Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Let’s go!
First news item
An interesting look at the disappearance of the WASP, and how no one noticed:
[T]here is no way back to an America run by WASPs, nor should we want there to be. But at its best, the WASP establishment gave us some things that every society needs, including leaders with a sense of ownership over the long-term success of their country and a sense that their privileges go hand-in-hand with a responsibility for those born less lucky.
One way to interpret the chaos into which the country is currently descending is to see it as the result of the void left by the disappearance of that old WASP code. And one way to interpret the culture war that seems to be consuming our politics is to think of it as a battle over what set of norms and customs should be put in the place of the ones that have recently vanished.
It would be naive and ahistorical to wish for an America in which the WASPs are still in charge. But their disappearance is one of the reasons for the chaos in which we now find ourselves. Constructing a meritocratic elite that is better than its WASP predecessors at ruling the country—one that actually manages to earn the assent of most Americans, unlike its more recent incarnations—will by no means be easy.
Second news item
Democrats very unhappy with Chuck Schumer over vote for funding bill:
Privately, House Democrats are so infuriated with Schumer’s decision that some have begun encouraging her to run against Schumer in a primary, according to a Democratic member who directly spoke with Ocasio-Cortez about running at the caucus’ policy retreat. Multiple Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus and others directly encouraged Ocasio-Cortez to run on Thursday night after Schumer’s announcement, this member said.
The member said that Democrats in Leesburg were “so mad” that even centrist Democrats were “ready to write checks for AOC for Senate,” adding that they have “never seen people so mad.”
Asked by CNN about fellow Democrats encouraging her to challenge Schumer, Ocasio-Cortez declined to answer and said she was focused on keeping Democrats from backing the funding bill: “We still have an opportunity to correct course here, and that is my number one priority.”
Third news item
Columbia University informs about expulsions and suspensions:
Columbia University said students who occupied the campus’ Hamilton Hall during pro-Palestinian protests last spring have been expelled, suspended for several years or had their degrees temporarily revoked.
The sanctions were issued by the Columbia University Judicial Board on Thursday, the school said.
“The outcomes issued by the UJB are based on its evaluation of the severity of behaviors at these events and prior disciplinary actions,” the university said in a statement sent to the school community. “These outcomes are the result of following the thorough and rigorous processes laid out in the Rules of University Conduct in our statutes, which include investigations, hearings and deliberations.”
Fourth news item
Weighing in on the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil:
Now we get to the hard and important part—the unshakable appearance, if not the reality, that all of this is being done in retaliation for constitutionally protected speech on Khalil’s part. It seems to me that there are three different places where the First Amendment might show up in the litigation over what’s happened: As a challenge to the constitutionality of each of the two grounds on which I’m speculating the government might claim it can remove him; and as a standalone retaliation claim.
Taking the third possibility first, the problem for Khalil is that the Supreme Court, in general, has made it very difficult to use a First Amendment retaliation claim to successfully defeat an enforcement proceeding otherwise supported by probable cause—and especially in immigration cases. In its 1999 ruling in Reno v. American-Arab Antidiscrimination Committee, for instance, the Court stressed that “As a general matter . . . an alien unlawfully in this country has no constitutional right to assert selective enforcement as a defense against his deportation.” To be sure, Justice Scalia’s majority opinion left open the possibility that there could be “a rare case in which the alleged basis of discrimination is so outrageous” as to bar an otherwise valid removal proceeding. This may well be such a case. And the plaintiffs in AADC were not LPRs—which might put even more force into the argument for First Amendment limits here. But it’s worth starting from the baseline that, for better or worse (and, in my view, for worse), the First Amendment doesn’t generally protect non-citizens against being removed for activity that the First Amendment protects.
I’m a bit more sanguine about the possibility of specific First Amendment challenges to the hypothesized grounds for Khalil’s removal. Among other things, the First Amendment might require the Secretary of State to have substantial support for a personal determination that an LPR’s continued presence “would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest,” support that, in turn, courts could subject to meaningful scrutiny.
Fifth news item
Evidence of Trump’s cognitive decline?:
During a Thursday press availability with reporters in the Oval Office while meeting with the head of NATO, Trump centubled on his argument that Canada must join the United States, insisting that Canada “only works as a state.” Trump said:
“But it comes a point when you just can’t do that. You have to run your own country. And to be honest with you, Canada only works as a state. It doesn’t. We don’t need anything. They have as a state. It would be one of the great states anywhere. This would be the most incredible country visually. If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it between Canada and the U.S. just a straight artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago, many, many decades ago. And it makes no sense.
It’s so perfect as a great and cherished state. Keeping, ‘Oh, Canada,’ the national anthem, I love it. I think it’s great. Keep it. But it’ll be for the state. One of our greatest states, maybe our greatest state. But why should we subsidize another country for 200 billion, costs us $200 billion a year? And again, we don’t need their lumber. We don’t need their energy.
We have more than they do. We don’t need anything. We don’t need their cars. I’d much rather make the cars here. And there’s not a thing that we need. Now there’ll be a little disruption, but it won’t be very long. But they need us. We really don’t need them. And we have to do this. I’m sorry. We have to do this.“
If not cognitive decline, how does one explain this nonsensical statement?
Sixth news item
The Panama Canal in play:
The White House has directed the U.S. military to draw up options for increasing the American troop presence in Panama to achieve President Trump’s goal of “reclaiming” the Panama Canal, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the planning.
During a joint address to Congress last week, Trump said, “to further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal.” Since then, administration officials have not said what “reclaiming” means.
U.S. Southern Command is developing potential plans that vary from partnering more closely with Panamanian security forces to the less likely option of U.S. troops seizing the Panama Canal by force, the officials said. Whether military force is used, the officials added, depends on how much Panamanian security forces agree to partner with the U.S.
The Trump administration’s goal is to increase the U.S. military presence in Panama to diminish China’s influence there, particularly access to the canal, the officials said.
Seventh news item
Trump repeating Russian propaganda:
We had very good and productive discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia yesterday, and there is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end — BUT, AT THIS VERY MOMENT, THOUSANDS OF UKRAINIAN TROOPS ARE COMPLETELY SURROUNDED BY THE RUSSIAN MILITARY, AND IN A VERY BAD AND VULNERABLE POSITION. I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II. God bless them all!!!
What Putin said:
On Thursday, Putin had said it is now “impossible” for even small groups of Ukrainian troops to withdraw from Russia’s Kursk region because they had lost control of the area, Russian state news outlet Tass reported, characterizing it as an encirclement.
Russia said the same day that it had recaptured Sudzha, the largest town in Kursk, and other settlements in the area. In the biggest sign of Russian advances in the area, Putin paid a surprise visit to Kursk earlier in the week, wearing military fatigues for the trip.
Ukraine denies Putin and Trump comments:
Ukraine’s military denied U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that thousands of its troops were surrounded, following similar comments by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
“Reports about the enemy’s alleged ‘encirclement’ of Ukrainian units in the Kursk region are not true and are created by the Russians for political goals and pressure on Ukraine and partners,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement.
“The situation has not changed significantly during the day. Hostilities in the operational zone of the Kursk group of troops continue.”
Two lying thugs in a pod. Where is the outrage that a sitting American president is echoing a vile dictator, hater of freedom, and America’s enemy? Why is this okay with any American?
I have a very serious question: does the president of the United States rely on any information about the battlefield situation in Ukraine that doesn’t come from Putin’s conversations with Witkoff? Because there aren’t thousands of helpless Ukrainian troops in full encirclement. And asking Putin for an imaginary favor is quite a way to move the goalpost after Putin refused the unconditional 30-day ceasefire.
Eighth news item
Grifters, quacks, and charlatans leading the way – I’m looking at you, RFK Jr.:
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as America’s secretary of health and human services, neutral observers might have asked themselves: Would it be possible for a lawyer who had questioned the safety of childhood vaccinations for two decades to look at the available data and reconsider his views?
Kennedy’s recent interviews with Fox News, along with an op-ed he published on that outlet’s website, have been enough to make many experts conclude the answer is “no.”
Parsing every claim about the measles vaccine that Kennedy has made would take a long time, so let’s focus on one: that the vaccine causes deaths every year. Researchers say that simply isn’t true, except potentially in a small number of people who are not supposed to receive it — those with compromised immune systems.
“There are adverse events from the vaccine,” Kennedy said in a March 11 interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity. “It does cause deaths every year. It causes — it causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes, encephalitis and blindness, et cetera. And so people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves.”
The Infectious Disease Society of America says there have been “no deaths related to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in healthy individuals.” (Since the 1970s, the measles vaccine has been given in a combination shot with mumps and rubella to minimize the number of injections kids get.)
“The MMR vaccine has never been found to cause a death in an immunocompetent individual,” Daniel Griffin, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Island Infectious Disease Medical in New York said, echoing that conclusion. “If you’ve got someone who has a compromised immune system, and someone doesn’t know any better and gives them an active vaccine, which is what you are not supposed to do, then, you know, that could result in a death.”
Ninth news item
This is just evil. How does Marco Rubio live with himself? He sold his soul, even though he knows better. Or knew better, once upon a time:
Even as President Donald Trump and government-demolition czar Elon Musk appear to actively favor Russia’s interests amid discussions of how to end the Russia-Ukraine war, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has struck a studiously neutral posture. Rubio has suggested that any peaceful resolution must take into account Ukraine’s “interests” and “their ability to prosper as a nation.”
But now Rubio’s State Department may have pulled a behind-the-scenes maneuver that appears tilted toward Russia’s interests and could anger Ukraine and its backers in the United States, leading to more questions about the department’s neutrality in the standoff.
The State Department has quietly terminated a contract that was in the process of transferring evidence of alleged Russian abductions of Ukrainian children—a potential war crime—to law enforcement officials in Europe, two people familiar with the situation tell The New Republic.
The nixed award could make it harder to continue tracking down the kidnapped Ukrainian kids and complicate efforts to seek accountability for the abductions, says one of the sources, who has direct knowledge of the ongoing operation.
. . .
The contract is extremely sensitive, because it involves the tracking of some of these abducted children. With this award, which was initially granted several years ago and renewed in late 2023, the State Department has been underwriting work by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which has been using highly sophisticated tools, such as satellite imagery and analysis of open-source technology and biometric data, to identify and locate the abducted kids.
The report—which the lab’s executive director, Nathaniel Raymond, presented before the United Nations Security Council—concluded that this may constitute “crimes against humanity under customary international law.” The lab’s work has been shared with the International Criminal Court in connection with its recent charges that Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, committed war crimes against the kidnapped kids.
The Yale lab had also transferred names and dossiers on the abducted kids it had located to Ukrainian authorities. But the underlying evidence—the hard digital documentation of kids’ movements and locations, compiled with sophisticated technologies—still needs to be transferred to Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement arm, the source with direct knowledge of the operation says.
This transfer to Europol has been interrupted by the Trump-Rubio State Department’s cancellation of the award, according to that source and a Democratic congressional aide with knowledge of the contract. This sort of tracking involves extremely complex and technologically sophisticated work, and the evidence itself—which is essential to proving the abductions—is highly complicated and must be moved via secure channels.
Have a good weekend.
—Dana
Hello.
Dana (e883ad) — 3/14/2025 @ 9:06 amHi Dana. What happened to JVW?
lloyd (3c84b5) — 3/14/2025 @ 9:13 amSpeaking of “grifters, quacks, and charlatans”:
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 9:29 amSchumer is in a no-win position because he has to know that, since Newt circa 1995, the parties responsible for government shutdowns end up paying the political price.
I think he’s gambling on Trump welshing on the Impoundment Control Act, so that this president’s violation of statutory law will be settled in the courts.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 9:37 amThe member said that Democrats in Leesburg were “so mad” that even centrist Democrats were “ready to write checks for AOC for Senate,” adding that they have “never seen people so mad.”
So, in response to the observation that the Democrats lost in 2024 because they were unhinged, they ask “Who needs hinges anyway?”
If they want to appear as a viable alternative to MAGA, being as loony or loonier isn’t the path.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 9:40 amI think he’s gambling on Trump [acting stupidly]
A near-certain bet.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 9:41 amcentrist Democrats were “ready to write checks for AOC for Senate”
Unlikely projection. But if she does beat Schumer, I’ll be supporting Mike Lawler for the win.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 9:44 amWhere is the outrage that a sitting American president is echoing a vile dictator, hater of freedom, and America’s enemy
It’s right beside my outrage at his meshuggener tariff policy, his nonsensical tax giveaways (e.g. Social Security tax on the affluent, no tax on overtime, etc), his hack/slash approach to budget cuts and his thuggish threats to keep Republicans in line.
Some days I prioritize others of these.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 9:56 amInflation often cools when people are saving up for a recession.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 9:57 amTrump is repeating Russian lies about Kursk being “surrounded”. Once again, this president takes the word of a Russian thug-in-chief above all else, which is yet another reason why he’s with the terrorists.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 10:08 am“that the vaccine causes deaths every year. Researchers say that simply isn’t true, except potentially in a small number of people who are not supposed to receive it — those with compromised immune systems.”
