Open Mic for the week of 4/22/2024
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to the front page.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
Happy Birthday, Oppenheimer!
So. How’s about that Columbia University protest? Pretty crazy!Report
I see in more-recent photographs that they’ve taken down the paraglider balloons.Report
I have started to see “those aren’t students, those protests aren’t taking place on campus” arguments.
So there are some minor attempts to self-police.Report
Ilhan Omar points out:
We need to investigate whether there are outside agitators deliberately infiltrating these protests and making the participants look bad.Report
Columbia’s President overreacted to her Congressional hearing and made things worse.Report
“THE REAL STORY OF THE ISRAELI COUNTER RESPONSE”
https://twitter.com/RealPepeEscobar/status/1781652011173253524
Disclaimer: I don’t follow this guy, I don’t know who this guy is, I have nothing to support his assertions. But it is interesting.Report
that is the stupidest goddamn thing I have ever heard in my lifeReport
I also found it hard to believe….but stranger things have been claimed.Report
If true, this is something that would have debris equal to a dirty bomb. Even the best case scenario would require a handful of guys in lead suits with bulldozers at first and then tongs and tweezers to get the remainder of the worst parts of the worst parts.
If there are pictures of guys dressed like welders walking around, I’d say that this meets the standard of a fun conspiracy theory. Without that, it not even fun.Report
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crashReport
I don’t know enough about aircraft to be able to make a reasonable guess about the difference between the types of wreckage left by a plane breaking apart in midair versus a plane getting hit by a missile.Report
I think it all fits under “not recommended”.Report
Not that I believe it anyway. And the sourcing (guy in Asia), it’d take a long time to disprove that.Report
You’re not impressed with his “very high level intel source”?
He has access to the top men.
Top. Men.Report
Oh man, I missed a great setup there.
Jaybird: I don’t know enough about aircraft to be able to make a reasonable guess about the difference between the types of wreckage left by a plane breaking apart in midair versus a plane getting hit by a missile.
Me: Then you’d make a good NTSB investigator in Russia.Report
The Times has a good lock on how property deeds from over 200 years ago are messing with housing today because they have restrictive covenants mandating 8 foot setbacks: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/04/19/realestate/st-francis-college-brooklyn.html
One of the big issues with YIMBYism is that its arguments are correct but often wonky, technical, and very, very boring. No one wants to listen to people talk about 8 foot setbacks. Developers and yuppies are basically stock villains from children’s movies.Report
To be fair to the people from 200 years ago, the issue is less about the 8-foot setback causing problems in itself and more about a developer trying to play games by Just Happening To Notice At The Last Minute This One Little Wrinkle and the seller saying “all right, we walk” and the developer getting salty about it.Report
Right-wing outlet C-SPAN posted some footage of Biden doing what Biden does.
I kinda feel bad for him. Because the whole protests on the various college campuses are out of hand and doing a great job of undercutting college education in general (for the record: I don’t think that the college debt of the kids doing these particular protests ought to be on the table for college debt forgiveness) but, with that said, there have been a handful of…
Let’s call them “excesses”. Everybody doesn’t mind that word, right?
There have been a handful of excesses on the part of the Israeli army in their attempts to delenda est Hamas. I know that you might ask “what part of ‘delenda est’ did you not understand?” and that’s a fair rejoinder but there have been enough undisciplined excesses that it’s done a good job undercutting the overall mission to the point where the middle has moved and new people are saying “just declare victory and go home” every day.
Because the antisemitic protests *DO* suck. But you also need to have sympathy for what’s going on with the Palestinians, and how they’re being…
(What the heck is wrong with reporters these days? That looked like it was fixing to be an interesting sentence!)
