The "deal" was a guilty plea and life imprisonment. The maximum sentence if they went to trial and lost was death. Anything that ended up in death would, by definition, not be a "deal."
If the very concept of a deal here is objectionable, that's certainly a position one can take. A stupid one, but a position one can take. Objecting to the terms of this deal, however, makes no sense if one accepts the possibility of a deal at all.
Trump and Vance are, predictably, claiming that they would have gotten a better deal, not explaining why TFG didn't get that better deal when he was President. A serious case of hypotheticum poisoning.
He also got Paul Whelan in the deal. As you may remember, many people were screaming that when we got Brittney Griner, we should have gotten Paul Whelan, either in addition or instead.
It's certainly true that he's trying to recycle his greatest hits. The Rolling Stones can pull that off, but TFG lacks the energy and focus to come across as anything other than what he manifestly is.
Barack Obama wasn't the descendants of (North American) slaves and that didn't seem to hurt his candidacy. If I'm not mistaken, Kamala Harris's Jamaican ancestors included slaves, though the slave experience in the sugar islands was different -- and generally worse -- than the North American version.
The MAGAts will see what you see and eat it up because that's what they like. The normies will see what you see and be disgusted. That covers pretty much everyone who matters electorally.
McCarthyism wasn't a conspiracy; it was largely the claim that there was a conspiracy. "A conspiracy so immense," if memory serves, of always fluctuating numbers and no reliably identified conspirators. Unlike Nixon, who actually found a spy, McCarthy never could.
Certainly there was a conspiracy to serve up Dreyfus as a scapegoat for treachery committed by others. A pretty standard conspiracy. To the extent public pressure was involved, it was public pressure to expose the conspiracy. To be sure, a large part of the public was suckered by the conspirators, but the conspirators did standard conspiracy stuff to achieve their ends. bamboozling the public was part of the cover-up.
In the Before Times, when I used to watch the gasbag shows, I could always tell which gasbags had come up from the shoe leather reporting side of the media and who had come up on the editorial side. I often found the shoe leather guys (they were almost all guys) had something insightful to say while the editorial side, after a few months of watching, were almost entirely predictable recyclers of talking points, left and right alike -- though the right side guys (and they were almost all guys in those days too) tended to depend on it more and do it more consistently.
There aren't that many shoe leather types on the shows anymore. Even some of the nominal news reporters are rarely insightful because they concentrate too much on prevailing narratives rather than dig into what is actually so and why that is.
Excellent question. Every working day there are hundreds, if not thousands, of conspiracy cases on the dockets of our state and federal courts, so conspiracies are a real thing. Most are small-time stuff; some are quite big. Most of them advance private interests; but sometimes not. There are alleged conspiracies, some pretty well-founded, to overturn election results, for example. There have been conspiracies to overthrow governments, some successful, most not.
Most people who use "conspiracy theory" in a derogatory way mean something like the tendency of some people to attribute outcomes they don't like to the directing hand of a small, secretive group corruptly acting for some malign purpose. Sometimes such things happen, but there is a mentality that sees it as pervasive, ignoring how often there is no directing hand, or identifying as a "conspiracy" any insufficiently publicized collective decision arrived at by ordinary, legitimate processes of give-and-take. A broken clock may be right twice a day, but it is usually easy enough to see when a clock is broken rather than, say five minutes fast or ten minutes slow.
I'd go further than this. Most of the time, there is simply no such thing as the "best person for the job." This comes up all the time in judicial appointments. The number of lawyers and lower court judges who would be at least as good as the current crop of Supreme Court Justices is probably in the low- to mid-four figures. (I believe I could do the job competently, though I would not pick me.) There are far more than enough to allow a relatively deep pool even if you sub-divide it for political or ethnic or geographic or other considerations. Nobody says anything when Republicans fish in Republican waters and Democrats fish in Democratic waters. Joe Biden was widely criticized for pledging to appoint a black woman, and eventually picking one. But the pool of highly-qualified black women is deep enough for one to do that. To be sure, the partisans of one candidate or another tried to make the case that the proposed candidate was in some way "better." Some people threw up Sri Srinvasin, a judge of south Asian origin, of the D.C. Circuit. He is certainly a highly-qualified candidate and entirely unobjectionable, even though no Republican President will appoint him, and no one should expect that. But the case that, by some objective measure, Srinivasin, whom I very much like, is clearly better than Ketanji Brown Jackson is pretty much made up. (I went so far as to predict that if Biden got another slot, he would appoint Srinivasin precisely because he was south Asian, and would be right to do so.)