So it IS true, but we don’t want to count those instances to make our claim valid…..kinda like the child gun deaths, we have to count 18- and 19-year-olds to make our claims valid.
Patrick (a6fd0d) — 3/14/2025 @ 11:11 amGee, I wonder what might be in their backgrounds.
That “too intrusive” is a nice touch, isn’t it?
What are the chances this will inspire investigative reporters to do some digging? Somewhere between 99 and 100 percent.
(If you know of any problems with any of these staffers, please share them with us.)
Jim Miller (581560) — 3/14/2025 @ 11:18 amThen that should offset any tariff-induced inflation impact.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 11:45 am“So it IS true, but we don’t want to count those instances to make our claim valid…..kinda like the child gun deaths, we have to count 18- and 19-year-olds to make our claims valid.”
How many deaths from the measles vaccine have there been in the last 10 years?
Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 3/14/2025 @ 11:57 amHe can’t think of any good lies as to why the United States needs to annex Canada, and why that is the only good way to get free trade..
Incidentally, I think he was also trying to argue against the admission of each province of Canada as a separate state. His real reason being that that way he risks giving Democrats permanent control of the United States Senate.
Sammy Finkelman (8ddc19) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:02 pmSo it IS true, but we don’t want to count those instances to make our claim valid
We don’t want to count those cases because the approval rules say those people cannot get the vaccine. But they try anyway.
It’s like people who use an electric hair dryer in the tub. There are lots and lots of warning labels and if you do that anyway the manufacturer is not going to pay out.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:08 pmThen that should offset any tariff-induced inflation impact.
No. The tariff impact is a flat cost added and does not reflect marginal demand.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:09 pmThat “too intrusive” is a nice touch, isn’t it?
TS clearances are supposed to be intrusive. Very intrusive, and lying is a big mistake.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:18 pmFrom the “We’re Not In The Best of Hands” thread:
That’s big if–
The 25 states that voted for Trump three times represent half of the US Senate. I don’t see what could change that dynamic. With the retirements of Senators Gary Peters (D-MI) and Tina Smith (D-MN), Larry Sabato has moved Michigan to a tossup and Minnesota from Likely Democratic to Leans. This analysis doesn’t include Jean Shaheen’s retirement in NH, which could also add a Republican pickup.
On House side:
Even if the House flips to the Democrats, the Senate will remain the red wall against any impeachment threat.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:18 pmSorry, I should have labeled that as sarcasm.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:19 pmHis real reason being that that way he risks giving Democrats permanent control of the United States Senate.
Doesn’t matter. It gives them permanent control of the US House and the Electoral College by essentially cloning California. And really, as separate states some would have GOP Senators.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:20 pmThat’s laughable. As I pointed out above, 25 states that voted for Trump three times represent half of the US Senate.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:24 pmI’ve added a 9th news item to the post. It’s absolutely frustrating and maddening.
Dana (730e71) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:33 pmIn Part I, Zeihan put together over a dozen examples of how Trump’s across-the-board actions have benefited the Russian terrorist state by weakening America, concluding that Trump is partaking in the “deliberate disassembly of building blocks of American power and security”. It’s hard to disagree.
Considering the breadth and rapidity of what this president has done, speaks to the possible penetration of the White House by Russia with. To me, Trump is obviously the most penetrated, and that Trump listens to Putin but not his intelligence briefings, assuming he even gets intelligence briefings.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:36 pmThose four states, two on each side, form the competitive core of the 2026 Senate map.
As I said, “in a wave election.” The GOP has 9 seats up that are rated R+8 or less.
In 2006, the GOP lost MT, MO, VA, PA, OH & RI. They gained no seats
In 2008, the GOP lost AK, OR, NM, CO, MI, VA, NC & NH. They gained no seats.
Many of those races they were expected to win in each case.
Again, if people are going to the polls thinking “Thank God for Donald Trump” then they will do just fine. I am less sanguine.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:38 pmThe contract is extremely sensitive, because it involves the tracking of some of these abducted children.
I expect to hear Putin and his “American” mouthpieces tell us that there is no evidence of any of these abductions. “Show us your proof!” says Putin.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:42 pmDoes Trump’s immunity cover treasonous official acts?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:43 pm9th news item
From the NewRepublic…
“…may have pulled…”
“…two people familiar with the situation tell The New Republic.”
“…according to that source and a Democratic congressional aide with knowledge of the contract. ”
and written by Greg Sargent.
No.
I don’t care for another “sources say” from a Democratic propaganda arm.
If true, why aren’t they resigning in protest?
Isn’t that the principle thing to do?
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:56 pmI’d be concerned if there’s more than just “sources said” citations.
Right now, my default response is “I call bs”.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:57 pmWhat are his “treasonous official acts”; has he meaning “levying war against the United States” or providing “aid and comfort” to what enemy?
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:00 pmThis is upderstandable…
But hopefully this doesn’t slam the door for Ukraine’s entrance into the EU.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:02 pmproviding “aid and comfort” to what enemy?
Well, we were arming Ukraine against Russia, now we are helping Russia conquer Ukraine. I guess that’s my faulty thinking and I’m just unable to get right with the Party message.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:06 pmOne of Russia’s demands is that Ukraine be neutral country, which would seem to preclude EU membership.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:07 pmThe “two people familiar with the situation” are saying that “the State Department has quietly terminated a contract that was in the process of transferring evidence of alleged Russian abductions of Ukrainian children—a potential war crime—to law enforcement officials in Europe.”
This is standard two-sourced reporting, whembly.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:09 pmOne of Russia’s demands is that Ukraine be neutral country, which would seem to preclude EU membership.
Maybe Trump will make it a state.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:26 pm@35
That’s been abused ad nauseum because more often than not, the story’s wrong.
Furthermore, it’s TNR, a rapid leftist publican.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:30 pm@34
An opening negotiation plank.
Ukraine should say “no”.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:31 pmKevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:43 pm
I don’t think it does – or anything that couldn’t have been done with legitimate motives. Treason specifically though has a hard to achieve definition in the constitution.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:32 pmSwitches in policy are not, by definition, treason. The “aid and comfort” would need to provided to an enemy at war with the United States; and no war has been declared against Russia. Nor, as far as we know, has Trump sworn an oath to Russia.
Cramer v. United Statess (1945) was first case interpreting the treason clause by the Supreme Court, and it contains a long historic overview of the treason clause as discussed by the Constitutional Convention:
My emphasis; footnotes omitted.
You need to get right with the Constitution.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:33 pmYeah, I’m sure Russia will respond positively. In this case, it is the “golden gun rule”: He who has the guns makes the rules.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:35 pmAustria is neutral as used to be Sweden and Finland.
I see so is Ireland – both neutral and a member of the EU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_member_states_in_the_European_Union
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:38 pmUkraine is no position to say “no” about anything.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:39 pmFor treason the United States must also, I think, have declared war on that country in order for t to an enemy.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:40 pmNeither of which are a battlefield and occupied by a hostile power.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:40 pmMore on the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab…
Putin’s program to abduct Ukrainian children for his Putin Youth program is nothing short of evil, and it’s this evil that Trump is aligning with.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:41 pm@43
It takes two sides to “give and take”…
Otherwise, it’s not a negotiate, but a conquest.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/14/2025 @ 1:52 pmTrump negotiator has stopped negotiating with Hamas and concentrated for now on the Russia0Ukraine war.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-ceasefire-trump-ukraine.html
The United States tried another channel to talk to Hamas too, using the special envoy on hostages, Adam Boehler, but all that resulted in was the Hamas leaders he spoke to in Qatar playing “good cop.” They impressed Boehler but he had to retract his words.
This is where Mahmoud Khalil might really interfere with U.S foreign policy – giving Hamas et all hope with his activities that they could get the United States to reverse policy.
Back to Witkoff:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-march-14-2025/
That’s kind of a mistake. Because the alternative to a siege, which kills few people (and also probably impacts the hostages so won’t be too harsh – there’s still water) is a resumption of bombing, though the Arab states probably think it would merely be an attempt to kill the new Hamas leadership and hopefully get another more disposed to leaving power and disarming and maybe even leaving Gaza if someone will give them a place to go. Bear in mind Israel considers the Hamas police to be military units. Or it could be an attack on Iran.
More from that article:
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 3/14/2025 @ 2:10 pm45. We were taking about a future situation where Ukraine would not be a battlefield. Speculating about a Russian demand that Ukraine be a neutral. I said that that being neutral would not mean it couldn’t be a member of the EU – although, as it is, Russia is against that also.
Putin probably wants to have a “roof” over Ukraine.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 3/14/2025 @ 2:18 pmMeaning they will try to help them sell their services to others.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 3/14/2025 @ 2:21 pmhttps://www.statnews.com/2025/03/14/rfk-jr-measles-vaccine-death-claims-scientists-disagree
This is double talk.
The meaning is that, while most of the claims about the measles vaccine hurting children were wrong, there were a few deaths, even with treatment, from one or two specified causes – and that that was the price of getting 0 deaths from measles itself.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 3/14/2025 @ 2:28 pmKevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 12:42 pm
No, they say that members of the childrens’ families can pick them up in Russia, which is mostly true, although they have to travel through Belarus to et there.,
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 3/14/2025 @ 2:31 pmTrump basically says that Emily Litella was right, m after all.
In his address to Congress March 4, Donald Trump said:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/us/politics/transcript-trump-speech-congress.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1k4.t6W0.QXxFNCgpnb16&smid=url-share
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 3/14/2025 @ 2:44 pmBingo!
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 3:09 pmPatterico is a little pissed. Can’t say as I blame him.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 3:59 pmBTW, the hypocrisy of Rubio saying this…
…while helping Putin with his child abductions, except there is no trade with Putin, he just takes and, so far he’s taken tens of thousands of Ukrainian children.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 4:06 pmHamas only held hundreds, while Putin has kidnapped at least 80 times as many civilians.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 4:10 pmYou need to get right with the Constitution.
Sept 15, 1787
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 4:19 pmIrrelevant to your claim that President Trump has committed “treasonous acts.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 4:20 pmIndeed…
No matter how many times Trump and his underlings and enablers repeat this lie, it’s still a lie.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 4:32 pmWe are still technically in a state of war with North Korea. No peace treaty was signed in 1953; only an armistice i.e. ceasefire.
When Putin obtained North Korean troops from King Jong Un, Russia became a co-belligerent of Korea, even though the Soviet Union officially was not during the Korean War having sent only “volunteers”.
nk (544e57) — 3/14/2025 @ 4:33 pmIrrelevant to your claim that President Trump has committed “treasonous acts.
His reverses of long-standing American positions, both in foreign policy and in trade are making war on the United States in the interests of a foreign power as well as giving them aid and comfort.
So we haven’t declared war? We almost never do. That does not mean that Putin is a friend or that overturning treaties is somehow within the bounds of his office.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 4:59 pmSo what? Richard Nixon went from being an anti-communist zealot to traveling to Beijing and sitting down with a leader who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans in the Korean War; and which ultimately lead to the US dumping Taiwan and recognizing the PRC. Did Nixon and Carter commit treason?
Reversing foreign or domestic policies is the prerogative of any President. If Congress objects to Trump’s “revers(al) of long-standing American positions”, they should pass laws to reverse his actions; or they can impeach him. It’s a sign that Congress hasn’t done so that indicates (at least among Republicans) support his actions. But Trump certainly hasn’t committed treason.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/14/2025 @ 5:20 pmSupporting Ukraine is hardly a “ long-standing American position”; at most it’s been a policy for 12 years, if that.
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/14/2025 @ 5:25 pmRip, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum is an explicit support for Ukraine, where we promised them security assurances in exchange for their giving over the nukes in their possession to Russia. That’s 31 years, until Trump.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 6:16 pmThe BM was pretty weak tea for everyone. It was never a US treaty commitment; and it required Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity, which it obviously hasn’t. Ukraine as a salient issue in American foreign policy is relatively recent.
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/14/2025 @ 6:24 pmSource
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/14/2025 @ 6:36 pm“Security assurances” was code for finger wagging at Russia; “security guarantees” implies the use of force, which the US explicitly denied it would use. If it was presented to the Senate as a treaty, it would have failed to pass. In the end the US and Europe have provided far to defend Ukraine than they could have expected under the Memorandum in 1994.
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/14/2025 @ 6:46 pmPlease don’t move the goalposts, Rip. You said that “supporting Ukraine is hardly a ‘long-standing American position'”, which is false. Supporting Ukraine has been our long-standing American position since Clinton’s first term. Please read the text of that document, because we made promises.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 7:10 pmSo what? Richard Nixon went from being an anti-communist zealot to traveling to Beijing and sitting down with a leader who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans in the Korean War
Nixon (and Kissinger) did that to make the Chinese an offer they couldn’t refuse: Throw the USSR under the bus and have access to our markets. It worked.