Report
Any Democratic President would be stuck between a rock and a hard place because the I/P issue splits the party right down the middle. You have lots of people very sympathetic towards either the Israelis, the Palestinians, or even both for some real altruists and a bunch of Further Left antic makers and Further Right trolls taking advantage of this. I’m not personally inclined to give the Pro-Palestinian activists in the United States a favorable review and think they should do more to clamp down on the anti-Semites among their mists.Report
I imagine that most people looking at the issue are torn because, on the one hand, it’s very easy to be sympathetic to the Israelis and 10/7 was really bad. On the other hand, it’s very easy to be sympathetic to the Palestinians and the response to 10/7 is wandering fairly close to “really bad” territory.
The calls for a ceasefire are as much wishful thinking in the good sense of the term as they are wishful thinking in the bad sense. “Maybe stop killing each other.”Report
Realities of war are hard to stomach and lend themselves to wishful thinking.
We insisted that Israel guard those aid convoys. This instantly became the Israeli guards shooting Palestinian civilians. With the benefit of hindsight that looks predictable.
Similarly we have a lot of people insisting that the two sides make a deal. Israel wants it’s hostages back (which Hamas literally can’t do). Hamas wants Israel to end the war and tolerate the occasional 10/7 (ditto).Report
If we want to move “never again” to a weaker version of “okay, sometimes you just have to commit a little genocide”, we can…
But I think who we are now are not going to like where “okay, sometimes you just have to commit a little genocide” will have taken us.
To be fair, by the time we’re there we’ll probably be a lot cooler with it.Report
The “we” who has to agree to this is the Israelis.
What I am pointing out is after we strip away the wishful thinking, that’s what we need to talk them into accepting.
This is where Biden has done a good job. He understands that’s a non-starter.
Ergo “the US should pressure the Israelis into accepting a cease fire” needs to include “a cease fire which doesn’t include Hamas doing the occasional 10/7”.
The US’ idea is a 6 week cease fire where the hostages are released and we flood Gaza with aid. Israel hates the idea but we could probably force them to accept it.
Hamas also hates the idea because it would have to admit what it has been doing to the hostages which would enflame the situation. They think that after the body count gets high enough Israel will be forced to back off no matter what they do.Report
So a little ceasefire and then Hamas can break it and then we can call for another little ceasefire and then Hamas can break it and then we can call for another little ceasefire and then Hamas can break it and then we can play that game for a while?
I can see Israel getting sick of that pretty quickly.
I can see Israel saying “WE’VE ALREADY GOTTEN SICK OF PLAYING IT!”, actually.Report
I think Israel would go for it if it didn’t include them with drawing from Gaza and they got their people back.
Their army could take a break and get ready for the next phase.
I’m not convinced Hamas views aid as something good. Their entire path to victory is getting as many of their own civilians killed as possible.Report
The only way to get the situation into a state of not fighting at least involves getting Hamas out of Gaza. Nobody has any idea how to do this. The IDF knows that war won’t get rid of Hamas. The West is sticking to magical underpants gnome and desperation theory.Report
Would genocide do it?
Because, if it wouldn’t, I’d say that further engaging in warfare wouldn’t solve it either.
And so, yes, stopping the warring wouldn’t stop it but if we’d established that warring is orthogonal to stopping Hamas, then warring is using up resources that would be better spent elsewhere (or not spent at all).Report
JayBird: if we’d established that warring is orthogonal to stopping Hamas
Turning the other cheek isn’t going to do anything useful.
Israel could fail to totally eliminate Hamas and still do useful things. Reducing the resources they can access is useful.
Unfortunately this takes us to “terrorism causes poverty”.
That UN agency which has been teaching the Palestinians that they have a RoR might get reformed out of this.
This generation of Palestinians might learn a 1 to 100 death rate is a Pyrrhic “victory” that shouldn’t be repeated.Report
Would genocide do it?
Because, if it wouldn’t, I’d say that further engaging in warfare wouldn’t solve it either.Report
We can’t remove them entirely but it’s not a reach to think things might get better if they’re not in charge.Report
It’s difficult to tell the people with guns and the willingness to use them that they’re not in charge.Report
Hamas isn’t going anywhere unless made to go somewhere.Report
Heh, the reporter stopped him from the payoff word(s).