Picking from a small pool, however, can create problems. If, for example, you were looking for a black conservative Republican in the 1980s, the pool was rather shallow. If Clarence Thomas wasn't a DEI pick, I don't know who was. A white Republican with his resume wouldn't have gotten within sniffing distance of an appointment.
North's question is not "unanswerable." People had and expressed views about HRC's health back in 2016. What was the evidence for those views, how good was it at the time, and does it look better or worse in hindsight? Those questions are "answerable" even if the Truth about her health is "known" only to a small group of people whose views on the matter are easy enough to figure out. Ask Hillary.
You're not "stuck" with coming up with a definition of your own. You chose a definition that would allow you to duck North's question. The issue in 2016 was not whether Hillary had a health condition that would not be mitigated by quiet retirement, but whether she had a health problem that required a quiet retirement. That she was, in 2016, unfit for reasons of health to assume the office of the Presidency and carry out its duties.
But you know all this. By this point, the dodge is obvious.
Re-read your 10:15 post. The re-read North's question. And in case you want to duck again, let me lay out the question making explicit the context in which North asked it. In 2016, did Hillary Clinton have a health problem that would have interfered with her ability to serve as President. Not something that she could survive by retirement, but something that would interfere with her ability to serve as President. That's the question. Answer it or say you won't.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Best Album Titles and How Kids These Days Don’t Know About Them”
That was one of the two albums that made up my first record purchase.
On “United States and Russia Swap Prisoners”
The "deal" was a guilty plea and life imprisonment. The maximum sentence if they went to trial and lost was death. Anything that ended up in death would, by definition, not be a "deal."
If the very concept of a deal here is objectionable, that's certainly a position one can take. A stupid one, but a position one can take. Objecting to the terms of this deal, however, makes no sense if one accepts the possibility of a deal at all.
"
Trump and Vance are, predictably, claiming that they would have gotten a better deal, not explaining why TFG didn't get that better deal when he was President. A serious case of hypotheticum poisoning.
On “Open Mic for the week of 7/29/2024”
Of course you haven't, but that's a statement about the limits of your vision, not about reality.
"
He also got Paul Whelan in the deal. As you may remember, many people were screaming that when we got Brittney Griner, we should have gotten Paul Whelan, either in addition or instead.
"
It's certainly true that he's trying to recycle his greatest hits. The Rolling Stones can pull that off, but TFG lacks the energy and focus to come across as anything other than what he manifestly is.
"
He doesn't know enough to think of it, and it won't work anyway.
"
Barack Obama wasn't the descendants of (North American) slaves and that didn't seem to hurt his candidacy. If I'm not mistaken, Kamala Harris's Jamaican ancestors included slaves, though the slave experience in the sugar islands was different -- and generally worse -- than the North American version.
"
The MAGAts will see what you see and eat it up because that's what they like. The normies will see what you see and be disgusted. That covers pretty much everyone who matters electorally.
"
You're entirely too concerned about my feelings, and have been for a long time.
On “Donald Trump and The National Association of Black Journalists: Watch For Yourself”
Thanks for the link, though I must say I had a brief, very disturbing vision of Trump cheating with Tiger Woods.
"
I wonder if Trump ever played golf in an event with Tiger Woods.
On “Open Mic for the week of 7/29/2024”
What do the details matter? They're all n*****s to him.
On “None Dare Call It A Conspiracy, Because It Wasn’t”
McCarthyism wasn't a conspiracy; it was largely the claim that there was a conspiracy. "A conspiracy so immense," if memory serves, of always fluctuating numbers and no reliably identified conspirators. Unlike Nixon, who actually found a spy, McCarthy never could.
Certainly there was a conspiracy to serve up Dreyfus as a scapegoat for treachery committed by others. A pretty standard conspiracy. To the extent public pressure was involved, it was public pressure to expose the conspiracy. To be sure, a large part of the public was suckered by the conspirators, but the conspirators did standard conspiracy stuff to achieve their ends. bamboozling the public was part of the cover-up.
"
Most things that are actually conspiracies don't rely on public pressure. Kind of defeats the purpose.
