California, Los Angeles;
    White, Jonathan
    Christopher Newport University;
    White, Ron
    The Huntington Library;
    Wilentz, Sean
    Princeton University;
    Wood, Gordon
    Brown University;
    Woods, Randall
    University of Arkansas.

    But I’ll give you Grove City– we’d kick their tiny butts in football every year.

    “Read, brother. Read.” – Jack Gilford, – Public Service Announcement, 1960’s

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  92. like I said, I don’t feel qualified to credit their opinion.

    BUT judging by the company they keep, and the barnacles attached to their undercarriage

    papertiger (c8116c)

  93. I believe it was Mark Steyn who coined the phrase, and the French election is a great example of a win “Beyond the margin of theft.”

    Ed from SFV (3400a5)

  94. Holy moley Sammy.

    That whole bit with the bondsmen ear piercing.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  95. iT’s enough to make you call for Jesus.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  96. Sang froid, mon cher! Better the closet socialist than the national socialist, ne c’est pas?

    nk (dbc370)

  97. Je demande un recu! Recommencer. Recommencer. Recommencer.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  98. The Russians queered this round. Recommencer.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  99. No,

    Nothing closet about the internationalist socialist Macon. He earned his chops in the stew of socialism.

    NJRob (fb367f)

  100. Kishnevi,

    Show me in our Founding documents where they intended to force the faithful to violate their faith because the government deems it so.

    And yes, I mean Christian faith as all of the 13 colonies were Christian.

    I’ll wait.

    NJRob (fb367f)

  101. Robert merry is very good, a chronicler of the alsop clan among others, Shirley the leading biographer of Reagan, quality drops after that, sabato, don’t get me started

    narciso (d1f714)

  102. Douglas brinkley, seriously

    narciso (d1f714)

  103. Douglas brinkley, seriously

    Kengor and Mcdougall are in the first group.

    narciso (d1f714)

  104. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017
    /05/07/head-of-isis-in-afghanistan-confirmed-dead/#more-132328

    narciso (2f8ade)

  105. i imagine most of those historians are left-leaning
    otherwise, they wouldn’t have attained tenure at those higher institutions of indoctrination

    by the way, that creepy creepy michael hiltzik guy has been suspended by the la times on at least two separate occasions for conduct unbecoming of a *journalist*

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  106. Holzer was a good chronicler of our 16th president.

    narciso (2f8ade)

  107. I was referring to this, kish

    http://www.erythrospress.com/store/communards.html

    narciso (2f8ade)

  108. Kengor has a good take on WW1.
    The second fall of man

    mg (31009b)

  109. Niall ferguson of hard? And Cambridge shared a similar view.

    narciso (2f8ade)

  110. narciso is amazing.

    mg (31009b)

  111. Thanks, merry was one of the few historians that actually predicted trump’s victory.

    Re the character of mdme le pen’ s movement it had echoed in boulanger in the late 19th century and poujade in the 50s, the latter pushed for intervention in Algeria after dien Ben phu

    narciso (2f8ade)

  112. This was in the Weekly Standard, NJRob and it sort of says what I mean:

    Welcome to the rise of fake law. Just as fake news spreads ideologically motivated misinformation with a newsy veneer, fake law brings us judicial posturing, virtue signaling, and opinionating masquerading as jurisprudence. And just as fake news augurs the end of authoritative reporting, fake law portends the diminution of law’s legitimacy and the warping of judges’ self-understanding of their constitutional role.

    Those who try to police the relentlessly transformational projects of constitutional progressives had much to dread from the Obama administration, an inveterate ally of the legal left that did what it could to graft the aspirations of progressives onto the Constitution. But Trump’s presidency may be even worse, because too many judges now feel called to “resist” Trump and all his works—no matter the cost to the law’s authority and to the integrity of the judicial role.

    The problem we have here is kishnevi believes the Hobby Lobby decision was wrong because it allowed an entity to pick and choose the laws it wants to obey. First of all we all obey ONLY the laws we want to obey that’s why there are cops and courts. Secondly I believe the Hobby Lobby decision was correct (but will be overturned in favor of leftist corruption) because the law demanded that an entity pay for and provide a service an/or product for someone else at their own expense even if it violated their moral and religious conscience. As you wrote, none of that is in the Constitution but that hardly matters when the Constitution says whatever a leftist judge decides.

    The left uses the Constitution and our laws not as guides toward justice but as bludgeons to beat their enemies. That’s why they are “resistance”. Resistance is not law it’s anti-law, fake law. It’s using the law as a weapon. Like they use every other facet of our society: against us.