Being what? Now the listener/reader gets to insert whatever word *they* want it to be and that becomes Biden’s position on the matter.
Being treated; being misgoverned; being let down; being used; being abused; being murdered; being genocided… etc.Report
That was definitely an “m” he was going for.
And now we have a Rorschach test.
“He was going for ‘misgoverned'” versus “he was going for ‘murdered'”.
And, of course, the “Heck yeah he was!” versus the “Well, you have to understand…” versions of each.Report
It is so utterly surprising that Jews don’t quite believe anti-Zionists when they say they are merely anti-Semitic. Hat tip, you really need to go deep into treacherous waters to get a Jew to defend the murder of other Jews:
https://twitter.com/SwannMarcus89/status/1782266541737701527?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1782266541737701527%7Ctwgr%5E2ce429fad0ac891e383e79f8eaa5d179848395ae%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dlawyersgunsmoneyblog-comt_i%3D14105520https3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F3Fp3D141055t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F20242F042Foverreacting-to-campus-protestst_e%3DOverreacting20to20Campus20Protestst_d%3DOverreacting20to20Campus20Protests20-20Lawyers2C20Guns202620Moneyt_t%3DOverreacting20to20Campus20Protestss_o%3Ddescversion%3Dffd5abc747f4e829755c5fb02e9b588fReport
On the one hand, there are many examples of this. On the other hand, Sophie is a rando on twitter and go called out quickly for being clueless and extremeReport
A bunch of randos can add up to a big problem.Report
This is probably relevant for many threads going on right now but this seems the most appropriate. I am currently reading Cold War Exodus, a recently released book about the history of mainly, but not entirely, American Jewish activism, to rescue the Jews of the Soviet Union. I was alive for the last ten to eleven years of the movement. What is amazing, and dismaying to me, is how much of this got memory holed rather than included in the collective consciousness of post-WWII human rights struggles.
After World War II, the USSR was engaged in pretty much an active campaign to destroy all Jewish culture and identity. Even the explicitly Soviet Jewish identity that was allowed to somewhat thrive under Stalin ended up getting destroyed. Israel set up a bureau in their foreign ministry called Nativ to help preserve Jewish religious identity. Jews from the United States, UK, France, and other Western countries would smuggle in Judaica, medicine, and other items to Soviet Jews when going as tourists to the Soviet Union. There were antics at Soviet missions, big protests, etc.
And this entire thing isn’t seen as part as part of the various liberation struggles after World War II. South Africa, Central America, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Algeria’s fight against France, LGBT liberation, civil rights in the United States. Those are part of the liberation narrative. The fight of Jews to save Soviet Jews from cultural and political genocide. That is either memory holed or just seen as a parochial Jewish issue rather than part of a universal human liberation struggle. Kind of shows the truth of David Baddiel’s Jews Don’t Count thesis.Report
Yesterday, PA Republicans held a completely closed and symbolic primary. 157K people still showed up to vote Nikki Haley. Also more people voted in the entirely symbolic primary for the Democratic nomineeReport
“Russian court orders seizure of JPMorgan Chase funds in VTB lawsuit”
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russian-court-orders-seizure-jpmorgan-chase-funds-vtb-lawsuit-2024-04-24/
Oh, now we’re having fun.Report
If the reporting here is accurate I think it says a lot of really positive things about Biden’s leadership style and ability to work with even the most divided possible Congress. Worth remembering that it is possible to govern by compromising and making the case to people, eve if it also involves holding one’s nose on some of the trade offs. Not flashy but functional government often isn’t.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/24/ukraine-israel-aid-bill-new-details/Report
I listened to about an hour of the live SCOTUS arguments about Presidential Immunity… and I’m not sure which way the chips will fall on this one. More precisely, I think the Govt. may have made it’s case that the trial at hand ‘could’ proceed, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was sent back with a set of guidelines/tests that must be satisfied before it could proceed (I’m not sure what that would mean procedurally).