On “The Problem of Political Commentary”
In the Before Times, when I used to watch the gasbag shows, I could always tell which gasbags had come up from the shoe leather reporting side of the media and who had come up on the editorial side. I often found the shoe leather guys (they were almost all guys) had something insightful to say while the editorial side, after a few months of watching, were almost entirely predictable recyclers of talking points, left and right alike -- though the right side guys (and they were almost all guys in those days too) tended to depend on it more and do it more consistently.
There aren't that many shoe leather types on the shows anymore. Even some of the nominal news reporters are rarely insightful because they concentrate too much on prevailing narratives rather than dig into what is actually so and why that is.
On “None Dare Call It A Conspiracy, Because It Wasn’t”
Excellent question. Every working day there are hundreds, if not thousands, of conspiracy cases on the dockets of our state and federal courts, so conspiracies are a real thing. Most are small-time stuff; some are quite big. Most of them advance private interests; but sometimes not. There are alleged conspiracies, some pretty well-founded, to overturn election results, for example. There have been conspiracies to overthrow governments, some successful, most not.
Most people who use "conspiracy theory" in a derogatory way mean something like the tendency of some people to attribute outcomes they don't like to the directing hand of a small, secretive group corruptly acting for some malign purpose. Sometimes such things happen, but there is a mentality that sees it as pervasive, ignoring how often there is no directing hand, or identifying as a "conspiracy" any insufficiently publicized collective decision arrived at by ordinary, legitimate processes of give-and-take. A broken clock may be right twice a day, but it is usually easy enough to see when a clock is broken rather than, say five minutes fast or ten minutes slow.
"
I'd go further than this. Most of the time, there is simply no such thing as the "best person for the job." This comes up all the time in judicial appointments. The number of lawyers and lower court judges who would be at least as good as the current crop of Supreme Court Justices is probably in the low- to mid-four figures. (I believe I could do the job competently, though I would not pick me.) There are far more than enough to allow a relatively deep pool even if you sub-divide it for political or ethnic or geographic or other considerations. Nobody says anything when Republicans fish in Republican waters and Democrats fish in Democratic waters. Joe Biden was widely criticized for pledging to appoint a black woman, and eventually picking one. But the pool of highly-qualified black women is deep enough for one to do that. To be sure, the partisans of one candidate or another tried to make the case that the proposed candidate was in some way "better." Some people threw up Sri Srinvasin, a judge of south Asian origin, of the D.C. Circuit. He is certainly a highly-qualified candidate and entirely unobjectionable, even though no Republican President will appoint him, and no one should expect that. But the case that, by some objective measure, Srinivasin, whom I very much like, is clearly better than Ketanji Brown Jackson is pretty much made up. (I went so far as to predict that if Biden got another slot, he would appoint Srinivasin precisely because he was south Asian, and would be right to do so.)
Picking from a small pool, however, can create problems. If, for example, you were looking for a black conservative Republican in the 1980s, the pool was rather shallow. If Clarence Thomas wasn't a DEI pick, I don't know who was. A white Republican with his resume wouldn't have gotten within sniffing distance of an appointment.
"
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
"
North's question is not "unanswerable." People had and expressed views about HRC's health back in 2016. What was the evidence for those views, how good was it at the time, and does it look better or worse in hindsight? Those questions are "answerable" even if the Truth about her health is "known" only to a small group of people whose views on the matter are easy enough to figure out. Ask Hillary.
"
Read it again.
"
You're not "stuck" with coming up with a definition of your own. You chose a definition that would allow you to duck North's question. The issue in 2016 was not whether Hillary had a health condition that would not be mitigated by quiet retirement, but whether she had a health problem that required a quiet retirement. That she was, in 2016, unfit for reasons of health to assume the office of the Presidency and carry out its duties.
But you know all this. By this point, the dodge is obvious.
"
Re-read your 10:15 post. The re-read North's question. And in case you want to duck again, let me lay out the question making explicit the context in which North asked it. In 2016, did Hillary Clinton have a health problem that would have interfered with her ability to serve as President. Not something that she could survive by retirement, but something that would interfere with her ability to serve as President. That's the question. Answer it or say you won't.
"
If you're going to quote yourself, quote yourself accurately.
"
Can you imagine answering North’s actual question?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.