I would like to think that Trump had the same intentions wrt to pulling Russia away from China, but that would take quite a few IQ points he does not have.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 7:58 pmThe point, if you missed it, was that Nixon was still anti-Communist, he just viewed the USSR as the existential threat.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 7:59 pm@61:
Good point, nk.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/14/2025 @ 8:00 pmThe title shouldn’t have to be said, but it had to be said: Canada is an ally, not an enemy. Regarding Canada after 9/11…
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 9:35 pmThe people of Greenland have spoken.
Mazel tov.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/14/2025 @ 9:38 pmhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/us/politics/trump-tariffs-house-gop-vote.html
Davethulhu (ae2000) — 3/14/2025 @ 10:13 pmItem 2 DU is shut down to non dnc members to stop democrats from attacking chuckie or advocating AOC primary him.
asset (796e2f) — 3/15/2025 @ 1:33 amhttps://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2025/03/14/organized-crime-leftists-add-swatting-conservatives-on-x-to-their-tesla-and-trump-terror-tactics-n4937910
Terrorism by any other name… is still terrorism. This is what we are up against in this nation and turning this country around is the number one priority.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/15/2025 @ 4:21 amYou’d have to look for this story, but Peter Zeihan picked it up, and it’s the first I’ve heard about a US delegation going to Kyiv to talk to Zelenskyy’s opposition, to get them to overturn his presidency, by violating their constitution to conduct an election to elect someone who is more aligned with Trump and therefore more aligned with Putin.
It’s a sh-t thing to do, diplomatically, this kind of meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs. I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin suggested this idea to Trump, and Trump ran with it, like a puppet. After all, Putin whispered sweet nothings about the Kursk lie into Trump’s ear.
Fortunately, those Ukrainians in the meeting turned us down cold.
Paul Montagu (354e09) — 3/15/2025 @ 9:13 amIt’s not goal post moving to say the Budapest Memorandum wasn’t a treaty commitment, as it wasn’t ratified by the Senate; a treaty would have committed the US to a specific course of action. And under the Memorandum what exactly were the. “promises”made by the US? They are nowhere to found in the document; there is no specific provision committing the US to defend Ukraine. The Memorandum is deliberately vague so as not to commit the US (or the UK) to a specific policy response.
I dare say that Ukraine has more salient to American politics and foreign policy (and the public) over the last four years than the period from 1994-2014. Even after the Crimean annexation there wasn’t any political or public support for intervention to enforce the Budapest Memorandum.
I also wonder why you criticize our alleged non-compliance with the Memorandum and not Russia’s. It wasn’t the US that has violated Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, existing borders or “to use or threaten to use force.”
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/15/2025 @ 10:58 amBecause we didn’t welsh, Putin did.
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/15/2025 @ 11:21 amAlso, Rip, there’s no requirement that a promise to another nation has to be codified via treaty. You set up that artificial construct.
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/15/2025 @ 11:22 amWhat were the promises again?
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/15/2025 @ 11:25 amhttps://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_1994_1399.pdf
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/15/2025 @ 11:41 am@73: Biff.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 11:44 amWhy? Do they realize that they don’t have the votes? Or that this makes them look like utter weasels?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 11:46 amTerrorism by any other name… is still terrorism.
I suppose that the perpetrators of this attempted murder-by-proxy would all it “freedom-fighting.” Of course, were AOC to get swatted in retaliation, they’d call it something else.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 11:50 amBecause we didn’t welsh, Putin did.
More like we welshed after Putin did.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 11:51 amWhat were the promises again?
Troll’s game, Rip. Make the other guy repeat their statements, so that you can start the dispute that you lost all over again. Eventually they stop playing.
Why to you play the troll?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 11:53 amWe’ve helped Ukraine since 2014, but it’s been weak-assed to half-assed, so I wouldn’t call it a welshing as we’ve been on their side from the get-go.
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/15/2025 @ 12:40 pmPaul wrote:
Which I did, and I couldn’t find any explicit promises made by the United States towards Ukraine. Since Paul asserted that US “made promises” it’s a fair question and not being a troll. When he says “we made promises” I have no idea what he means.
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/15/2025 @ 1:19 pmThe analogy with South Korea is very imperfect. Trump won’t make a credible military threat against Russia as Eisenhower did by threatening to use nuclear weapons against China and North Korea in 1953.
South Korea only achieved its economic success under the protection of the US nuclear umbrella and the stationing of 33,000 or so heavily armed US troops. It is unlikely that the Trump Administration would do either to protect Ukraine, or even provide a backstop (which Trump has already ruled out) to an European military force (which Russia has already rejected.)
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/15/2025 @ 1:52 pm“Why? Do they realize that they don’t have the votes? Or that this makes them look like utter weasels?”
Gotta keep the boss happy
Davethulhu (d7e93f) — 3/15/2025 @ 1:54 pmIt is an improvement from ancient Roman days when the Pontifex Maximus alone and not the Roman Senate determined the calendar.
Democracy!
nk (c63167) — 3/15/2025 @ 2:10 pm>Or that this makes them look like utter weasels?
Only to the tiny fraction of the population who pays attention to this sort of thing.
A much larger percentage (more than an order of magnitude larger, maybe even two orders of magnitude larger) of the population sees them acting to support Trump against those evil Democrats and cheers it.
aphrael (bfe711) — 3/15/2025 @ 2:13 pmWhat I find the most Deplorable is the glee they are taking at workers losing their jobs.
nk (c63167) — 3/15/2025 @ 2:19 pmWhat unclean spirit makes them identify with globalist billionaire sociopaths on sadistic power trips against ordinary people like themselves who get up five out of seven days a week wash their face and hands and go to work for eight hours to put food on the table, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads, for themselves and their families?
nk (c63167) — 3/15/2025 @ 2:24 pm> What I find the most Deplorable is the glee they are taking at workers losing their jobs.
I suspect they think the workers who are losing their jobs are all parasites who are stealing from the people.
But the entire basis of trumpism has always seem to include finding glee in deliberate cruelty, to me.
aphrael (bfe711) — 3/15/2025 @ 2:49 pm> What unclean spirit makes them identify with globalist billionaire sociopaths on sadistic power trips against ordinary people like themselves who get up five out of seven days a week wash their face and hands and go to work for eight hours to put food on the table, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads, for themselves and their families?
See, that’s the thing.
They don’t perceive the government workers as “ordinary people like themselves”.
They see themselves as good hardworking people and the government workers as lazy takers who pretend to work in order to steal money from good hardworking people like them.
aphrael (bfe711) — 3/15/2025 @ 2:53 pmI’m old enough to remember lockdowns.
lloyd (b4107e) — 3/15/2025 @ 3:32 pmWhat I find the most Deplorable is the glee they are taking at workers losing their jobs.
So, if you support downsizing you are doing this to make workers lose their jobs? Or might there be other reasons? Like not borrowing from China to support them and their often-unnecessary activities.
The Rural Utilities Service, formerly the Rural Electrification Administration has 365 employees and a 2024 appropriation of $2.4 billion, or $6.6 million per employee. Much of what it does has been supplanted by StarLink and it original New Deal mission (electricity in the heartland) is long since completed.
If you close it, what will get reported? The 365 workers out of a job? Suspended projects to cable houses 5 miles apart? The money not borrowed? Heck, we all know the answer to that.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 3:42 pmRip, to me part of what we’re betraying is us values around freedom and self determination. Our history of supporting people fighting against totalitarianism.
Time123 (9fa39d) — 3/15/2025 @ 3:47 pmWhat unclean spirit blames the world’s woes the few whose energy is spent on overcoming them and organizing a workforce to tackle them?
Heinlein was correct on this:
And, really, do our problems come from these (mostly self-made) billionaires who attempt to solve them by offering better methods, or do they come from the kind of lawyers who — offering little themselves but criticism — seek only to stop them.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 3:49 pmIs everything that Trump attempts based on evil motives?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 3:51 pm@99: once again proving the utter falsity of ideological and biased generalization. Most people don’t think “Us” vs “Them” but it is written all over this comment and its demeaning projections.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 3:54 pm” (mostly self-made) billionaires ”
lmao
Davethulhu (d7e93f) — 3/15/2025 @ 3:55 pmI think that people have this view of government workers as making a nice salary/bennies package without really doing any real work. While there have certainly been some workers as higher levels of government who haven been found to have committed crimes to benefit themselves financially or been duplicitous about their accomplishments, etc, I do think that the majority of workers are simply trying to do their jobs as efficiently as possible.
Trump has targeted government workers as the bad guys, full well knowing he would be giving his supporters a target to direct their anger towards. And it’s worked. Moreover, he frames it as an issue of class: the average angry worker bring lower class, while government workers look their noses down their noses at them. Of course it’s just more manipulation of the everyday man, and it’s been effective to serve Trump’s purpose. A class divide rooted in anger and resentment. C
Dana (4b17ac) — 3/15/2025 @ 3:57 pmIf you consider self-serving and being beneficial to him, first and foremost, as evil, then yes.
Dana (00bc43) — 3/15/2025 @ 3:59 pm@Kevin@101 I think it’s possible to both believe a reduction in staffing is necessary and feel concerned about the people losing their jobs. Some of the tech companies with really good reputations offer in-house transfers to open positions or job placement services when they do layoffs, for example.
Nic (120c94) — 3/15/2025 @ 4:03 pm” once again proving the utter falsity of ideological and biased generalization. Most people don’t think “Us” vs “Them” but it is written all over this comment and its demeaning projections.”
You can’t be this naive.
Davethulhu (d7e93f) — 3/15/2025 @ 4:04 pmI stopped reading Heinlein somewhere in that part of whatever book of his where his “hero” traveled back in time to have sex with his mother.
The point is glee. G-L-E-E.
Sure, many occasions arise when somebody who needs a job cannot have one
That’s not an occasion for glee. It’s an occasion for regretfulness.
nk (c63167) — 3/15/2025 @ 4:29 pmI have no argument with that, but my point has been the Budapest Memorandum, with its main objective of eliminating the nuclear weapons in Ukraine, didn’t obligate the US to take specific steps to prevent Russia from its depredations in Ukraine; nor did include any specific security guarantees for Ukraine. In a sense it was a very Clintonesque triangulation.
Rip Murdock (ca089d) — 3/15/2025 @ 5:20 pmUp until now, Ukraine has received nearly everything it needs to continue the fight, short of US combat forces.
Rip Murdock (ca089d) — 3/15/2025 @ 5:33 pmThat’s all on Trump.
Rip Murdock (ca089d) — 3/15/2025 @ 5:35 pmKevin M – Trumpist rhetoric is openly based in us vs. them thinking, and the rhetoric is echoed at all levels, from Trump down to the people ranting at city council meetings.
But I thank you for the claim that rather than reporting what I see with my own eyes, I’m simply projecting.
It does a lot to remind me that I should stop talking to you because you are responding to your own caricature of leftists rather than to me.
aphrael (8ac906) — 3/15/2025 @ 5:45 pm@77 As truman said if you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen! AOC and jJasmine Crockett get death threats everyday.
asset (e00beb) — 3/15/2025 @ 9:31 pmIt does a lot to remind me that I should stop talking to you because you are responding to your own caricature of leftists rather than to me.
Now, who is responding to caricatures?
I don’t think one could add much more to the pejoratives there. And if anything, Trump is not a “globalist.”
And when I used the term “self-made” I was not including Trump.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 9:33 pmIf you consider self-serving and being beneficial to him, first and foremost, as evil, then yes.
I don’t. Hitler, for one, had other motivations.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 9:34 pm“Chuckie” schumer republicans don’t have the votes to pass CR! Senator your donors and aipac are calling. Chuckie we corporate democrats will give trump the votes!
asset (e00beb) — 3/15/2025 @ 9:41 pm” (mostly self-made) billionaires ”
lmao
Lessee:
Edison (electrics)
Ford (low-cost autos for the masses, other problems though)
Hewlett and Packard (computer products and test equipment)
Jobs (Apple)
Gates (Microsoft)
Musk (Paypal, Tesla, Space X)
All of these solved real problems and made a ton of money for it. I guess that some people consider the taint of wealth to be evil, validating that Heinlein quote, but all these folks increased the wealth of everyone.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 9:42 pm@115: the whaddabout defense.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 9:44 pm@120 I guess you never red “the pirates of silicon valley. Ford was a nazi and musk probabl is.
asset (e00beb) — 3/15/2025 @ 9:52 pmTrump has targeted government workers as the bad guy
Is he though? Many of his supporters see government bloat instead. Even if everything that Trump does is based on his personal whims, that does not mean that his supporters view it the same way.
Are people who occupy jobs of minimal benefit the good guys? Are government departments that operate in a labor-intensive mode, eschewing modern methods that could increase productivity and reduce head-count not self-serving? Doesn’t government need to be as efficient as reasonably possible, keeping the expense to the taxpayer within bounds?
I think that government owes fealty to the citizenry and taxpayers, not primarily to employees. The organization’s stated goals are more important than the organization itself.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 9:55 pmFord was a nazi and musk probably is.
Ford WAS a Nazi, or at least a virulent anti-Semite. American Jews did not buy his cars. I alluded to that with “other problems.”
