The main thing that I’m thinking about as I flip through summaries of summaries of excerpts is the recent (narrowly decided!) Masterpiece Cakeshop case.
The Court ruled on narrow grounds (in a 7-2 decision) that the Commission did not employ religious neutrality, violating Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips’ rights to free exercise, and reversed the Commission’s decision. The Court did not rule on the broader intersection of anti-discrimination laws, free exercise of religion, and freedom of speech, due to the complications of the Commission’s lack of religious neutrality.
Oh, and if you want to read the summaries of summaries (some of which have exerpts!), the hashtag #IGReport is where they seem to be going down (warning: Twitter).
What stands out so far from the brief summaries of the parts people have skimmed is how little new there is here. Comey feared leaks in the NY office so he felt pressure to come out with something about the Oct investigation, the letter violated protocols against things that might interfere with elections, there was very different treatment of the on going investigations into the Clinton and Trump campaigns. All of this is old news though now it is verified.
Since it’s a Thursday in our current era we could even have a separate post about new charges against the Trump Foundation in NY.
+ Social security as it actually exists is not a Ponzi scheme in any meaningful sense of the term. It's a pay-as-you-go social transfer. We just [. . .]
Social security as it actually exists is not a Ponzi scheme in any meaningful sense of the term. It's a pay-as-you-go social transfer. We just need to be honest about what that means.
This is another issue where the rhetoric on either side makes it much more difficult to clearly assess the issue and find a way forward.
+ ...it’s “what’s wrong with the Rust Belt?”. That’s an important question, and one that deserves an answer... It is. Some of the problems the Rust [. . .]
...it’s “what’s wrong with the Rust Belt?”. That’s an important question, and one that deserves an answer...
It is. Some of the problems the Rust Belt faces, trivial and otherwise: the weather sucks, on average; lots of relatively-isolated medium-sized cities; infrastructure problems (eg, regionally there's most of a trillion dollars needed to fix the sewer systems); plenty of metro areas where the urban core's population crashed and has never recovered; relatively shrinking population (the states in an extended Rust Belt are on pace to lose 7-8 seats in the US House after the 2020 census); years of talent (human capital) drain.
This is a region with the population of a good-sized European country where, with a limited number of exceptions, the economy has been suffering for decades, pulling other things down with it. There's no obvious or easy way out.
+ @michelle-kerr "her willingness to testify is not much, these days" is, again, based on what? She was in the courtroom when this sweetheart deal was [. . .]
@michelle-kerr "her willingness to testify is not much, these days" is, again, based on what? She was in the courtroom when this sweetheart deal was announced. She gave a victim statement in its aftermath, excoriating both her rapist (for what he did) and the court (for having conspired with him).
As for statutory rape: if men having sex with children are not being tagged as "sexual offenders" if the child had been forced into prostitution beforehand, the system is even more broken that I have alleged above. I guess I'm missing why prostitution would excuse a man's victimization of a child?
The rape kit showed she had sex, presumably. And her willingness to testify is not much, these days. Do I think it's possible she is lying? Absolutely. And so would many others, which is possibly why the DAs offer these deals.
" The idea that the law there shouldn’t count – or, worse, that she was overcharging for the sexual slavery she was forced into – is bonkers."
That's a bizarre interpretation. I said nothing about whether or not the law "should" count, only that it doesn't seem to be a typical charge. Statutory rape was not designed for prostitution. If it were, every john hiring an underage hooker would be charged with rape and tagged as a sexual offender, which I'm pretty sure is not happening.
Nor did I say she was overcharging, simply that in a country where sex can be obtained for far less, she was setting a fairly high price for her services. But it may be that she only pretended to prostitution, but in fact was always stealing from her johns. Who knows?
Am I sympathetic? No. But I do think 51 years is excessive for a 16 year old.
Doesn't SocSec still pay out to marrieds? That always seemed something that should go by the wayside. Or perhaps it did and I missed it.
Any woman who hasn't worked for 40 years and is now expecting to live off her husband's contributions--and being paid beyond that--is who should be working at Walmart.
The main thing that I’m thinking about as I flip through summaries of summaries of excerpts is the recent (narrowly decided!) Masterpiece Cakeshop case.
From Wikipedia:
Emphasis added.
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