    Lawyers like that have bad equipment, their moral compass is broken. But what would you expect in a country where they graduate 40,000 new lawyers every year and that has over 70% of all the friggin’ lawyers on earth.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  113. nk (dbc370) — 5/7/2017 @ 2:15 pm
    Obviously no court would buy Jihadi Jamil’s argument. Which is why Hobby Lobby needs to be thrown out. It’s bad law. The proper decision would have been, “Don’t like it? Get Congress to exempt you.”

    kishnevi (ab2b70)

  114. NJRob (fb367f) — 5/7/2017 @ 3:54 pm

    Your second sentence vitiates your first sentence. I will bear in mind that you don’t consider me a true American, being that I am not a Christian.

    kishnevi (ab2b70)

  115. It was the predominant faith at the time, hence the Danbury letter, which apparently has more weight than the actual amendment.

    narciso (2f8ade)

  116. Rev H., Fake Law is a good term. It describes Hobby Lobby, SCOTUS’s approval of Obamacare, Roe v Wade, Citizens United, and a host of other cases in which the judges were more interested in reaching a result, than applying the Constitution. Reach far back enough in time, and you can throw in Marbury v Madison, Dartmouth College, and a number of other cases.

    kishnevi (ab2b70)

  117. With respect, its more akin to making honny Lobby how before a statue of Augustus or the golden calf, citizens United was about outright speech suppression like what carried the day In france, today.. I disagree with the remedy proposed.

    narciso (2f8ade)

  118. I think the most accurate statement of the Founders’s views would be
    1) They understood freedom of religion to be what you call freedom of worship. Claiming exemption from a general law on religious grounds is, beyond CO status re military conscription, a modern development. Ask the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
    2) They would be totally astonished by the idea of Obamacare, and want the whole thing thrown out, not just the birth control provision.

    kishnevi (ab2b70)

  119. From the Danbury letter

    that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only,

    I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

    I am fairly sure that Jefferson would agree with me.

    kishnevi (ab2b70)

  120. No freedom of worship is what Leopold Lopez has, if he’s still Alive, what cardinal mindzenty was allowed.

    narciso (2f8ade)

  121. Sadly its probably a dead letter in France as well. People have to actually be motivated by something, the revolution salted the ground and the tree of liberty now does gasping.

    narciso (2f8ade)

  122. 99. papertiger (c8116c) — 5/7/2017 @ 2:54 pm

    Holy moley Sammy.

    That whole bit with the bondsmen ear piercing.

    I am not sure if they did (or were suppposed to do) the exact same thing to slaves who didn’t want to go free in Israel as they did to slaves who tried to ewxcape in Babylonia.

    Many, many years later, the Romans had the idea of tattooing he forehead of a slave who tried to escape with the words (in Latin) “Stop me, I’m a [would-be] runaway.” Earlier, the Greeks had had a practice of incribing words on vases like the vase was saying them, so this woudl derive from that.

    Sammy Finkelman (5818f3)

  123. No sammeh it doesn’t mean that either, as in the time of Isaiah you don’t return trying to escape their bondage whether physical chains or psychological ones.

    narciso (2f8ade)

  124. overwhelmingly positive coverage of Ms Le Pen in the Russian state-backed media

    The Financial Times doesn’t make too clear what they mean by that, but any kind of “home team” type coverage or cheerleading or positive coverage meant Russia was for her.

    Sammy Finkelman (5818f3)

  125. Let me spell it out for you, sammeh, remember Westminster, nothing to see here, and you dare not point out, that’s for Neanderthals like Katie Hopkins, insert charlie Hebdo bataclan, louvre, notre dame. Etc etc.

    narciso (2f8ade)

  126. The irony is they think they can surpress this populist feeling well that generally doesn’t hold in France for long, in part because history always comes knocking also other outlets emerge, often unhealthy ones.

    narciso (2f8ade)

  127. Your second sentence vitiates your first sentence. I will bear in mind that you don’t consider me a true American, being that I am not a Christian.

    kishnevi (ab2b70) — 5/7/2017 @ 6:19 pm

    Statement of fact without evidence. Assertion is not fact.

    I am fully aware you are not Christian and your faith and its inherent biases color your beliefs.

    That does not change the fact that all 13 colonies were Christian nations and practiced as such.

    Contrary to what the left believes, Jefferson’s letters are not Constitutional law any more than Adam’s proclamation that our Constitution was made for a “moral and religious people and wholly unfit for any other.”

    Since you won’t cite the Constitution or the discussions that led to it, I will presume you have no such evidence.