Musk? He does have a fairly high opinion of himself, surely. But he has also built 3 wildly-successful companies that have solved 3 pressing problems: electronic payments, electric cars and much cheaper access to space. He probably considers himself a problem-solver and has a fairly low opinion of government in general, which opposes most innovation and imposes stultifying bureaucracy on everyone, especially him, rejecting anything it did not invent. Which is, truth be told, everything.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 10:03 pmWe didn’t make any guarantees, just assurances, which was weak on the part of Clinton, but the document was reaffirming our “obligation to refrain
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/15/2025 @ 10:05 pmfrom the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”, especially after leaving them in the weakened state of not having the nukes they gave over.
BTW, if you read any of my posts about Musk’s government intervention you would see that I am not a fan; he knows a lot about business and little about government. One thing does not inform the other.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 10:05 pmasset,
Let’s say that someone is a Nazi, but also say, cures cancer. Do you accept the cure, or do you reject it?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/15/2025 @ 10:06 pm“has a fairly low opinion of government in general, which opposes most innovation and imposes stultifying bureaucracy on everyone, especially him, rejecting anything it did not invent. Which is, truth be told, everything.”
He has made a tremendous amount of money from government contracts and programs, something that used to make conservatives upset about him.
“Let’s say that someone is a Nazi, but also say, cures cancer. Do you accept the cure, or do you reject it?”
Let’s say someone is a Nazi but also makes a lot of money from the government…
Davethulhu (d7e93f) — 3/15/2025 @ 10:31 pmMusk lucked out in coming from a well off family who could financially support his earlier efforts in business. He is, however, probably more self-made than Trump.
Nic (120c94) — 3/15/2025 @ 10:46 pmIt’s just one thing after another that tells us Trump is evil and is on the side of Russian evil. This time it’s his shuttering the Voice of America…
Granted, our one governmental media operation is a squirt gun compared to Putin’s governmental media operation firehose, but once again Trump is unilaterally favoring Putin, which disfavors the Ukrainian victim, which has been struggling against Putin’s Haze of Propaganda for eleven years, and it’s condemnable, one of multiple condemnable acts by Trump in less than eight weeks.
And just to recap, from Geraghty at NRO…
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/15/2025 @ 10:54 pmSo, here’s what Musk’s little brownshirts are doing to the Department of Defense. Not looking into why the Pentagon can’t pass an audit but things like the following:
Maj Gen Charles Rogers was a Medal of Honor recipient from the Vietnam war. He’s also black. I’ve linked his wikipedia entry here. In the references section there’s a link to an item on him on the defense.gov website. The link url looks like this:
https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/2824721/medal-of-honor-monday-army-maj-gen-charles-calvin-rogers/
if you try to visit that link, you get a 404 error and the url has been changed to this:
https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/2824721/deimedal-of-honor-monday-army-maj-gen-charles-calvin-rogers/
see the difference?
Davethulhu (d7e93f) — 3/15/2025 @ 11:12 pmWhile Trump is on his back with his legs up to the Great Vlad, Hungarians are mass-protesting against Orban, who is laying right next to Trump in the same prone position.
Like in Hungary, there are similar mass protests in Serbia against Putin.
They’re also in the streets of Bucharest, Romania for the same reason. Last December, the Romanians courts canceled a presidential candidate because of Putin’s intensive meddling in their electoral systems.
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/15/2025 @ 11:39 pmThis is what abuse of our First Amendment looks like by our enemies and adversaries, made worse by Trump’s unilateral canceling the broadcast of American values and principles over Voice of America…
Speaking of TikTok, Trump is ignoring statutory law by not canceling ByteDance, letting the ChiComs continue to monitor Americans via their algorithms.
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/16/2025 @ 12:12 amAnd for the sake of “fair and balanced”, I agree with Trump bombing the sh-t out of the Iranian-supported Houthis.
Paul Montagu (032a22) — 3/16/2025 @ 12:15 am@127 when a nazi cures my cancer I will let you know. I notice you didn’t want to mention the pirates of silicone valley. Eniac stole computer idea from abc computer. Gates ripped off seattle programer for is operating system. Who came up with the mouse? It sure wasn’t steve jobs and apple.
asset (e00beb) — 3/16/2025 @ 1:34 amIt is written that the Lord has made everything for His purpose and I suppose that includes parasitical grifters with dollar signs for eyes amassing wealth drop by drop from the sweat, and often the blood, of others.
I will not quarrel with Him over that, anymore than I would over the fact that it was 66 Fahrenheit in Chicago when I went to bed last night and now it’s 36.
Especially not on a Sunday.
And more especially since it only serves to deflect from the soullessness of taking glee in the misfortune of others which I reiterate was my point.
nk (d10c99) — 3/16/2025 @ 4:13 amhttps://x.com/NapolitanNews/status/1900934503020826648
Trump at 54% approval. Seems the American public approves.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/16/2025 @ 4:38 amI have been binging on “Get Smart” TV episodes myself. I’m up to Episode 33 where Siegfried of KAOS played by Bernie Koppell makes his first appearance.
I would not object to a Lifetime Achievement In Television Emmy Award for Trump. I think he more than deserves it.
Maybe a live theater Tony Award for his rally performances too. A ten-year run is not bad. Not bad at all.
nk (d10c99) — 3/16/2025 @ 7:18 amLet’s say someone is a Nazi but also makes a lot of money from the government…
You respond to a hypothetical with more libel. Fine, it’s how you roll.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/16/2025 @ 7:22 amthe soullessness of taking glee in the misfortune of others which I reiterate was my point.
I believe it is in cutting down the size of government that they are taking glee in.
Although I’ve never heard you complain about people taking glee in the deaths of young Russians in Ukraine. Probably because they were taking glee in Ukraine’s robust defense, where the young Russians were “just” collateral damage.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/16/2025 @ 7:28 amAnd really, why do you repeat the propaganda from those whose main cause is to defend the federal blob? You accuse Musk from making money off government, but he isn’t defending the bloat as you are.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/16/2025 @ 7:31 amHe has made a tremendous amount of money from government contracts and programs, something that used to make conservatives upset about him.
If his activities were as piss-poor as most of government, they wouldn’t be paying him and he’d be broke. Leftists call him a Nazi because he does well in the private sector and upstages those other government contractors — like Boeing — that have nothing to offer of late. Oh, and they have pictures of him raising his arm. The horror!
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/16/2025 @ 7:36 amTrump has 47% approval, with 55% disapproving his handling the economy.
I recall during the campaign when Trump or one of his eunuchs said he’d invoke the Alien Enemies Act to avoid due process. Sure enough, Trump invoked it and a federal judge blocked it because we’re not in a declared war.
There was a time when Americans made it easy for Cubans to escape socialist oppression, and now they’ve become a powerful Republican voting bloc in Florida, to which Rubio (whose parents left the island prison) could attest. Today, when there’s a similar situation in Venezuela, we’re doing the exact opposite.
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/16/2025 @ 7:50 amsee the difference?
Both links are dead, but Musk is not in the chain of command. How is this his fault?
I don’t defend whoever did that and I’ve said that a lot of Trump’s heavy-handed retail firings are misapplied. What he needs to do is cut entire organizations, not just the DEI or leftists engaging in #Resistance inside the government.
However, DEI is toxic as a method of achieving racial balance as much of it (especially “Equity”) is intended to separate performance from reward. The popular conception is that DEI is a codeword for institutional favoritism and that is especially galling to those hoping to advance their situation by working hard to do so, only to see less qualified people get the advancement instead. In some DEI regimes, anyone who complains is fired for being a bigot, generating no love for a program that is racist and sexist at its core.
It would seem that the idiocy of that weblink change is local to the group in charge of such things, and that the change was embarrassing (as it should have been).
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/16/2025 @ 7:58 amTrump invoked it and a federal judge blocked it because we’re not in a declared war.
ACLU, friend to thugs, death merchants and terrorists everywhere. Are people who enter the country illegally and join violent gangs here really due the same process as a citizen? Why isn’t ascertaining nationality, gang membership, and illegal entry all the process they are “due”?
If we find ourselves in
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/16/2025 @ 8:09 ama declared waran authorized military action, it will be the ACLU’s fault. Everything I’ve been told about the control Trump has on the Congress suggests that he has the votes.It’s a plain reading of the law, Kevin. We’re not in a declared war.
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/16/2025 @ 8:11 am#53 It occurred to me that, if we are going to do transgender experiments — and apparently we are going to continue doing so — we ought do them on mice, rather than our children.
Jim Miller (d4e315) — 3/16/2025 @ 9:08 amWhich means the United States did uphold its end of the bargain; as I don’t think the US has ever intended to threaten or use force against “the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”. That was our only obligation under the Budapest Memorandum; except to report violations to the UN Security Council.
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/16/2025 @ 9:15 amUnfortunately, the 5th Amendment due process clause, (which constrains the federal government) states that “no person…….shall be deprived be deprived of life, liberty…….without due process of law,” not just citizens.
My emphasis. Footnotes at link.
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/16/2025 @ 9:28 amMore:
With regard to aliens physically present in the United States, however, the Court has recognized that due process protections may constrain the government’s exercise of its immigration power.6
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/16/2025 @ 10:51 amWhat if an election can only take place after the suspension of martial law, and that that will happen only after say, a complete ceasefire has lasted for 180 days and continues till he date of an election. Putin is likely to overestimate the chances of a candidate he backs winning the election, Ukrainians overseas and in occupied zone will have to be arranged ib such a way so that Putin cannot cheat or at least not add more than 5% fraudulent or coerced votes. (he’ll have overconfidence in their impaact too),
After about 290 days he will be hard put to resume the war. (up till almost the last minute resuming the war could result in restoring martial law and cancelling the election or the counting of votes.)
This is maybe the only thing that will work: Putin thinking he has won a diplomatic victory (that depends on almost absolutely no fighting) where he hasn’t, and overcommitting himself to pause the war.
Sammy Finkelman (a94d2c) — 3/16/2025 @ 11:33 am> If we find ourselves in a declared war an authorized military action, it will be the ACLU’s fault.
Clearly neither Trump nor Congress have any moral responsibility for the choices they make. They’re *forced* to do things they don’t want to do by evil liberals like the ACLU, they have no actual agency of their own, they’re just puppets.
aphrael (124065) — 3/16/2025 @ 11:37 am53, 147 I git the alleged confusion between transgender and transgenetic from something Jimmy Kimmel said and later dida google search for both words but transgenetic does not appear to be on the NBC website, nor a word recognized here.
Sammy Finkelman (a94d2c) — 3/16/2025 @ 11:42 amRIP author and former LAPD detective Joseph Wambaugh (88):
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/16/2025 @ 11:54 am“Both links are dead, but Musk is not in the chain of command. How is this his fault?
I suppose it could have been noted rapist and alcoholic Pete Hesgeth. I had him pegged as a christian nationalist, not an overt racist, but I guess he contains multitudes.
Davethulhu (de027b) — 3/16/2025 @ 11:55 amMoreover:
Paragraph breaks added. Source
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/16/2025 @ 1:40 pmEven John Walker Lindh, who served and fought with the Taliban, wasn’t charged with treason against the United States. If he couldn’t be charged (probably due to the two-witness requirement), then nobody will be.
Rip Murdock (288dd2) — 3/16/2025 @ 1:57 pmOn a much lighter note, here’s a challenge for all of you. Describe a likely encounter between the Loser and a super hero. Here are two examples to get you started:
1. Superman agrees To play a round of golf with the Loser. Does the Loser try to cheat? Almost certainly in my opinion.
2. Wonder Woman captures the Loser with her Lasso of Truth. Is he forced to tell the truth? Yes, and the shock to him is great.
Jim Miller (0a64aa) — 3/16/2025 @ 3:36 pmDo you still support the designated terrorist group, antifa?
NJRob (7feac6) — 3/16/2025 @ 3:49 pmRob, is Antifa a “designated terrorist group”? What’s your proof?
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/16/2025 @ 5:36 pmDr. Thomas Sowell on tariffs.
Paul Montagu (240f25) — 3/16/2025 @ 5:38 pmGo ask Senator Bill Cassidy Paul.
You know they are terrorists. So why ask the question.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/16/2025 @ 5:45 pm“Rob, is Antifa a “designated terrorist group”? What’s your proof?”
There was a declaration, similar in impact to declaring today the start of “National Poison Prevention Week”.
Davethulhu (de027b) — 3/16/2025 @ 5:54 pmhttps://redstate.com/beccalower/2025/03/16/wh-presssec-blasts-criticism-of-us-deporting-gangbangers-to-el-salvador-we-did-not-refuse-to-comply-n2186739
Removing terrorists much to the chagrin of the left.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/16/2025 @ 6:16 pmYou made a specific claim, Rob, that they’re a designated terrorist group”, but a symbolic Senate resolution does not designate a terrorist group make, and they’re not on the FBI list of domestic terrorists.