On the one hand, there seems unanimity that simply being President does not grant immunity to anything a person might do while in office. But, the obvious distinction is “official acts” vs. “private acts” which my hunch tells me will require something like a presumption of official, but possibility to ‘pierce the veil’ into private with proper safeguards.
My hunch is that Trump’s ‘universalist’ claims will be ignored (i.e. I don’t think they will address them directly) and a narrower guidance on how presidential actions may reviewed — it sounds like the court may position an affirmative defence that the executive can invoke prior to trial … basically a judge decides if the Executive has satisfied his ‘official act’ with evidence of various sorts (i.e. he consulted the AG and AG followed procedures and gave him permission to murder citizens abroad because murder is an unlawful act and this review makes it lawful — yes, this was actually paraphrased as the Obama defense on Drone killings) and this would end the case.
—
Sample exchange:
Alito asks “if the president gets advice from the attorney general that something is lawful, is that an absolute defence” for the actions they take?
“Yes I think it is,” Dreeben replies. “If an authorised government representative tells you what you are about to do is lawful, it would be a violation of due process to prosecute you.”
[Alito asks about a ‘yes man’ AG, Dreeben replies advise & consent is constitutional defense against that…which, yes, but eeep.]
—
There are, of course, concerns about a sort of DDoS strategy that even if the President can point to the process whereby the acts are official, not having ‘immunity’ makes asking the President to defend every act potentially exploitable… so possibly a more affirmative stance of ‘immunity’ that makes piecing official acts a burden of the prosecution.
For State/Local Crimes, interestingly, the Govt basically said, yes… the President is Immune under the Supremacy Clause — so pound sand Fairfax County, Virginia.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-68892030?src_origin=BBCS_BBCReport
The commentary I read today says they expect a test to be constructed by the conservatives and then remand to the lower courts.Report
Test for what? Whether it’s an official action?Report
Yes. And likely whether its prosecutable. Four of the Justices seem to think that 1) future Presidents WILL be criminal; and 2) some of that criminal action SHOULD be acceptable. Its all an outgrowth of Alito’s Unitary Executive theory, which he has been repping since 1985 as a law clerk.Report
That would seem likely to me. There’s already an ‘understanding’ that such is the case, but moving in to the reality of actual criminal charges the ‘understanding’ should be codified so that the current charges can move forward with a backstop of making the ‘understanding’ actionable.
Until we see what the test actually is we can speculate that it will be poorly constructed and evolved like, say, Qualified Immunity … or we can speculate that it will be a workable three pronged test like lots of other SCOTUS tests. Or something in between.
As I note above, I think the govt. did a decent job of making the case that Trump was acting as ‘Candidate Trump’ and not ‘President Trump’ … they have to navigate (which I think they did) why ‘Candidate Trump’ was using ‘President Trump’ as a cover for actions that weren’t official in any meaningful way.
Clarifying the rules is the only way the case can go forward. Of course, it may not meet certain timeline expectations, but that’s irrelevant.
Ultimately Congress flinched when it didn’t Impeach after Jan 6. Shame on the Republican Senators who failed in their duty. But in the end, no DA is going to be the remedy for Executive overreach qua Executive power. That’s a power reserved to Congress. At best we clarify that DAs can prosecute Presidents for private criminal acts committed by Presidents while in office… and what constitutes a private act from an official one. And how to make that case.
Coda: out of bounds will be any sort of theory on motive or intent for obvious (I hope) reasons. That is, every action of President XYZ could theoretically be recast as a Politically motivated Official Act to get Candidate XYZ re-elected. To whit, Biden’s plan to use Executive Power to nullify voter’s debt is a criminal abuse of power because it’s clearly motivated by Candidate Biden, not President Biden… etc. etc.Report
Call me crazy, but I don’t see a problem with the president having to consider whether his actions are legal or not. If we want to just give whoever the current officeholder is carte blanche to do whatever he/she feels is most expeditious, let’s just come right out and say it.Report
Alito has a long history of wanting to.Report
Yes, well, then you’re crazy then 🙂 . More precisely, I don’t think SCOTUS is remotely entertaining carte blanche. At issue is what I quoted above from Alito — what if the President consults the AG on ‘whether his actions are legal or not’ and the AG says they are (murdering citizens abroad, torture, etc) — and the Govt (Dreeben) says that would make it legal.