    NJRob (68f3b2)

  128. Hobby Lobby was about RFRA, not enforcement of First Amendment rights per se.

    If you’re not accounting for that in your argument, from either side, you’re guaranteed to be mistaken.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  129. Yes but what does rfra concern itself but the believers obligations to the state, what prompted the trek to the new world in the first place.

    narciso (2f8ade)

  130. Ginzburg’s dissent, also fairly called a meltdown, was illustrative. She wanted religious freedom to be only what the Supreme Court says it is, not Congress. The RFRA’s legislative history, however, was Congress saying “No, dammit, we’re going to give religious people more protection than you black-robed old fogies give them”, in response to the Oregon peyote case. When Hobby Lobby went before it, the Court had already knocked the RFRA down as it applied to state law (Tenth Amendment), but could find no non-risible hook to keep it from applying to federal law. The RFRA is in fact what kishnevi demanded: An exemption for religious persons from some laws and regulations, but as stand-alone blanket legislation and not an additional provision in each law passed by Congress.

    nk (dbc370)

  131. Happyfeet (#3), Max Boot has issues but read a favorite piece of mine he wrote about a super warrior from of all places, France. It is well worth reading.

    AZ Bob (f7a491)

  132. Yes that seems so long ago, auseresse btw ended up training inmpressionalable Latin American and even south african nofficers some of these techniques at st. Cyr, his syllabi made the school of the Americas seem like weeblp scouts

    narciso (2f8ade)

  133. Magnus Malan the one behind the total strategy campaign against umkhonto.

    narciso (2f8ade)

  134. i bookmarked about the consummate warrior i think i’m a try to get into work early today

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  135. File this under both What a Waste (of a fine woman) and Instant Law and Order Episode:
    http://www.yahoo.com/news/2-doctors-killed-penthouse-boston-luxury-condo-141735478.html

    urbanleftbehind (a88e42)

  136. Yes as bigeard and auseresse and even papa le pen point out, the French fought 16 years back to back conflicts,

    https://pjmedia.com/election/2017/05/07/what-happened-in-france/

    narciso (b695fc)

  137. kishnevi 123,

    They would be astonished but given where we are in terms of the scope of government power, I think they would applaud the application of RFRA in the Hobby Lobby decision. IMO legally authorizing “the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself” when it comes to all sincere religious beliefs — as RFRA arguably does — is exactly what the Founders would have embraced if their government had the powers ours has.

    DRJ (15874d)

  138. narciso (2f8ade) — 5/7/2017 @ 7:16 pm

    , as in the time of Isaiah you don’t return trying to escape their bondage whether physical chains or psychological ones.

    It was in foreign countries that they would try to gte escaped slaves (well in the time of Jeremiah they released them and then took them back, (Jer 32) but they were not supposed to.

    What I am saying is tha a slave who never wanted to leave – who refused to go free (pfor reasons outlined in Exodux 21:4-6) looked a lot like slaves who escaped from Babylonia, and this was on purpose. A later Rabbi gave a different reason for the boring of the hole – soething about the ear that listened at Mt Sinai – but by that time they no longer knew about the Code of Hammurabi, which was discovered in Shusan (Susa) in 1901 by French archeologists. That was not its proper place. This had been kept by differenet kings in their collections of artifacts.

    The palace in Susa burned down late in the reign of Artaxerxes I and that city was never again used as a capital in the Persian Empire. Mordechai certainly knew about it, and probably took custody of it because all the references to idol worship are erased from the stele.

    This is the modern explanation of the scraping away:

    http://www.livescience.com/39393-code-of-hammurabi.html

    Scholars believe that it was brought to Susa in the 12th century B.C. by an Elamite ruler who subsequently erased a portion of it in preparation for creating an inscription of his own.

    Like they know that that’s what happened or that that’s even remotely plausible.

    It was probably one of the trophies collected by the Baylonian empire (particularly Nabonidus)

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

    Nabonidus is most revered and is known as the first archaeologist

    Well, later on, of course that passed io the hands of the Persian Empire. The stele with the code of Hammurabi probably hadn’t been in Susa for very long – less than a century or even a half a century.

    I say it was Mordechai who scraped some of the inscription away, and it was not preparation for writing anything else there. We know how much he was against anything that resembled (in his mind) idol worship. You remember, he wouldn’t bow down to Haman.