This doesn’t mean they’re not violent or terrorists or don’t seek the overthrow of the US government, but words mean things, Rob, and making sh-t up doesn’t help you.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/16/2025 @ 6:34 pmSure it does. You are ignoring reality and moving goalposts as usual
I’m not surprised you’d give aid and comfort to leftist terrorists. It’s par for your course.
I didn’t specify the FBI. You did.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/16/2025 @ 6:46 pmYou said the phrase “designated”, Rob, so your intellectually dishonesty again rears its ugly head.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/16/2025 @ 7:10 pmSeriously, you seem incapable of not engaging in gross hyperbole and exaggeration, all in furtherance of your MAGA Narrative and Orange Leader.
It’s a plain reading of the law, Kevin. We’re not in a declared war.
And yet, Gitmo for terrorists in 2004. That wasn’t a “declared war” either, if you want to be a stickler about it.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/16/2025 @ 8:35 pmthe 5th Amendment due process clause, (which constrains the federal government) states that “no person…….shall be deprived be deprived of life, liberty…….without due process of law,” not just citizens.
But what IS due process anyway? Is it the same for every inhabitant?
All of these suggest that one gains 5th Amendment rights as part of one’s assimilation into American society. M5 was never about assimilation. They were just a gang preying on American society.
Again, what process are they due? Is what is due to a citizen the same as what is due to a violent illegal immigrant and gang member? Bork suggested that it was whatever process that they are given.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/16/2025 @ 8:52 pmRidiculous.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/16/2025 @ 8:55 pmAUMFs are tantamount to declarations of war. Liberals challenged that very thing decades ago and lost.
“I know it when I see it”
–Potter Stewart
I’m wondering if anyone disputes that the M5 gang engages in terrorism.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/16/2025 @ 8:59 pmAUMFs are tantamount to declarations of war
But they aren’t actually the same. Among other things, they don’t name a State adversary, and they don’t have a well-understood method of ending the conflict. They aren’t “war” in the Constitutional sense, they simply authorize the use of military force.
Time and again we run up against the limitations that not-being-a-war entails. Or do you argue that an AUMF against drug gangs in Mexico means that illegal entry from Mexico is an “invasion”?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/16/2025 @ 9:06 pmI seem to recall when Trump tried to block immigration from countries where an AUMF was in force, the judges blocked enforcement of his EO, where they would never, ever, do that in the case of an actual Declaration of War.
Clearly not the same thing.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/16/2025 @ 9:09 pmNjrob – so the courts are no longer a check on unconstitutional actions by the executive, apparently.
Why do you think it is a good thing?
aphrael (dbf41f) — 3/16/2025 @ 9:42 pmYet the courts didn’t make that distinction 20 years ago when the CodePink communists et al challenged the 2003 AUMF.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/16/2025 @ 9:46 pm@143 Ever hear of batista? Godfather II goes into it a little bit. Hugo Chavez was voted in like trump at which point US govt. and business interests began sabotaging him. You can’t rob pillage and rape and then ask th US to save you from the people’s wrath. Look what chinese sabotage with covid did to trump or he would have won in 2020 and AOC would have won in 2024.
asset (fb67f4) — 3/16/2025 @ 10:28 pmChuckie The democrat party, even the government unions want me to stand firm on no CR so I will! Senator aipac and your other donors are calling. I just got an offer I couldn’t refuse so I caved and will support CR! AOC can’t primary me untill 2028!
asset (fb67f4) — 3/16/2025 @ 10:40 pm@174,
Time123 (5410c8) — 3/17/2025 @ 4:31 amBecause he loves big government. Hates our constitutional System of government because it impedes his authority in tendencies, and most importantly, they took action against his preferred team therefore, they are his enemy. Figuring him out is easy.
Strawman. The actions were not unconstitutional and a leftist judge saying it is does not make it so.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/17/2025 @ 4:42 amYou’re lying as usual.
One side is trying to shrink the government and reduce the power of the state and You’re fighting against it tooth and nail.
Fraud.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/17/2025 @ 4:44 amAgain, what process are they due? Is what is due to a citizen the same as what is due to a violent illegal immigrant and gang member?
Is what is due for a Faberge egg the same as what is due for a hardboiled yegg (sic)? The due process is to determine what you have.
It’s not complicated:
nk (fb3cb9) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:20 am1. A duly enacted law;
2. Credible evidence that the person is or is not in compliance with that law;
3. An impartial adjudicator of pure Aryan heritage traceable back to 1750.
Hi Rob. I’ll wait patiently while you produce anything I’ve written that’s oppositional to the current efforts to shrink the government.
But the fact that you like the president reducing departments you feel are liberal doesn’t mean you want small government. I think you’re just happy Trump is attacking ppl you think are your political ‘enemies’. I also don’t think you care if he breaks the low or expands the power of the executive branch in his quest to do so.
As I’ve said in the past, you don’t want a smaller government that lets ppl do as they please. You want big government that forces ppl to do as you please. The only consistent principle you display is support for your culture war team. You seem to be completely amoral in all other regards.
Time123 (4d5e8f) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:45 amNK, I think that’s unfair. While Rob does seem to be at least mildly racist his primary adherence is to political tribalism more so than Bloodline.
Time123 (4d5e8f) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:47 amI hope they catch and prosecute the ppl who are vandalizing Tesla dealerships and cars. If they’re guilty of terrorism I hope they’re charged with that as well. Violence and criminality have no legitimate place in our politics.
Time123 (4d5e8f) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:50 amI was responding to Kevin M @ 169 (3/16/2025 @ 8:52 pm), not NJRob.
nk (a39bae) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:51 amFor context, the SS (Schutzstaffel) were the ones who packed the boxcars for “relocation”, and pure Aryan heritage traceable back to 1750 was a requirement for membership in their ranks with the occasional exception or exemption on a case by case basis.
nk (a39bae) — 3/17/2025 @ 6:03 am@185, My bad.
Time123 (4d5e8f) — 3/17/2025 @ 6:16 am@65
Obama put an end to that Paul by not observing that Memorandum. Any agreement after that is dead.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 6:45 am@88
Correct, both the US (Obama) and the UK did zilch.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 6:48 amDeclarations of war also authorize the use of military force. While al Qaeda was the purported target, the practical result was toppling the governments of two nations, like in a declared war.
As for this “invasion” from Mexico, seems like it would have to qualify as an invasion in the first place, which it don’t.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:14 amThat wasn’t the Executive Branch’s call to make. If Trump didn’t like it–given that he swore an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution–was to appeal the ruling, not flout it like the fascist he is (and you by extension).
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:18 am@190
Lets look at the word invasion.
Why does a state-actor or group invade their target?
It could be for territory.
It could be to punish their targets.
It could be to put diplomatic pressure on nations.
It could be to extract resources (theft).
These economic illegal aliens, breaking our laws or even abusing our asylum laws, are simply looking to for a better life.
Unfortunately, they’re doing so either after breaking laws, or under false pretense or otherwise NOT in good faith.
That’s theft at the very least.
Done in massed like recently?
Yeah, that’s an invasion.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:21 amA weak-ass response doesn’t mean that, in your opinion, we violated the deal.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:22 amso the courts are no longer a check on unconstitutional actions by the executive, apparently.
Why do you think it is a good thing?
So, the powers granted to the executive are subject to reversal by ANY district court judge? There’s maybe 700 of them, and a litigant only needs to find one favorable to their cause.
Makes one wonder why they didn’t include that little detail in the Constitution where they [pretended to] empower the Executive.
Also, given the tendency of courts to suggest that minimal interference with statutory powers is a duty when the executive does it, why does that not also apply to the courts? Maybe district courts should automatically stay their orders until an appeals court can hear the case. If it’s that important, won’t the appellate court take the appeal soonest?
Because that’s the line they’d use on the Executive. And it’s mostly not true.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:24 amGiven the 7-minute time difference between our comment and the time it took to write your response, it’s clear to anyone that you didn’t read the link, so your opinion is weighted and dismissed accordingly.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:25 amI was responding to Kevin M @ 169 (3/16/2025 @ 8:52 pm), not NJRob.
Thanks, nk. It’s always good to know who you want to slander.
However the stuff you called out is lifted directly from Rip’s #156, which itself is lifted from US Supreme Court holdings and/or sustained appellate court rulings.
So as it turns out, I’m not completely sure who you wished to slander
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:32 amnk and Time123, filling the smear void left by Klink.
lloyd (ad7579) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:50 amDid Klink leave or get banned?
Time123 (c5e8b1) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:54 amSeems like there’s an attendance to try and place romantic games with certain words, like invasion treason, traitor. In Some uses those words have specific meanings that require or justify specific responses. In other others, there being used rhetorically or not as terms of art or legal terms.
For example, when I say that left-wing support of communism or left-wing criticism of US policy with respect to totalitarian regime in the Middle East is treasonous, I am saying that they are betraying their country with their vocalized support and opinions. I am not saying that they have committed the criminal act of treason and should be treated accordingly.
Likewise, to say that large numbers of central American immigrants entering our country is an invasion makes perfect sense rhetorically. Attempting to use that rhetorically accurate phrase to justify the type of government response. We would see if a hostile army armed accordingly entered our country and began seizing territory is silly and a rhetorical game
Time123 (c5e8b1) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:57 am@190, I’ll try again since you seem to have misunderstood the question:
Or do you argue that an AUMF against drug gangs in Mexico means that illegal entry from Mexico is an “invasion”?
The point is that you aren’t being responsive to the AUMF vs Delcaration of War question. I hope to pin you down.
Code Pink argued that using military force required a declaration of war, and (unsurprisingly) the court said it is the same as far as actually using military force was concerned.
But your assumption that is was the same for everything (e.g. immigration controls) when it clearly was not (that would require suspension of habeas corpus or other domestic rights as part of the AUMF).
So, they are NOT the same thing, and your observation is off-point.
Note: I am not claiming anything about NJRob’s beliefs — they are his, not necessarily mine, and if you want to question those beliefs, ask him.
Also I didn’t claim that a hypothetical fentanyl AUMF justified calling “illegal entry from Mexico” part of an “invasion”, only whether the AUMF would do so by default. I don’t think it does for non-combatants.
Extra credit: Would someone carrying fentanyl across the border, given that AUMF, be accurately called an “invader” since they are effectively combatants?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:59 amEver hear of batista?
For some people nothing ever happens in history, except for ancient grudges.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:01 amThere are multiple issues here wrt “invasion” and I think the most important one is whether policing immigration is a proper function of the Border Patrol. I can’t see anyone arguing that it is not.
Is calling an individual who may be entering illegally, by means of falsifying documents or other subterfuge, an “invader”? No, unless you can demonstrate an organized series of attempts.
But, at the border, not all of the rights that pertain elsewhere necessarily apply there. In fact “an alien at the threshold of initial entry, including a person who is detained shortly after unlawful entry, has only those protections regarding admission that Congress provided by statute.” SCOTUS 2020.
The rest of Rip’s citation list agrees that rights are not as complete for some time after entry, measured by the degree that a person becomes part of our society. Do gang members, entering to join members of their foreign gang, satisfy that condition? Or is it more that they are part of the gang’s organized attempt to “invade”?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:19 amFor those that think their rights extend to attempted entry, I suggest bringing a laptop the, when they ask you to open it and enter the password, tell them to F.O.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:21 amSince everyone is talking about the Budapest Memorandum, the text of it is here:
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf
Russia violated this portion:
This is the only promise the US made:
Appalled (2e3820) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:29 amWow did voice to text ever garble my comment. 🤣sorry about that
Time12 (4b0220) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:40 amCongress is free to design a due process system for violent illegal immigrants and gang members, as long as it comports with Supreme Court precedents.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:42 amThe Budapest Memorandum doesn’t define “security assurances,” so both the US and UK are free to interpret what it means.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:45 amExactly my point-the Memorandum didn’t commit the US to anything beyond consulting with the UN Security Council. Any other interpretation goes beyond the plain text of the agreement.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:47 am@195
MBIC you might want to get off your high horse, or you shall too be weighed, and be found wanting…
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:47 am@199
Sorry, now… what are the rules?
I’ve been told that Trump’s speech was an insurrection on j6th…
Please help me keep these straight, it’s getting a weee bit confusing…
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:49 amYes, the principal of judicial review of executive branch actions (and laws passed by Congress) was established in Marbury v. Madison (5 US 137 (1803). But I’m sure you knew that.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:52 am@whembky, you should direct that question to whoever said that about his speech.
Time12 (4b0220) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:57 amWell, Trump is truthing that Biden’s “autopen” is void and null.
Nope.
No chance.
Don’t see how that’s possible… like how would that work?
Let’s agree with this premise: Biden was unaware and totally non compos mentis. His staff used the autopen to sign everything.
Say that’s true.
Even then, there’s no way to revert it, no way to “void” laws/EO/Pardons signed by the autopen.
I see no mechanism.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:02 am@212
I have, numerous times.
See past topics about using the 14th Amendment insurrection clause to kick Trump off the ballot.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:04 am#213
Do you think the Justice Department is going to ignore Trump’s declaration? Particularly if he converts it to an executive order?