That’s the ‘problem’ with QI… it’s based on the discretionary actions of Govt which the Exec office is the primary executor of discretionary actions as its role.
So we want a ‘good’ test that gets us accountability while preventing random DA’s from indicting Presidential ham sandwiches.Report
Here’s a test – if a statute plainly says any person doing a things is criminal, a President can’t do it.
It’s called the Rule of Law. We should really get back to that.Report
Heh, appreciate the sentiment… but not a good test.
I think you yourself have argued that the Executive has the authority to interpret the laws that Congress passes and therefore there’s something of a tautology involved when the Executive branch executes. Else every interpretation of the EPA is potentially liable to criminal pursuit. This is, of course, the reductio absurdum on the other side of total immunity.
I’d even point to the recent impeachment of Mayorkas is an example of why that won’t work. Mayorkas was impeached for “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” whereupon Schumer “made a point of order that neither article of impeachment alleged “conduct that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor” as required by the Constitution for an impeachment”
There should be a test, best we can hope for is that it’s a good test.Report
Not creating a regulatory regime you want from a statute passed by Congress – which is what Mayorkas actually did – is not the same thing as breaking the law. Congress delegates to the Executive all the time with respect to actual implementation of statutes. Government would not function otherwise. and a vast quantity of that delegation ends up in the civil law side of the house. Alito and the Unitary Executive people actually want to keep this structure in place, such that Congress could never oversee Executive Branch implementation decisions.
The criminal statues are usually clearer, and with enforcement provisions attached – at least at the level of specifying which federal executive branch agency is responsible for enforcement.
But sure, let’s pretend that Clean Water Act violations and political assassinations are of the same caliber (!) and thus require SCOTUS to settle which is criminal and which is not. If that’s really true, then Biden can indeed prosecute Trump vindicitvely, and Trump has claimed all along.Report
The danger lies in the creation of a test. Once someone knows the exceptions to the rules, it’s easy to create workarounds to skirt the law.
We already have rules about who is subject to the law, and the rule is everyone.Report
You and I agree – I’m just trying to point out why the dodges that March and Co. want to engage in are wrong on their face, and where the underlying principle comes from.Report
The fact that we’re even entertaining this just boggles my mind.Report
This is where I think SCOTUS has screwed up. Our system struggles with actors like Trump that are willing to play chicken with it, and we’re really quite lucky we have had so few people willing to do it, especially given the instability in a Madisonian system.
But to me that is all the more reason to have let the DC Circuit decision stand. The facts of what Trump did are so crazy, unprecedented and (hopefully) unusual that there really is no need to step in and create some sort of novel test. You don’t want tough cases making bad law, but you don’t want them making it in either direction. The hypothetical where every president now gets charged by hack prosecutors or vindictive successors has yet to actually occur. If it does SCOTUS can handle it then. The real risk here by taking the case is that the rule is made around the bizarro particulars of Trump, and the precedent limited to those bizarro particulars. It’s entirely possible we get some gazillion page plurality decision where the justices give no real guidance beyond how high they can get out their own supply.
All this is to say is that there is no reason the courts can’t say, ‘you will not be immune from prosecution if you do what Donald Trump did’ and stay silent on hypotheticals about close calls around official executive decision making. What are we really worried about here? A chilling effect on the president’s ability to summon a mob to attack Congress, or to work out some sham legalistic scheme with phoney electors? It’s ridiculous.Report
You’re more credulous than I am. My bet is that this whole exercise is a naked political act. They’re going to hand down some punt decision that results in the trial being pushed out past the election so as to minimize any political damage the trial could cause to Trumps’ campaign.