    The law is not like Mordechai, and later editors of the book of Esther removed the specific reason as to why his being a Jew caused him not to bow down to Haman. (there’s like a little thing missing there – a little piece of explanation – in Esther 3:3-4, and I say the Anshei Knesses HaGedolah removed it because the Halacha (the proper law) is not like Mordechai and they didn’t want people to think so. There was the authority and/or the ability to do that kind of editing till about the time of Alexander the Great because it was just Writings – something read at assemblies of Jews every year around the 14th of Adar. It wasn’t from the Pentateuch or the Prophets. By the way Haman didn’t know Mordechai was not bowing down to him because Mordechai avoided his presence, so they had to tell him and they did it as a test case, because nobody much liked bowing down to Haman.)

    Mordechai also, I think, gave money to build the Parthenon (which was actually origially part of an older peace proposal from the time of Xerxes) but evidently only on the condition that it would not be used for idol worship, and the Parthenon in fact was not a temple, and not thought to have been so for generations laterm and the statue of Athena was just decoration and Pericles I think said was just a store of gold. It was also a semi-secret for many years that the money to build it came from the Persian government. All of the terms were secret. Some hisrorians for some reason don’t want to acknowledge even the existence of this treaty now.

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

    Some ancient historians didn’t want to mention it.

    Sammy Finkelman (5818f3)

  139. 95. nk (dbc370) — 5/7/2017 @ 2:15 pm

    The Hobby Lobby case was not decided under the First Amendment. It was decided under the RFRA…And however Jihadi Jamil might interpret it, I doubt that any court would interpret it as Congress’s intent that it would be a license to commit murder provided it was for religious reasons.

    135. nk (dbc370) — 5/7/2017 @ 9:25 pm

    The RFRA’s legislative history, however, was Congress saying “No, dammit, we’re going to give religious people more protection than you black-robed old fogies give them”, in response to the Oregon peyote case.

    But Justice Scalia said, and he got other Justices to agree, including Kagan, that we don’t pay attention to legislative history, but just should look at the text of the law!

    I suspect there’s something in the text that rules that out, that limits the application of the RFRA to not include mirder for religiously motivated reasons.

    Sammy Finkelman (5818f3)

  140. Your second sentence vitiates your first sentence. I will bear in mind that you don’t consider me a true American, being that I am not a Christian.
    kishnevi

    Please don’t do that, kishnevi. Again it is disingenuous to read into “all of the 13 colonies were Christian” that NJRob doesn’t consider you a true American. And it’s silly. He doesn’t even infer that. He merely states the colonies were Christian and the laws were written accordingly. Or maybe you think they weren’t. Maybe you think the whole American experiment was created by heathens for the benefit of moslems to be governed by communists. God only knows what they taught you in law school. However, before the Mandela Effect sucked the white and Christian out of the Founding of America certain Truths were held to be self-evident. But those Truths only work if the general society agrees to them. If some believe it’s okay to use the law to bully their neighbor then the law becomes hostile to the citizens it’s supposed to serve. For example: giving religious freedom to a religion that would eliminate religious freedom is a fools errand. Another example is the conversion of government to the religion of atheism. It’s a religious belief, based on faith, that there is no God. Yet the government is supposedly not allowed to establish a religion. The abuse of America by law is legion. The ACA is but one example among thousands.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  141. 145. Or, because the RFRA doesn’t apply to sate laws, let’s say terrorism for religiously motivated reasons. I don’t think a defense lawyer would have much success with such a claim. But the question is, why would that not work?

    Sammy Finkelman (5818f3)

  142. I was referring to the legislative history in the context of America’s appreciation of freedom of religion generally, and not in the context of statutory interpretation, Sammy. That’s why I mentioned Ginzburg’s dissent. In the RFRA, Congress recognizes greater religious freedom than the Supreme Court’s First Amendment cases do.

    nk (dbc370)

  143. After the Supreme Court ruled that the RFRA could not apply to the states, many states passed their own religious freedom laws.

    nk (dbc370)

  144. None of them permit conversion by the sword, human sacrifice, or temple prostitutes.

    nk (dbc370)

  145. Please don’t do that, kishnevi. Again it is disingenuous to read into “all of the 13 colonies were Christian” that NJRob doesn’t consider you a true American. And it’s silly. He doesn’t even infer that. He merely states the colonies were Christian and the laws were written accordingly. Or maybe you think they weren’t. Maybe you think the whole American experiment was created by heathens for the benefit of moslems to be governed by communists. God only knows what they taught you in law school. However, before the Mandela Effect sucked the white and Christian out of the Founding of America certain Truths were held to be self-evident. But those Truths only work if the general society agrees to them. If some believe it’s okay to use the law to bully their neighbor then the law becomes hostile to the citizens it’s supposed to serve. For example: giving religious freedom to a religion that would eliminate religious freedom is a fools errand. Another example is the conversion of government to the religion of atheism. It’s a religious belief, based on faith, that there is no God. Yet the government is supposedly not allowed to establish a religion. The abuse of America by law is legion. The ACA is but one example among thousands.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca) — 5/8/2017 @ 7:41 am

    Thanks Hoagie,

    I didn’t bother quoting that because it was obvious he was trying to put words in my mouth to attack my character instead of debate the facts. Why he chose to do that is up to him.