Appalled (2e3820) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:06 amI reject the premise of the question, Kevin, because it’s circular and I’m not going to belabor your “invasion” theory because it’s a hypothetical that has no basis under law.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:09 amwhembly, your intellectual laziness is there for anyone to see, earlier with tariffs and now with “invasion”.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:11 am@215
We’ll know if DOJ charges people like Fauci or J6 committee members.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:16 am@217
Cool… more appeal to authority arguments.
…and I’m the lazy one?
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:17 amThat’s a nice slight of hand. You reject something saying that it’s not accurate, then when the person you’re talking to provides justification for its accuracy, you accuse them of engaging in an appeal to authority and ignore the justification provided completely.
Time123 (c5e8b1) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:22 am@214, I guess I was confused because you directed the statement to me, and I don’t recall that I’ve ever said that Trump‘s speech constituted criminal insurrection.
But I have to acknowledge that his actions in totality could reasonably argued to do so
Time123 (c5e8b1) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:25 amYes, the principal of judicial review of executive branch actions (and laws passed by Congress) was established in Marbury v. Madison (5 US 137 (1803). But I’m sure you knew that.
I’m pretty sure that Marbury did not establish that a district court could ORDER actions to be carried out by the President, or settle all disputes, nationwide, of a given type after hearing about one case.
It seems like what we have now is an ELECTED President and 700 minders with the power to veto, or require, actions that fall withing the enumerated powers of the Presidency after hearing from a party that chose their court for their likely ruling.
If I really wanted to sabotage the Rule of Law, this is how I would do it.
At the very least, only an appellate court should possess this kind of power, and any order desired by the trial court should be suspended until such review. The case should first be brought in the state or district where the tort occurred, in deference to Art III, Section 2, pp 3, and the 6th amendment.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:25 amI reject the premise of the question, Kevin, because it’s circular and I’m not going to belabor your “invasion” theory because it’s a hypothetical that has no basis under law.
Just for Fing once, read what people write, not what you think they must have written because your (wildly incorrect) assumptions about their beliefs cloud your mind.
For starters, it was a HYPOTHETICAL, not an assertion, you pompous prig.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:30 am@220
No magic here.
Paul’s mad that the tariff citation he presented to buttress his arguments isn’t given the same weight as he would like, when I brought up how other “experts” in their fields were proven wrong in recent years.
All I said was because of that history, we should proceed with caution.
He took umbrage to that.
Then, fast-foward to the immigration invasion argument, by presenting a link from Ilya Somin, and claiming that I didn’t read his link when I responded. (I knew of that whitepaper for quite some time).
Again, choosing to appeal to authority as fact, when in reality it’s much greyer.
He’s being catty, Time123.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:31 amKevin, that approach definitely makes a lot of sense. It’s not how we’ve been doing things and while I’m not a lawyer I think current law requires it to go to a district court first. Are you envisioning it that the district courts injunction would only apply to their jurisdiction? So people and other jurisdictions would have to file their own claim if they wanted relief from an order they believed to be unconstitutional?
Time123 (c5e8b1) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:31 amThere is no federal crime of “domestic terrorism” (DT) in the federal domestic code (some states do have a “domestic terrorism statute).
Presumably those who have firebombed Tesla dealerships can be charged under the federal arson statute (18 U.S.C. § 844(i)), which makes it a crime for
Perpetrators could also be charged with
As well as any co-conspirators. After conviction, the prosecution can ask for a “domestic terrorism sentencing enhancement” but the final decision is up to the judge.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:34 amI’m not going to belabor your “invasion” theor
I guess you group all who disagree with you as part of the same deplorable mob and figure you can slander any of them equally, since “they all deserve it.”
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:34 am@221
That is what I was referring to.
Here you are, making some noises how “words have specific” and how some are being “used rhetorically”.
You making the case that Trump’s “actions in totality could reasonably argued to do so”, is textbox hyperbolic.
Again.
I beseech you to tell me the rules.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:35 amAre you envisioning it that the district courts injunction would only apply to their jurisdiction?
Ideally, but that was not my intent here.
It was to limit the initial district court to one within the state and district in which the tort occurred to avoid, say, dragging an action in California into an East Texas court. While the constitution does not require that for civil cases (it does for crimes), it is indisputable that court-shopping of this sort DOES happen, for largely the same reasons that it was banned in criminal cases.
I admit that local judges issuing global orders rankles. I would be happier about it if the court was colocated with the problem and not just the one most likely to give the right answer. Such as an Hawaiian court making rulings about the southern border, or an East Texas court making rulings on product safety in a case whose main parties are in New York.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:47 amI can’t recall, but did you make the same argument when the Biden Administration was sanctioned by district courts with nationwide injunctions concerning student loan relief (or mifepristone)? As far as I know, the Supreme Court has never ruled against the concept of nationwide injunctions.
I think the number of nationwide injunctions against the current Trump Administration reflects his numerous attempts to test the limits of Presidential power over the past two months.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:48 amNo, just an appeal for you to read an argument for once, from people who happen to have expertise on a subject, but I can tell you’re stuck in your right-wing intellectual silo like the other MAGAs, so…
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:49 amPaul… a little truce here.
Here’s where I’m coming from.
We now know that governments world-wide knowingly lied and leveraged media/social media to prevent certain icky people from discussing certain icky facts that, oops! are now true, is why people don’t listen to “experts” in their fields, including public health officials.
Those who perpetuated these lies and censorship are scurrying behind any shelter and throat-clearing exercise and I’m here to remind the masses that we should keep these things in mind whenever “experts” makes certain positions, particularly when there’s heavy political contexts.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:50 am“By any means necessary.”
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:51 amLet me tray again.
Words have both ‘technical’ and ‘rhetorical / common’ usage.
Murder is an example. If I say that the health insurance company “Murdered” someone because they we’re unable to afford necessary care and died I could reasonable construed to mean
“The actions of the health insurance company were unjustified, immoral, and significantly contributed to the death” It would not be reasonable to concluded that I’m saying the facts show that they meet the legal elements for criminal Murder.
“Invasion” is similar. Many people agree that in casual usage a large influx of people seeing asylum or a jobs is an ‘invasion’. That’s not the same as saying that it’s the same thing as armed soldiers taking Land by force. WRT to the souther border it seems as if some people are asserting that because there’s some agreement that the rhetorical application of invastion is appropriate that the miltairy responses we would use if a ‘technical’ invasion occurred is also appropriate.
Is that more clear? I know the V2T really messed up my previous comment.
Time12 (4b0220) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:52 am@231
For the record, I have.
But that doesn’t mean they’re always right.
Economist get things wrong all the time.
Lawyers, of all people, get things wrong too.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:53 amKevin, I literally said your question was a hypothetical. Like you said, “read what people write”.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:53 amThat’s not an argument against what Lincicome wrote and in this very thread, Thomas Sowell, it’s a pout.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:55 amKevin, that makes sense. It’s not how we’ve been running things, but it’s logical.
Time (4b0220) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:55 amStill missing the point, whembly, because you didn’t address any tariff or invasion arguments made, or say where any of them got any of it wrong. Instead, you just waved it off because some experts got something wrong, therefore all experts should all be dismissed. That’s more than intellectually lazy, it’s intellectually dishonest.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 10:05 amcan’t recall, but did you make the same argument when the Biden Administration was sanctioned by district courts with nationwide injunctions concerning student loan relief (or mifepristone)?
Well, they lost the one they should lose and won the one should should have won. I had dismissed the silly mifepristone as not worth my time (and it was just such formum-shopping as I detest). I may have supported the student loan case(s) if I could remember which one. All were sustained anyway, indicating the local court had little hope to prevail (and was the one overstepping).
I think the number of nationwide injunctions against the current Trump Administration reflects his numerous attempts to test the limits of Presidential power over the past two months.
Perhaps. It is a president’s job, particularly one elected to make that his job, to test out erroneous limits of this sort. As long as the judge’s orders are stayed for review and not, say, verbal orders not in the decision or the time-frame for response does not prevent an appeal, I have no huge problem. But these hand-picked dragon-slaying judges ought to embarrassing even for the plaintiff.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 10:05 amThis illustrates the challenge of systemic reform, the Status Quo always benefits someone in the moment. You ca have a principled view of what should happen, but if that system hurt Pepsi today they won’t want to do it. Coke will want to do it, but only until doing it would help Pepsi. At that point Coke is opposed to the change.
Also, I’m not sure who wrote that, but Kevin is usually a reasoned and principled commenter (even if he does disagree with me a lot) and If he’s saying he believes something I’m inclined to assume he’s being honest and not arguing based on partisanship.
Time (4b0220) — 3/17/2025 @ 10:14 amKevin, I literally said your question was a hypothetical.
It is only circular because you insisted on it being so.
How is it circular to ask if an organized group, coming over the border to sell drugs and kill people, in concert, an “invasion” if there is an AUMF to stop them from doing so?
Yes, it is hypothetical because I do NOT believe that immigration for economic advantage is an “invasion” so I decline to use that to find out what you really think.
But you won’t tell me and I have to wonder why. You only mention it BEING hypothetical after you’ve declined to answer because it’s “circular” and because you confuse me with Rob.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 10:15 amnot arguing based on partisanship.
It would be a bit odd as I have never, not once, voted for Donald Trump. A pox on both their houses. I may, however, support some of his actions.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 10:20 amThis illustrates the challenge of systemic reform, the Status Quo always benefits someone in the moment.
Indeed.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 10:20 amIt’s not a military invasion. It might meet the non-military definition if there’s a lot of them. But as written this could be an organized group of 3 ppl.
Time (4b0220) — 3/17/2025 @ 10:26 amIt might meet the non-military definition if there’s a lot of them.
I believe that I suggested “M5” somewhere up thread. They are very organized and there are a “lot of them” throughout Central America. If there were only 3, it wouldn’t be a huge (or long-lasting) problem.
Depending on what one means by “military” it could even be that. If they have to be controlled by a nation-state, no, but as we’ve seen not all militaries are that way. We fought the Taliban for a while and they did proclaim themselves a “military” — while observing none of the rules. Was al-qaeda a military or just a bunch of terrorists? Yet we fought them with our military and treated them, more of less, under the Geneva rules.
The drug gangs in Mexico and Central America have destabilized every country in the region. Is that the actions of a few people?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 10:36 amDistrict courts are under the authority of the Circuit Court, thus their rulings are enforceable. This really hasn’t been a serious argument until Trump started with all the flouting.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 10:39 amAgain, because it’s not an invasion under law, so I’m not going there with you. I didn’t cite Somin because blue is a pretty color.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 10:41 amFunny how the Rule of Law suddenly matters on immigration after the same folks looked the other way the past four years.
lloyd (39bdfb) — 3/17/2025 @ 11:11 am@239
No.
You:
Me:
You:
Me:
You:
Me:
Shall we keep going?
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 11:37 amKevin, I shouldn’t have taken more time to consider the intent of the question. I still don’t think it counts as a military invasion…a large criminal enterprise is very different from the paramilitary arm of a state. It’s closer to a multi-national terrorist organization. But, I don’t think a large percentage of illegal immigrants are affiliated with the cartels. I don’t think treating it as we should a military invasion is a good or effective idea.
Time (4b0220) — 3/17/2025 @ 12:26 pm*should hhave
Time (4b0220) — 3/17/2025 @ 12:27 pmRelative to the total populations of each country, I would say yes.
Concerning “what is an invasion,” see Guarantee Clause (Article IV, Section I):
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 1:04 pmSince the Founding Fathers had no conception of illegal immigration or transnational drug gangs, it should be obvious the that reference to “foreign violence or invasion” was in a military context.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 1:09 pmRip, what about Pirates? Some of those early colonies had real problems there?
Not arguing. Just wondering what you think and if that applies.
Time123 (3a7079) — 3/17/2025 @ 1:12 pm@255
They were well aware of pirates when the US Constitution was passed… in Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, grants Congress the power to “grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal,”
Actually, no, it’s obvious that we don’t know it was in a military context. At best, it hasn’t been tested.
Congress really should pass laws addressing this.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 1:27 pmThe Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 11) granted Congress the power to issue “letters of marque and reprisal.” Rather than being a problem, many pirates were based in the colonies and colluded with colonial governors (for a percentage, of course.) Since many of the ships that were attacked were British, there was no love lost between the colonists and the shipowners.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 1:33 pmCongress should be doing a lot of things.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 1:34 pmIf you are an originalist, you do know. 😉
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 1:36 pm@259
I think you meant Textualist.
Originalism would imply that there’s a verifiable rationale someone can easily point to.
I might have some history homework… What did the state *do* during the American-Indian wars? I somehow don’t think the state sat down and waited for the Army to show up everytime battles sprung up.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 1:46 pmRip, I would say a pirate fleet bombarding a Charlotte until they surrender and pay ransom has more in common with a traditional military invasion then what we see at the southern border. The fact that they didn’t treat it as an act of war implies that some sort of ‘in between’ action was considered appropriate.