Then if Biden wins they rule “of course Presidents don’t have immunity” and if Trump wins and pardons himself out of everything they say “The case is moot, Trumps’ not facing any trials.”Report
InMD: The hypothetical where every president now gets charged by hack prosecutors or vindictive successors has yet to actually occur.
In Bush W’s 2nd term we saw lots of suggestions of law-fare. Serious people trying to claim that every terrorist should have a fair trial even if they were hiding in a cave in Afghanistan.
There were flavors on that, they should get a trial if they were in that base in Cuba, or they should get a trial if they were an American citizen.
Then Obama was elected and Team Blue had to face that there literally was no way to make that work. The Team Blue President “resolved” the issue by never taking captives. Terrorists will be executed on the spot by drones.
What it came down to what Team Blue didn’t like the war so was looking for ways to weaponize the legal system. Obama’s election put an end to it but we were headed there.
Similarly Trump’s supporters really do view his trials as “vindictive prosecution”. From their point of view we’re already there.
Also similarly the US refuses to sign onto various UN treaties which would let them wage lawfare against our soldiers because it would go there.Report
they should get a trial if they were an American citizen
For the record, they should get a trial if they were an American citizen.Report
Jaybird: For the record, they should get a trial if they were an American citizen.
This is nonsense. If they’re on a battlefield, or hiding in a cave in a foreign country, then they aren’t willing to submit to legal machinery and have made it impossible for the legal machinery to work.
It’s impossible to arrest them without the army going in. And if the army goes in then so many normal laws are broken so by the normal laws they should be let off.
This is also why a president who gives that order should be shielded from nonsense lawsuits for giving the order.Report
Then try them in absentia.
“But maybe we won’t find them guilty!”
THEN DON’T TARGET THEM WITH THE MILITARY.
This isn’t *THAT* difficult of a concept here.Report
Jaybird: Then try them in absentia.
Every solider on a battlefield doesn’t get a civilian trial before we can shoot them.
And what do we do if the civilian trial says we’re not supposed to shoot them? They’re still on a battlefield.
And if the “trial” is serious, then it will be used by the defendant as a fishing expedition to try to find out military secrets and plans. Such as what we know he’s up to, how we know it, and where he is and so on.
Giving state military secrets to a foreign army has predictable effects.
You’re trying force civilian rules onto a war. It’s a bad idea.Report
If they’re a soldier on the battlefield, then they’re a soldier on a battlefield.
If they’re a *TARGET*, then that’s different from them being one of the people on the battlefield.
Can you tell the difference between these two things?
I don’t mind explaining the difference at length, if you’d like.Report
Jaybird: If they’re a soldier on the battlefield, then they’re a soldier on a battlefield. If they’re a *TARGET*, then that’s different from them being one of the people on the battlefield.
Are we allowed to “target” enemy officers? If the answer is “yes”, then there you go.
If the answer is “no”, then you’re insisting that we kill civilians because we’re not supposed to use “smart” weapons.Report
I am surprised that Roberts granted Cert for this; I’m guessing he was under enormous pressure from Alito and maybe Thomas to do so.Report
You may be correct, but I’m starting to lose confidence in any analysis with the premise that “Were it not for the pressure of a few extremists, Conservative X would have behaved reasonably and responsibly.”
I think the presumption should always be that Conservative X is behaving exactly as they believe, unless there is evidence to the contrary.
Because we’ve had now eight years of one after another “Institutional guardrails” and “Adults in the room” again and again, bend the knee and kiss the ring of power.
“Pressure” doesn’t explain it. At some point we have to admit they are doing exactly as they have always wanted to do.Report
Alito has been quite plain about trying to engineer this outcome since his law clerk days. Thomas like the distraction from his glaring conflict. Leaning on Roberts to grant cert – as a legacy decision – makes a lot of sense.Report
Who says he did? It only takes four. Alito, Thomas, and two of Trump’s three appointees are enough.Report
Roberts is the justice overseeing the DC Circuit, whence the underlying litigation arises. My “reasonable and prudent person” read is that he would have to be involved.Report
Trump openly tried to overthrow a free and fair election, and the entire Republican Party has thrown its support behind that effort.
