Sure, what's the official record that Biden pardoned those people?

It's the eSignature, no?

What's the process to verify that Biden executed the eSignature and not a staffer?

As I said above, I'd be fine if Biden publicly read from a list all the people he's pardoning... no signature required.

You guys are getting hung up on 'THE SIGNATURE' not what's the process to validate that the President 'granted' these pardons?

Otherwise, what's the ex-post facto defense in court that Trump privately pardoned me over the phone... as long as Trump - after he's president - says he pardoned me privately over the phone.

It's a lot like Trump claiming he declassified the documents in his heart as he was leaving the oval office.

That's a good point too. I don't think Carter signed a pardon for every draft dodger.

But, he did sign a document that pardoned a class of people. So he did sign/issue a pardon.

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/proclamations/04483.html

But I'm not sure you'll get very far with the constitutional argument... the argument isn't for a signature, its for proof that the President issued the Pardon and not a staffer.

I could theoretically back this concept if the President were to orally pardon someone by invoking a clear statement of intent publicly witnessed and validated.

Did that happen?

To pick at your pick...

"That doesn’t mean the government can just come in and shut things down for no reason other than speech it doesn’t like"

There's a very, very thin line between it working like that and it not... and that line is independent accrediting agencies. Right now there are multiple (mostly regional) accrediting agencies that give schools enough room to work with this agency rather than that agency which keeps the process somewhat solvent.

There are a handful of schools that take 0% funding from Govt for just that reason... ironically if we wanted to use the heavy hand of Govt funding to coerce the Private Schools into one direction or another, then the Ivies would drop Govt funding, but many (but not all) smaller mission driven schools would fold.

It would look a lot like suppression of speech, and probably would be...

Not surprisingly, I think the funding is to the Student and not to the Schools... and, as long as the schools meet a minimum agreed upon standard, then that funding is the Student's to dispense. Which, via accreditation, is pretty much what we have now.

Heh, only accidentally; it's definitely not the core mission.

Mostly because that's a Motte/Bailey argument... for every past societal wrong that we all agree is a societal wrong and is being addressed through ordinary culture, there's 1000 imagined societal wrongs where the imaginers are wrong and are forcing wrongness via institutional capture -- that's a form of liberal totalitarianism.

This is probably one of those things that doesn't constitute fraud prima facie as Trump seems to imply; *but* is probably one of those things that we either need to put very strict controls around verifying that the eSignature is executed directly by the Executive via a secondary validation - like video.

So, eSignatures could be a legitimate 'tool' for signing things, but the tool can't be automated to the extent that we're not sure that each and every signature was reviewed by the executive at the moment of signature.

To be clear, the signature can't be 'delegated' to a batch of things... each thing has to be signed, the button has to be pressed each time by the person authorized to push the button.

Anything else is something we should put explicit checks around (if we haven't already). So, I'll wait for statements as to how the process is actually managed before passing judgement.

::Elrond I was there.gif::

I was at the opposite end of Berkley: Notre Dame.

Here's the weird counter-intuitive Marchmaine take: I'm ok with *Private* universities/colleges having, say, a DEI litmus test... if that's the driving principle of your Academy, then you should screen for it as to how the faculty you hire will contribute to that understanding.

As I've written before, the issue with the Ivies is that they were a proxy for *Public* meritocracy... they aren't any more, and that's ok. If the Ivies want to reclaim a sort of public position of eminence, they will need to rebuild it according to whatever lights they want to follow. But as Private Universities, they are entitled to drive their projects off any cliff they want.

State funded universities/colleges (and k-12), however, need to be neutral institutions... 'Mere' Education if you will. We could call them an Enlightenment Project if helpful. In some ways, this is the real 'fight'... as the Ivies have gone, so has much of Academia. And it's easy to understand, Academia is firstly a giant crab-bucket of status, and gathering status is a complex networking game; understand that, and you've understood the fundamental alignment of incentives that drive hiring decisions and grant funding.

Back to Notre Dame and the post-modern (et al.) University... when I was there in the 80s & 90s, there was a recognition that a lot of the old 'assumptions' about how things worked and would continue to work were being actively undermined; deconstructed, if you will. Now, I've always been a reform/rebuild/renew sort of 'conservative' but deconstruction isn't that. A number of reasonable folks suggested a 'dialogue' about -- and I'm not making this up -- The Catholic Character of Notre Dame. The goal was extremely mild: The University has a Catholic charter, and anyone looking to join the faculty (and staff) should be aware of that Charter, and should be able to state how they would 'participate or contribute' to that charter. There was no litmus test for Catholics. In fact, one of the actual issues was that too many faculty would 'check the catholic box' and avoid the issue; while many non-Catholics appreciated the Charter and had significant contributions to make (including prominent Non-Catholics such as Alvin Plantiga, George Marsden, and David Solomon just to name a few). The split wasn't over Catholic vs. Non-Catholic, it was over Relevance vs. Irrelevance ... and Relevance won, and won hard. But what was Relevance? Was is a better Truth? A better mission? No, it was chasing clout; academic clout being determined by the post-modern deconstructionists and the critical theory proponents. The STEM folks thought they were exempt from that debate, until they weren't. But Liberal Arts? They gave up the ghost willingly.