The boarder patrol is very well armed. The US army a much better equipped, but I don’t think Tanks and HIMARS are needed to in Laredo.
Time (cc3270) — 3/17/2025 @ 1:49 pm@260
Nope. Courts won’t touch it.
Nothing can be done.
This is a political question, not a legal one.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 1:50 pmHow do you see this as a political question? If things signed using the auto pen are invalid there’s likely a huge list of things that currently being treated as law when they shouldn’t be.
Either the auto pen is legal or it’s not….seems like a court case to me.
Also we’re probably 1 news cycle from a list of things Trump used the auto pen for.
Biden should have been impeached for his abuse of the Pardon power. He wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean Trump can ignore that it happened under some dumb pretext.
Although in fairness Trump asking for criminal investigation as a form or retribution does make some of Biden’s pardons appear less unjustified.
Time (cc3270) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:00 pm@264
Because courts have to presume that the Executive authorized it and it’s non-justiciable.
Unless JOE BIDEN himself, OR a documented recording otherwise, states that he didn’t know what the blazing was going on when these things were signed, I don’t see any avenue in court to revoke/reverse anything Biden AUTOPEN signed.
The proper channel would be:
a) impeachement
b) amendment #25
What does a & b equal to? Political questions that courts have traditionally stayed away from.
The fact that a or b didn’t happen doesn’t rend AUTOPEN’ed laws/EO/directives less valid.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:12 pmNope.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:18 pmYou: Down is up
Here’s another flouting of a court order. How many more floutings before Trump’s regime is fascist? When it’s a Circuit Court ruling?
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:24 pmNo, I mean originalist.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:29 pmActually, scratch that.
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:31 pmWhembly, I think this type of question (what is the process to make a presidential decision official) is something the courts can engage in. Courts have gotten involved in the past with what does/doesn’t count as an official presidential act. The Trump administrations claim (in court) that his delcarations on twitter were not sufficient to declassify a document are an example of that.
….but I agree with you that eliminating auto pen as a valid way to document the presidents directives would require a political change.
Time (cc3270) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:32 pmNo one said anything about actually prosecuting those pardoned by Biden, but the use of the autopen, and Biden’s knowledge of the pardons, can certainly be investigated by the DC US Attorney and FBI. I’m sure they will take the hint.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:35 pmWait, now I see that you were talking about the Trump’s claim that Biden didnt’ know what he was doing. I’m lumping that under “Trumps lies all the time and no one should believe anything he claims without independent proof”
Time (cc3270) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:37 pmThat’s what grand juries are for.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:37 pm@RIp, i look forward to seeing how the Trump circus does this.
Time (cc3270) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:42 pmI’ not certain as to what you are referring to.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:45 pmMy guess it will be harassing investigations by the DC US Attorney, FBI, and Jim Jordan.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:47 pm@270
The autopen, itself, isn’t the issue.
As far as I know, its been used by multiple administrations just fine.
The issue, is whether or not Joe Biden authorized it in each case.
We can probably agree that, towards the end, Joe Biden probably didn’t know where he was half the time and we can agree, that it was people within his administrations when abused the autopen to push their pet law/EO/pardons through.
But, I don’t think the courts will entertain whether or not Lynn Cheney’s pardon is valid if the Trump administration chooses to indict her.
All Cheney’s attorney has to say, is that “my client has a pardon signed by President Biden”.
If the DOJ pushes and demands that the Biden pardon is invalid, what is the court going to do? Request the former President to state whether he remembered ordering/signing this pardon???
I think the courts is going to accept Cheney’s attorneys’ statement that the pardon was issued by President Biden, and leave it at that.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:50 pmAll this whining about the courts since your court of last resort is the supreme court. In 1856 we had the same problem with the dread scott decision. President Jackson ignored the supreme court and forcible sent my people on a death march to oklahoma. The US later stloe most of that land from them. These were not savages ;but peaceful citizens living beside their white neighbors. Thats why the left’s court of last resort is different. From John Brown to Malcolm X. From Lexington green to today.
asset (976fba) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:53 pmThat has about as much evidence as Trump’s Truth Social post, which is to say, nothing.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 2:59 pmWhy not?
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:00 pm@280
Because it’s one of the core function of the Presidency. I don’t think courts can even wade into this controversy even if they wanted to…
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:14 pmBut what if what Trump said is true? Even you believe his aides signed off on pardons. That would be criminal.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:20 pmI’m sure the US Attorney in DC, the FBI, and Jim Jordan will feel less constrained.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:22 pm@283
Criminal, how, assuming Trump’s right?
Was the 25th Amendment invoked that I was unaware of?
Was Joe Biden adjudicated in court of law that he’s non compos mentis?
You just cannot declare he was out of his mind. There have to be verifiable proof that he was gone.
Or, someone ‘fesses up.
Don’t see either of those happening.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:24 pmI’m lumping that under “Trumps lies all the time and no one should believe anything he claims without independent proof”
Now, now, Time123. Poor Mr. President Trump is simply trying to help out the organic farmers of America because the Ukraine War sanctions paused the importation of Russian fertilizers.
nk (0dc86e) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:25 pmSome thoughtsg:0
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:30 pmJudge: “Hey Joey Boy… did you pardon your son and brother?”
Former President Biden: **shifts eyes sideway**
“…Yeah?”
Judge: “SWELL mate! Have a good day sir!”.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:36 pmThat’s why a grand jury needs to investigate.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:41 pmI think the important thing to remember is that this is good, Trump is demonstrating that he is a stable genius who is focused on the people’s business and not distracted by his own desires for retribution or petty concerns. I like that he’s getting a good nights sleep and not staying up ranting and raving like a lunatic on the Internet.
Time123 (da2924) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:46 pm@288 If we’re gonna pretend this is a serious thing, what crime would you expect them to investigate? And on what basis do you believe that the crime was committed?
Time123 (da2924) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:46 pmTo scrutinize Trump’s ravings too closely is to walk a perilously narrow path between perplexity and soul-destroying insanity.
nk (9267cf) — 3/17/2025 @ 3:59 pmWhether Biden’s staff used his autopen to issue pardons without his knowledge or approval.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 4:01 pmAnother win for Putin the war criminal, given to him by Trump…
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 4:02 pmThings not do with your Tesla:
Video of the recovery. Notice that the Cybertruck is tooting its “dive, dive, dive” horn.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 4:11 pmLink to post 295.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 4:22 pmSo what is it we aren’t supposed to be paying attention to while Trump has this relentlessly stupid tantrum about autopen pardons?
Nic (120c94) — 3/17/2025 @ 4:47 pmThis:
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:18 pm“So what is it we aren’t supposed to be paying attention to while Trump has this relentlessly stupid tantrum about autopen pardons?”
Trump sent a bunch of people to a slave labor camp in central america without due process, and ignored the judge who told him it was illegal.
Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:19 pmDoing your homework for you.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:26 pmRIP, on what basis do you believe that crime occurred?
Time123 (8b7385) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:30 pm@300 I think everybody knew that the allegation was complete BS. But it’s nice when the White House spokesperson acknowledges that it’s BS. It’s kind of you to provide the evidence that Trump was full of crap. This sort of even handedness is new for you.
Time123 (8b7385) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:31 pmI have no idea if a crime occurred-but let’s investigate anyway!
(To be honest, I was trolling those who do believe a crime occurred).
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:36 pm😉
You know who you are.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:37 pmDCSCA trolling?
Shocking.
Meanwhile this is going on.
Dustin (aabc87) — 3/17/2025 @ 5:55 pmNo, that’s called gasbagging and gaslighting to CYA for what he actually said, which was this…
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/17/2025 @ 6:22 pm> I think the courts is going to accept Cheney’s attorneys’ statement that the pardon was issued by President Biden, and leave it at that.
I believe this is an accurate prediction.
aphrael (dbf41f) — 3/17/2025 @ 6:46 pm18 U.S.C. § 1512(c) (1) & (2) [Sarbanes-Oxley]
(c) Whoever corruptly—
(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or
(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
It would be so very just.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:12 pmThat last was to #290.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:13 pm@293: Why would you want Trump investigating Putin?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:14 pmTrump sent a bunch of people to a slave labor camp in central america without due process
What process were they due, and what process did they get. All you have is the opinion of one judge that they didn’t get “enough” at least not to his satisfaction. The order was given in such a way that it could not be appealed.
Then there is this: The 5 named plaintiffs, who feared being returned to Venezuela, were not transported; they remain in US custody. Instead the entire brouhaha is over persons transported who were not litigants in the first place.
I thought that is was a tradition that people not party to a case should not have orders entered in their name.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:27 pmThe judge’s admonition to the DoJ folks was
as if the verbal order to turn the planes around was possible to appeal.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:30 pmOTOH, I agree that it would be better if there was a second source to these Trumpian revelations.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:34 pmNope, why argue. Everyone on here knows the score, a neo-fascist Nazi curious gasbag ran for president as a Nazi curious gasbag, and since enough Americans’ are still sympathetic to a Nazi curious gasbags, that’s what we got.
All the trying to pick a kernel out of this blizzard of shyte, is irrelevant. He’s evil, his party is evil, and if you’re spending a billionth of a second defending any of it. Well, you chose the 2025 Nazi short bus.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:43 pmWhat we are seeing now, regarding deportations, is an attempt to confuse and distort reality by those who actually want ALL deportations stopped forever, for whatever reason.
So, when thousands of fully justified deportations happen daily, what makes the “news” are those that are questionable. Not wrong, just questionable as in “a question could be asked as the government has not utterly proven every case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
So we get reports on a professor returned to Lebanon, but nowhere is the WHY question entertained.
So we get reports of poor, misunderstood, Fentanyl-slinging drug dealers who cannot show how they got in being sent off to thug prison in a central American hellhole, which strikes few as wrong.
Why are these things happening? It’s like this: for 30 years we have been ignoring the law and we now have someone who is tired of it. What do we get? The same people how have been FIGHTING to ignore the law for 30 years now turn out to be experts on it.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:43 pmWell, you chose the 2025 Nazi short bus.
You just chose the plain old short bus. We know what you are. Blithering idiot.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:47 pmWhy is it always invective, lies and personal attacks with this clown?
Trump will win as long as his opponents go all stompyfoot and call people names. Screaming won’t help.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/17/2025 @ 7:51 pm“What process were they due”
They’re due the process that any person in the united states is due
“and what process did they get.”
You tell me.
“All you have is the opinion of one judge”
How many judges do they need?
“as if the verbal order to turn the planes around was possible to appeal.”
sorry, we’re too far along in our crime to stop now.
Davethulhu (2546b0) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:10 pm“So we get reports of poor, misunderstood, Fentanyl-slinging drug dealers”
How do you know that they’re drug dealers?
Davethulhu (2546b0) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:15 pmScientists have just cured pancreatic cancer with a vaccine (DU) To bad trump is shutting the program down to use the money for tax cuts for the rich.
asset (87a21a) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:21 pmAhh…Kim Jong Un, you up?
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 3/17/2025 @ 8:57 pmThe leader of North Korea is considered to be the best golfer in the world. In 2004, North Korean media reported on the golfing prowess of Kim Jong Il, the father of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Kim shot 38 under, including 11 holes-in-one, at the 7,700-yard championship course at Pyongyang in the VERY FIRST golf round of his life, according to North Korean state media. This was in 1994, when Kim was 52 years old. The North Korean media does not report on the golf skills of the current leader, Kim Jong-un, but perhaps North Koreans are convinced he’s very good, because his father was the ‘God of Golf’.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 3/17/2025 @ 9:20 pmI don’t mind Andrew Giuliani picking up Trump’s ball at the tee, walking it over to the lip of the hole, and marking it as three strokes for the hole when Trump taps it in.
I do mind A Girl, A Goat, A Dog, And A Gun’s Ho Man detaining U.S. citizens as illegal aliens because they have a name that ends in a vowel.
nk (9267cf) — 3/18/2025 @ 4:10 amI’m afraid that we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg with the cases of Mahmoud Khalid, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, Rebecca Burke, and Julio Noriega.
Not overzealousness, but soft targets. Low-hanging fruit.
I think that Tom Homan, once a cop but now a bureaucrat and political appointee, is padding his deportation numbers by going after “aliens” who are easy to identify and easy to catch because they are documented, having applied for Adjustment Of Status through e.g. marriage to a U.S. citizens or H-1B employment by a U.S. employer, and “undocumenting” them.
That’s not stopping an invasion. That’s malevolence.
nk (9267cf) — 3/18/2025 @ 4:57 am@308
Oh my brother in Christ, you just know Trump is petty enough to pursue this.
That’s the exact statute the Biden DOJ used to enhance the J6ers to felonies.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/18/2025 @ 6:31 amThey should have used domestic terrorism laws for that.
Time123 (5e77a6) — 3/18/2025 @ 6:54 amlmao
lloyd (eca42e) — 3/18/2025 @ 7:09 am@326
You wanna know why they didn’t do that?
Because even with the most zealous prosecutors and the most compliant judges/juries these democrats could ever hope for…even they didn’t think it was applicable.