These are simply historical facts which are beyond dispute by any serious person.
And yet, the major media and many political pundits insist on treating all this as normal, commonplace events, and which can be viewed and analyzed through the lens of complex legalistic questions upon which reasonable people can disagree.
I mentioned in another thread about how historical events like the Balkans ethnic cleansing, Kristallnacht, or the Soviet-style media manipulation seem like freaky science fiction because we have no direct experience of them.
But we are seeing it right now, where a visitor from 1985 or so would skim the headlines and hear us discussing that yes, the former President raped a woman, and yes, tried to overthrow an election and have the Vice president and Speaker murdered. And sure, he enlisted members of his party all across the country to try to subvert and overthrow state election results. And yeah, he kept top secret documents lying around his house and shared them with randos and most likely foreign spies, and of course, has a long history of admitted and proven fraud.
But hey, this is all just normal American politics, nothing to see here move along.Report
There have been people inside of Team Red who have opposed Trump (Pence for example), the current situation is after their efforts.
Two election cycles ago, amazingly, Trump ran as the less ethically challenged candidate.
All the reasons Team Blue trotted out then (which basically amounted to “my leader gets a pass”) are now in play for Team Red.
The good news is the true independents should vote in lockstep for Joe for obvious reasons.
The bad news is there aren’t many and both sides don’t see problems with their own guy.
And I’m not sure how we avoid getting into this situation again.Report
Given the Access Hollywood tapes, I’d say you missed the mark trying to be funny here. Never mind his LONG history of declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying contractors.Report
As far as I’m concerned, if I’m subject to the ham sandwich test, then so is the president. We’re straying into some dangerous territory with this case.Report
You are subject to the ham sandwich test by a local DA who doesn’t personally benefit if he takes you down.
The President is subject to every DA in the nation and they would personally benefit if they take him down.Report
What benefit do they personally receive? Sure, taking down a president is a nice feather in one’s cap, but if you’re stating that a lawful indictment of one citizen over another is more valuable in the eyes of the law, then we’re still sliding down that slippery slope.Report
Slade: What benefit do they personally receive?
They become a name, this can make a career, especially if they’re also trying to move up the political food chain.
We have seen DA’s falsely charge normal people to help their elections. It’s rare but it’s a thing.Report
We have also now seen a President try to steal an election via violence and assaults in the courts. Its rare but its a thing.Report
Yeah, that’s called “prosecutorial misconduct” and there is a remedy for that, which doesn’t involve making an entire class of people immune.Report
You’re asserting that the DA is biased and the charges are spurious.
But…that’s what a trial is for, and why there are provisions for motions to dismiss and appeals to higher courts.
We can’t just presumptively assume those assertions and categorically exempt a person or class from legal accountability.Report
Another consideration is that the DA/county prosecutor has a fixed, finite budget. Trying the rich and powerful can get expensive in a hurry. No appeal or motion will go unmade, and will have to be responded to. The case stretches out over more and more time. How many mundane cases go unaddressed because of the resources that single one against the rich person?Report
Chip: You’re asserting that the DA is biased and the charges are spurious.
For Trump? No. But every President isn’t Trump.
If we set a standard that every President is Trump and it’s appropriate for any DA to drag the President into court for any reason then we will have problems.
Should Bush (or Obama) have been charged with murder when they killed US citizens in Afghanistan?
Should Biden be charged for supplying weapons to Israel? We have laws which prevent aiding genocide and claims of the same.Report
Every President is, first and foremost, a citizen. S/He is entitled to all the right of every citizen. S/he is also bound by all the responsibilities of every citizen. Including obeying the law. Full Stop. Presidents have the added responsibility to not get themselves impeached. Which is indeed a remedy for going outside the law as well.Report
Should Bush (or Obama) have been charged with murder when they killed US citizens in Afghanistan?