    There were enough non-Christians at the time of the nation’s founding to disprove his obvious lie. It’s also obvious that the 13 States were all Christian and the laws were created with that in mind.

    NJRob (68f3b2)

  146. It’s silly even to argue that Christianity is not the central pillar of Western civilization. Even for atheists — their humanistic ideals are Christian ideals missing only acknowledgment of a Higher Power.

    nk (dbc370)

  147. All Western civilization, not only America.

    nk (dbc370)

  148. I agree, nk. I also think admitting that is not admitting you agree with the religion itself. You are just aware that it was they who created the West. And I believe it’s they who are destroying it too. IOW, we have met the enemy and it really is us. We have taken the “classically liberal” Protestant Ethic and worked it to the absurd where we can’t tell people who want to destroy us to get the hell out. Or to the point where we can’t point out there are two sexes and if you disagree you need professional help not a parade.

    Seems we have turned the Constitution into a suicide pack after all.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  149. “If some believe it’s okay to use the law to bully their neighbor then the law becomes hostile to the citizens it’s supposed to serve. For example: giving religious freedom to a religion that would eliminate religious freedom is a fools errand. Another example is the conversion of government to the religion of atheism. It’s a religious belief, based on faith, that there is no God. Yet the government is supposedly not allowed to establish a religion. The abuse of America by law is legion.”

    – Rev. Hoagie

    That is authentic frontier gibberish. I don’t even know where to begin.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  150. “our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry, that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right, that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it…”

    Leviticus (efada1)

  151. So, Leviticus, are you saying that we should not have religious freedom laws unless, in addition to sacramental peyote for American Indians and communion wine for Christians under 21, they also remit coerced conversion for Muslims, human sacrifice for Aztecs, and temple prostitutes for Hindus?

    nk (dbc370)

  152. remit=permit

    nk (dbc370)

  153. Of course not. I’m saying that our courts have articulated tests to decide when and how government may regulate religious practice – tests which easily dispense with such meaningless statements as “giving religious freedom to a religion that would eliminate religious freedom is a fool’s errand.”

    Leviticus (efada1)

  154. Bruce bawer explains upthread,

    narciso (ba0522)

  155. girl from Paris I
    said she was a lady perhaps
    she said “I may be”

    Colonel Haiku (92ce59)

  156. “…they also remit coerced conversion for Muslims, human sacrifice for Aztecs, and temple prostitutes for Hindus?”

    heh… he forgot Acme products for coyotes…

    Colonel Haiku (92ce59)

  157. I was kidding, Leviticus. And kishnevi more than you.

    nk (dbc370)

  158. Today is V-E Day – there was a president of France who wanted to cancel it. And tehn he backed down. What’s the status now?

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  159. There’s alittle issue in New York City now about the city honoring a Nazi collaborator.

    How did this happen?

    It seems like the City of New York recently decided to honor all the people honored with ticker-tape parades since 1886, with markers marker honoring them along 13 blocks of Broadway and calling it the “Canyon of Heroes”.

    One of them was…

    Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, given a ticker tape parade in 1931.

    He was the World War I general who led the French Second Army at the Battle of Verdun in 1916. A big hero.

    But later on, at the age of 84 in 1940, he became the head of the government of France that collaborated with the Nazis. Not only did they do thsi, but they actually volunteered on their own to round up Jews (for what they had to know was probable death) in the hopes of getting a bit more independence.

    After World War II, Marshal Petain was convicted of treason and got a death sentence later commuted to a life sentence behind bars. He died at the age of 95. (I thought 94 but I looked it up on Wikipedia.)

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  160. This is for Steve57. These are some of our salon girls cleaning up a lot in North Philly for Habitat for Humanity under the watchful eye of our Society Hill manager. Notice how even when doing community outreach Korean ladies always dress to impress.

    https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7IcYeetUsus/WQ6swQACDiI/AAAAAAABhX4/M9QtsFTGMj4wZDz-Bgnzj4R2JFNICpmUQCLcB/s1600/daily_picdump_2499_52.jpg

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)


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