Long story short? The academic game required hiring the sort of people that were vetted by the Tier 1s so that their work might be elevated via the networks. As the Tier 1s went, so went anyone with any sort of ambition... personal, scholastic, or institutional. And while that's not 100% of academics, it's close to 100% of the Academics and Staff who 'matter' in setting the direction of the Departments, the Colleges, and the University itself.

Well sure... but the starting point is that someone who has at least interrogated themselves as to whether they believe in the Real Presence at all...

As for the 39 Articles, I'm certain they are 'taught' in the same way that Americans know we have 'A Constitution'.

But mostly it should be clear that there's absolutely no liturgical gate to receiving communion other than the honor system.

Nope; well, not licitly anyway...

Every once in a while we ask random communion seekers how they interpret Articles 25 & 28 of the 39 promulgated under Elizabeth I. And, as soon as they start to make their case for the real presence, we escort them out. To the coffee/donut space in the basement. For penance.

Point of Order:

"I understand that the Catholic church has lightened up on that in the last decade or so."

It hasn't. The German proposal in 2018 was rejected by Pope Francis. Like, rejected rejected.

1. Catholics under the usual conditions
2. Orthodox properly disposed
3. In Extremis, other Christians

Continue

Sure, but I think that's sort of the inevitable outcome of just calling for re-arming Europe... we've got a pretty good idea that (eventually) there's a decent likelihood that absent a unifying force, that they start to re-arm in competition against each other.

Brussels is not going to hold that thing together.

The US keeping the primary military capacity was acting as the (Empire)/Unifying Force... the allies still need to pull their weight (they weren't - look at 1989 tank battalions for just an idea); but we don't want France and Germany (and Poland) vying for the mantle of Strategic Security Dominance. That way madness lies.

That's a great Bobby McFerrin video... he's really funny and his singing voice is very impressive.

Plus, there's one woman in the audience that has got some Ave Maria singing chops.

You guys are drunk on Macron. He's a spent force. France's house is not in order.

Doesn't mean they won't grab at brass rings; but I'd not pin any hopes on 'France is the new defender of the Liberal Order'

Even though I see a multi-polar world as inevitable, I think that Trump is blundering by forcing a complete 'rearmament' of Europe.

The US's goals oughtn't be a completely re-armed Europe, but a Europe that is armed and in alignment with US materiel and plans to counter various scenarios.

Obviously equivocating a bit on the term 're-arm' but where Trump was correct about the EU's deficiencies in their end of the defense bargain... we don't want to re-write the defense bargain from a US first perspective.

The user community should still use discretion to promote interesting and/or novel topics.

Now, I'm not sure Italian Senators bartering sex is all that novel, but...

Well, capybara is hard to source.

But yes, that's why Lady Marchmaine has a meta-rule that no Lenten obligation can burden another member of the family unduly.

Half my side of the family is Greek Orthodox, so we hear no end of the hardships imposed by their mostly vegan lent; except the reality of Orthodox lent is mostly observed in it's exception to practicing it's mostly vegan lent.

That's weird, I'm *only* eating capybara empanadas every day for lent as a mortification *and* as way to keep the abstinence on Fridays.

I do have a dream of one year eating one thing every day as some religious brothers I knew would do. Like, lentils with sausage from a big pot we make every Saturday... reserving a portion without sausage for next Friday. Every week, every day. Lady Marchmaine says we can do it when all the children have left our stewardship.

I'll do a few minor mortifications and am looking forward to doing morning prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. I could, theoretically, never stop doing morning prayer and therefore never need to look forward to picking it up again... but that's why Lent is Lent. It reminds us that we stopped doing morning prayers for no particular reason.

I'm not doing the Hallow 40 challenge ... I checked it out a couple (few?) years ago and thought it was fine, but I'm just not that into listening to people read morning prayer to me. I did like the section I did on St. Francis de Sales -- he was a mensch.