Should Biden be charged for supplying weapons to Israel? We have laws which prevent aiding genocide and claims of the same.
If there is evidence, let a prosecutor bring these charges.
Obama, Bush, and Biden should NOT be preemptively immune.Report
There doesn’t need to be “evidence”. It’s openly admitted the President can order these things and has ordered these things.
The disagreement is political. Some people don’t like the war in Gaza/Afghanistan and want to stop it. Using the law to engage in lawfare is an obvious way to get what they want.
However if Congress wants to stop these things it can. A DA in court is the wrong way and the wrong venue.
The President should be shielded from acts he commits as President as part of his job. Doing otherwise instantly moves politics to a courtroom which will lower both of them.
None of Trump’s crimes come close to official duties. He should be tried for them but that’s a different issue.Report
Oh, this story is hilarious.
So the mayor of San Jose is out at a restaurant opening and giving an interview and making a nice fluff piece for the local news. A guy walks past rather noisily, one of the members of the security detail says “hey, we’re giving an interview here”, and we have to switch to the passive voice at this point.
VIDEO: Physical altercation breaks out between San Jose mayor’s security detail, pedestrian during KRON4 interview
There’s video.Report
Is there a profession more easily injured than police officer?Report
If not, Ulvalde becomes much more understandable.Report
Soccer player?Report
You might have a winner!Report
Huh…
https://twitter.com/abgutman/status/1783458992452243772?t=BFwjVBKA47Hk_LfLuf9j5Q&s=19Report
Are you really surprised?Report
And Vince McMahon is selling the last of his TKO shares.
That’s it.
It’s over.Report
What’s over? I have read that the talent is pleased with Triple-H’s initial handling of creative w/o Vince looking over his shoulder at all. Certainly Wrestlemania indicated that things were going to change — when was the last time that many belts changed hands at one event? NXT is going to do a major event from the high-end UFC arena in Las Vegas. If last night’s draft was any indication, Triple-H is finally going to make NXT a real third weekly show. And WWE Speed is a different sort of idea for what to do with short-duration streaming.Report
He’s been part of it since I was a kid. That’s all.
He’s gone and he’s never coming back.
I will agree that the show is better (maybe even much better) now that he’s not involved (though if Bruce Prichard is in the building, Vince still has a bit of influence).Report
College protesters seek amnesty to keep arrests and suspensions from trailing them
I suspect that the history courses are leaving stuff out that they didn’t used to leave out.Report
Part of the point of civil disobedience is to show that the cause is worth breaking the rules and at times being punished for. I thought these people were supposed to be super brave.
But anyway the AP article overstates the stakes. I don’t know what the universities do but as a general matter most jurisdictions do not make it all that difficult to expunge criminal records of the kinds of misdemeanors I would imagine the students are being charged with. It’s just paperwork and some places even let you do it before the probationary period ends. If you can afford tuition at Columbia or wherever you can certainly afford having a lawyer write up the petition. A well educated person that can read a website and fill out some forms may not even need one.Report
InMD: I thought these people were supposed to be super brave.
We’re dealing with people who haven’t thought things through. Thus protesting in support of a terror organization continuing to commit mass murder. They also think them being outraged is should end with other people giving way to their moral correctness.
Actually going to jail isn’t on their radar much less having a record. The people who disagree with them are the criminals.Report
Heh I was being sarcastic. Among the many ironic aspects of modern college activism is the very radical, tough talk combined with how effete and ineffectual many of these people seem to be.Report
They don’t actually have any skin in the game and they don’t want to have any skin in the game.
Their “ethical” position either amounts to, “You should live with terrorism so I can feel better” or “You should make peace with Hamas”. Both of those filter pretty seriously for people engaged in emotional thinking.Report
Did you not hear about the girl at Vanderbilt who risked her life by going hours without changing her tampon?Report
That’s a genuine problem; find something else to be snotty about.Report
If she’s that concerned, just taking it out without replacing it is an option. Nobody ever died from free-bleeding.Report