That’s was WHY they went with §1512(c)(2) with most of j6ers, to try to force a square peg into a round hole, in order to elevate misdemeanors to felonies. Whom SCOTUS biatch-slapped the Biden DOJ in Fischer v. United States.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/18/2025 @ 8:32 amBullspit. It’s getting rid of terrorist supporters who are providing aid and comfort to the enemy.
NJRob (390907) — 3/18/2025 @ 8:45 am@328 You don’t think violently assaulting the police and seizing control of the US capital is an act of domestic terrorism?
Time (4a58b7) — 3/18/2025 @ 9:15 am“Bullspit. It’s getting rid of terrorist supporters who are providing aid and comfort to the enemy.”
Trump massively oversold the number of “criminal aliens” so now he’s rounding up anyone with a tattoo and calling them M13.
Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 3/18/2025 @ 9:16 am@330
That’s not terrorism.
That’s assault of a police offer and there are laws on the books for that.
“seizing control”??
The idea that the capitol was “seized” like some capture the flag tactics is so far from reality, that it’s lunacy.
The Trump Era really did damage to some of ya’lls perception to reality.
And you whine about people not being precise with words just recently.
Time, I don’t know what to do with you…
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/18/2025 @ 9:20 amThere have been many acts of violence at the US Capitol during our history. Some ended in civil war. The rest led to the maximum criminal charges against the perpetrators that sent a message not to use violence at the Capitol, including the J6 defendants. Carter and Trump are the only presidents who pardoned the perpetrators.
DRJ (a84ee2) — 3/18/2025 @ 9:38 amWhembly, good to know how you view the situation.
Time (4a58b7) — 3/18/2025 @ 9:40 amTime’s analysis and use of language is accurate. It was terrorism (the unlawful use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims) and an effort to seize conttol (to attempt to take control of something, often forcefully or unexpectedly, and without permission or authority).
DRJ (a84ee2) — 3/18/2025 @ 9:59 amProbably more poor communication on my part but that wasn’t at all what I was trying to say.
My point was that words have multiple meanings and you can’t use agreement on Definition 1 to justify the response you’d have with definition 2.
Maybe that will be a better way to present my point.
Time (4a58b7) — 3/18/2025 @ 10:02 am@335, it was only for a few hours but Republican Terrorists did successfully seize control of the Capital building.
Time (4a58b7) — 3/18/2025 @ 10:10 amSeizing the administration building at Columbia wasn’t terrorism, right? I’m told it was free speech.
The J6 folks were jailed and cancelled. What more do you want?
lloyd (392973) — 3/18/2025 @ 10:25 amUnacceptable. All three below are advantage Putin….
“The Russian version by the Kremlin also mentions the following demands for a 30 day ceasefire:
1. Stop on any military aid from the U.S. and any other ally
2. Stop on intelligence sharing [so Ukraine doesn’t know when and if Russia is preparing to attack it]
3. Stop draft”
Paul Montagu (ceb12d) — 3/18/2025 @ 11:09 am@335
or, here me out… it was a riot that got out of control.
Hyperbolically, making a mountain of an anthill undermines your positions when discussing this topic.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/18/2025 @ 11:30 amI’ve commented before that there will be negative consequences of the elimination of the post WW2 order. My main concern is nuclear proliferation. But the announcement that 4 nations that border Russia are withdrawing from the land mine treaty.
It’s not the end of the world, but it’s a sign that my concern has some validity.
Time (4a58b7) — 3/18/2025 @ 11:34 amJ6 protestors did enter the Senate and House chambers, prevented the Electoral College vote count from continuing (forcing the evacuation of Pence and others), and ransacked offices. They weren’t tourists.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/18/2025 @ 11:34 am@342 And that’s what many of them wanted to do. It wasn’t an unintended consequence of a protest that got out of control. Large amount of evidence available about the Republican Terrorists intent.
Time (4a58b7) — 3/18/2025 @ 11:49 amIn 2020, Trump’s AG explaining how riots often become domestic terrorism.
DRJ (f5a15e) — 3/18/2025 @ 11:52 am@344 he wasn’t wrong there.
Time (4a58b7) — 3/18/2025 @ 11:53 amRIP, John “Paddy” Hemingway, 105. Last “Battle of Britain” pilot
He was shot down 4 times during the war. He died Monday at the age of 105.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 3/18/2025 @ 11:57 amThank you for posting that, Kevin. There were many men like him then, thankfully.
DRJ (a84ee2) — 3/18/2025 @ 1:00 pmIf Donald Trump had been elected President instead of FDR in 1940, he would have ended that conflict within 24 hours of the elections while still President-Elect.
nk (7c9181) — 3/18/2025 @ 1:05 pmhttps://nypost.com/2025/03/17/us-news/civil-rights-enforcement-agency-opens-probe-into-columbia-university-over-janitors-trapped-and-attacked-by-anti-israel-mob/
Tye anti-semitism rampant on the left is destroying all our institutions.
NJRob (c2842a) — 3/18/2025 @ 2:56 pm@346 Don’t forget the polish squadron 303 who despite prejudice was the highest scoring squadron in the battle of Britain. Dowding said without them I don;t see how we would have won the battle of Britain.
asset (634e80) — 3/18/2025 @ 3:27 pmWelcome back to NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore! (We can discuss what went wrong, in a week or two.)
Jim Miller (7b1582) — 3/18/2025 @ 3:37 pm> It’s getting rid of terrorist supporters who are providing aid and comfort to the enemy.
Bureaucrats, like all humans, make mistakes. The fact that the people *removing* the individuals who were removed believe them to be terrorist supporters providing aid and comfort to the enemy doesn’t mean that they’ve got the right people.
We’ve all seen stories of warrants being served on the wrong apartment, people being arrested because they happen to have the same name as the person who was intended to be arrested, and the like.
The *point* to the due process requirement in the fifth amendment is in part to protect people from this kind of accident. We should not have to take the government at its word that it didn’t make a mistake and pull the wrong people accidentally; the government should be required to *demonstrate* that it didn’t make a mistake before shipping people off to an El Salvadoran jail.
Otherwise there is no bar whatsoever to it being done to *any of us*, by mistake, and nobody is safe.
aphrael (dbf41f) — 3/18/2025 @ 3:42 pmhttps://pjmedia.com/chris-queen/2025/03/18/watch-live-stranded-astronauts-return-to-earth-n4938038
Just doing the rescuing the last administration refused to do.
NJRob (c2842a) — 3/18/2025 @ 3:46 pmAphrael,
how many gang tattoos do you accidently have and how many gang affiliations?
I’m guessing zero.
NJRob (c2842a) — 3/18/2025 @ 3:48 pmOther than the fact that the administration claims the people it ejected have these characteristics, how do you know they do?
The entire point to procedural due process is that we can’t trust any executive with the power to do these things without someone independently verifying that they aren’t just making shit up and/or wrong about the people they are going after.
Why do you trust this administration to be so inhumanely capable that they will make no mistakes?
aphrael (417bf6) — 3/18/2025 @ 4:00 pm“Just doing the rescuing the last administration refused to do.”
They weren’t stranded.
Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 3/18/2025 @ 4:01 pmAdmins – I have a comment on moderation, probably because I used the phrase “making s— up”
aphrael (417bf6) — 3/18/2025 @ 4:02 pmOther than the fact that the administration claims the people it ejected have these characteristics, how do you know they do?
The entire point to procedural due process is that we can’t trust any executive with the power to do these things without someone independently verifying that they aren’t just making stuff up and/or wrong about the people they are going after.
Why do you trust this administration to be so inhumanely capable that they will make no mistakes?
aphrael (417bf6) — 3/18/2025 @ 4:04 pm“how many gang tattoos do you accidently have and how many gang affiliations?”
Asserting facts not in evidence.
Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 3/18/2025 @ 4:04 pmIf the left ever wants to get back in power it needs to stop being on the side of perverts and criminals on all the 80/20 issues.
NJRob (c2842a) — 3/18/2025 @ 4:39 pmLike him?
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/18/2025 @ 4:55 pmThe 1798 law allowed japanese americans to be put in internment camps so we can use the law when democrats win to put trumpsters in camps.
asset (2a8065) — 3/18/2025 @ 9:04 pmIt’s not just about the indiscriminate slashing, it’s the malevolence that goes along with…
Paul Montagu (6e4595) — 3/19/2025 @ 6:51 am@362
That’s not a Bill of Attainder.
Bill of Attainder is a legislative function (that’s banned).
I don’t know what Trump’s executive action here would be called, but it’s not the legislative attainder.
Trump essentially commanded the executive branch not to do business with a certain law firm.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/19/2025 @ 7:12 amwhembly:
You way understate what Trump’s EO did. All security clearances for Perkins Coie have been removed, as have been access to federal facilities. That could be construed as keeping Perkins Coie lawyers out of the courthouse or any regulatory agency buildings. This is a direct assault on PC’s ability to do business as a law firm. It’s kind of equivalent to an executive branch disbarment of the entire law firm.
I think Trump loses this battle — provided he does agree to submit to court orders.
Appalled (2e3820) — 3/19/2025 @ 7:59 amThe Executive Orders does more than that; by denying security clearances and access to federal buildings to Paul Weiss and Perkins Coie lawyers and support staff, it deprives their clients the lawyers of their choice to represent them in civil or criminal litigation in any context.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/20/2025 @ 9:32 amCovington & Burling is the third law firm that has been blackballed by Trump. So far only Perkins Coie has fought back, winning a temporary restraining order blocking parts of Trump’s EO. I expect the law firm that is representing them, Williams Connolly, will be the fourth law firm to be blackballed.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/20/2025 @ 9:42 amThe CBS EVEning News led off last night with a story about a Venezuelan who was sent to that orison camp in EL Salvador whose family is unable to contact him (cellphones are disabled there and their heads are shaved)
They suspect (but were not told) it’s based on a tattoo that he got when his daughter was born. He was detained when he came in for his check-in.
There are more stories like that.
These fools don’t know what is a gang tattoo and what is not, and didn’t investigate, nor do they understand that nit all tattoos qualify as insignia of gang membership (it has to be something recognized by a gang to be useful to them) and they don’t care and the people in charge assert they don’t need to care, because presence in America is a privilege.
Sammy Finkelman (5aee2e) — 3/20/2025 @ 11:14 amRip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/20/2025 @ 9:32 am
They can still use them, but they will have to hire other lawyers too.
Now there is a real problem with some of these law firms.
Sammy Finkelman (5aee2e) — 3/20/2025 @ 11:17 amSammy,
There is a good collection of stories here:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69741724/jgg-v-trump/
Click on the exhibits in Item 44. Here is a sample story that is pretty horrifying:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278436/gov.uscourts.dcd.278436.44.5_5.pdf
Appalled (e7d5f2) — 3/20/2025 @ 11:19 am> Covington & Burling is the third law firm that has been blackballed by Trump. So far only Perkins Coie has fought back, winning a temporary restraining order blocking parts of Trump’s EO. I expect the law firm that is representing them, Williams Connolly, will be the fourth law firm to be blackballed.
The endgame on this is to blackball any law firm with the temerity to represent someone suing the federal government, thereby effectively immunizing the federal government from any sort of legal process.
The republic has fallen. Welcome to the dictatorship.
aphrael (4b5942) — 3/20/2025 @ 11:20 amSpecifically, what problems?
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/20/2025 @ 11:25 amTime (4a58b7) — 3/18/2025 @ 11:49 am
Which means it wasn’t instigated by Trump’s speech at the Ellipse. And the fact that Trump expected to go the Capitol is proof he had no idea it would happen – had already started happening in fact.
And it interfered with and upended his real plans for the day (which were doomed to fail by the way) and had they succeeded in stopping the count for two weeks it would only have made House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Acting President.
It would not have extended Trump’s term by a single additional second. And Trump knew that he needed to be certified President-Elect to continue in office.
Sammy Finkelman (5aee2e) — 3/20/2025 @ 11:29 amRip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/20/2025 @ 11:25 am
They hired Christopher Steele and were used to avoid camoaign finance reporting laws. They lied about Steele being hired first by a Republican (it was for searching public records)
Perkins hired Steele as a spy to find out why Putin was supporting Trump. They got back nonsense, (Putin probably thought he was working for somebody British)
After thinking it over, they then decided to use it anyway to try to get an FBI investigation of Trump started and then leak it. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wrote about it October 30, 2016.
They also helped cover up Hillary’s email situation,
Sammy Finkelman (5aee2e) — 3/20/2025 @ 11:37 amParroting Trump’s argument in the EO. Was any of that illegal or unethical?
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/20/2025 @ 11:45 amI think it was, but there’s a large grey area.
The judge called it a Bill of Attainder because she must have thought some of the allegations were of doing things that were unethical or even illegal, but unproven.
Sammy Finkelman (5aee2e) — 3/20/2025 @ 12:12 pm@379
Illegal? Possibly skirting campaign finance laws and others.
Unethical? You betcha.
whembly (b7cc46) — 3/20/2025 @ 12:13 pm