On the technology front, I really like that they've finally figured out how to get the Hours into an app format -- younger generations will no longer understand our references to finding the proper for such and such a day -- but in turning it in to an app that keeps track of all the different feasts and saints days for various readings, it has the (necessary) deficit of including absolutely everything that you're *supposed* to do, including the many things that *nobody* does... so it's a little distracting to skip this bit, do that bit, and then skip this other bit. What I *really* want is a fully customizable app so I can tell it to drop the Hymn, don't repeat the antiphon in the middle of the canticle, and drop all of these alternate things in favor of the one that we always use. And, for all that is Holy, the doxology should be: "... as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be..." not that other way some people with questionable aesthetics have substituted. Maybe that's how I make my billions. If only the algorithm for getting all the proper readings in order wasn't so impossibly difficult.

Yeah, that's probably a good comp.

I think if I were in the House and wanted to undermine the narrative, I wouldn't fact-check or make a scene, I'd just make a point of scrolling my phone, laughing where appropriate, and basically just shrugging when asked what I thought... about what? He didn't really say anything... the kids were cute, the moms were sad, I like fire fighters too.

I put it on in the background as I was defending Wraeclast from its demonic denizens. On the rhetoric, a few thoughts hit me.

1. He speaks at I dunno, a 5th grade level. I have a 5th grader and he can follow Trump and get his jokes. Though, to be honest, my 5th grader's vocab is bigger and his sense of humor is more ironic -- but he's raised by GenX wordcels.

2. Most people speaking at a 5th grade level would come across as anxious and have an inferiority complex that would make their rhetoric dreadful. Not Trump. He own's his rhetoric... not a care in the world about how simple it is.

3. He's not bright, he's not clever, his content is boring... but dang, is he comfortable doing what he's doing and has the ability to look for opportunities to ad lib, usually to good effect. There's a strange existential *thereness* to his rhetoric... one minute he's making up stuff that isn't true, another he's reading things he has no idea the meaning of, and another he's just saying things he think might be neat.

What I'd call the total falsity of his political existence seems entirely authentic. This is genuinely difficult to replicate, especially for a politician. Politicians are acutely aware they are lying, and it shows. Trump? He believes 100% contingently everything he says, for the length of time it takes to leave his mouth.

His guileless guile is beguiling.

... not to me, but it's fascinating to watch it work.

See, that's an actual story worth pursuing, not the part about a woman being one of them... but 6 out of approximately 30+ top ranking Generals? That's a bad precedent for an a-political military because it isn't tied to any particular incident or failure and implies a sort of litmus test.

But that's the story: is there a litmus test? what exactly is it? why those 6? and what new 6 take their places?

Now, it's possible (in theory) that the top flag officers are in need of a thorough dusting... Biden, after all, held none accountable for the Afghanistan operational cf... but my priors would start with a litmus test and require evidence that Trump is acting for the good of the services. But that's just me.

It's true that the President is CiC and civilian deference ought only go so far; but it is also true that pure political advancement will corrode the officer corps very quickly. And, well, a very politicized military is indeed something worth guarding against.

But the focus on women and poc? That's precisely the bad resistance that we need to avoid.

So far to the right, I'm on the left.

Agreed. *If* there are cost savings, they will be incidental, down the road, and completely unobservable at the individual level. MattY will do a blog post in 15 yrs about the now barely perceptible 'curve-bend' that the new system is introducing.

My biggest concerns would be:
1. Tiers... I think it inevitable that Catastrophic would be primary selection... and that richer folks would pay extra for more. (fine in theory, but if positioned as a public utility/good, it would be unworkable in practice)
2. Non-contributors... which covers lots of things, disabled, stay at home parent, children, elderly, temp unemployed, perennially under-employed, etc. etc.

#2 is one of those things that, if working properly, it's all absorbed... even a % of defectors; just need to make sure % of defectors is not incentivized to grow... might require 2 prongs, Tax plus VAT.

Plus a thousand other things...

Sure, free tip #1: don't call it publicly funded health insurance.

Call it Universal Basic Insurance that you pay into via work. You own it, you paid for it, and to InMD's point above, it's quite possible you picked it.

It only becomes 'publicly funded' for those periods when you can't work... and even then, don't say that... say your tax also has a 'gap allowance' baked into it to cover those times.

I agree that the 'Vision' is sellable... people don't like the way health insurance works right now.

Except; we also know that the only thing they like less is change to the system they don't like.

It show's up a 'liking' the system in a perverse way.

Path dependency gets in the way of the 'vision' so have to slowly alter the paths.

Yeah, if you squint you could see an ACA with better Tech as a sort of intermediate step for ending the employer tax incentives for health care.

And ultimately we'll have to buy-out the insurance companies... so, yeah, they could become regional processors like utilities.

But still have to deal with the pay distortions (which already exist, but you don't realize you're being paid less than the guy with the family plan) and how that unravels.

...and don't make the original ACA mistake of selling it as a welfare program for the uninsured.