I have previously testified and written about the questionable litigation strategy of the House Democratic leadership in fighting privilege assertions, including recommending cases that it should litigate as a matter of separation of powers. This week another conflict has arisen as the White House again invoked absolute privilege over a staffer. The White House said it will not allow presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway to appear before a House committee looking into her repeatedly violation of the Hatch Act, a federal law that limits political activity by government workers. The position of the White House in entirely untenable and would fail in the courts. This is the type of case that the House should litigate with vigor.
In a letter from White House lawyer Pat Cipollone, Democratic Chairman Elijah Cummings of Maryland was told that Kelly was ordered not to appear or to testify. It is a manifestly improper position to take. Conway (who for full disclosure was one of my former students) is accused of repeated and defiant violations of federal law. That is the very touchstone of congressional oversight and a core function under the separation of powers. Under this approach, staffers could commit any number of federal violations or crimes and simply defy congressional committees in their investigation of the matters.
Notably, the Special Counsel, Henry Kerner, is a longtime congressional GOP staff member and has denied Conway’s assertions that this is merely an effort to silence her. As I have previously written, this is a direct and existential challenge to the Office of Special Counsel. They had to act in the face of such flagrant and repeated violations.
As I have discussed before, it is not clear to me that the Democrats actually want to go to impeachment or complete most of these investigations. There seems a type of planned obsolescence where the leadership will run out the clock while assuring its base that they are really investigating Trump for a purpose other than embarrassment and harassment. Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to want to use investigation to gather material for the 2020 election but stop short of any substantive effort at impeachment.
This however is the type of defiance that cannot go unanswered by the House if it is to maintain its constitutional position as an equal branch of government.
Contrary to what Karen S would like to believe, no one is obsessed with her.
And Jonathan Turley would never pay people to comment. This is another one of Karen’s delusions.
Anonymous June 25th 5:47 PM “And Jonathan Turley would never pay people to comment. This is another one of Karen’s delusions.”
Anonymous June 25th 12:00 PM “She denies it, but I still think that someone may be paying her. Something about her just doesn’t add up.”
Anonymous June 25th 12:19 PM “Karen S denies it, but I still think that someone may be paying her. Something about her just doesn’t add up.”
The above is just from a 30 second search, as that’s all the time I’ll devote to it. But it’s an every day accusation.
Right. Well, it’s clearly a delusion on your part. Happy to hear you admit it. The next step is to get help. When asked to rationalize your accusation, you couldn’t.
Karen, the paid trolls use practically verbatim the same tired insults every day when, like frenzied dogs with rabies, attacking each of us. You’re just the latest target. Ignore them because they feed off of attention like old hoes with bad perfume, cheap makeup and stained dresses. They will move on to attack someone else because they get paid by their George Soros funded employer by the keystroke, hence their high character count on these forums
The more attention you give them the more they justify their paycheck to David Brock…. speaking of cheap hoes
😉
Estovir, Karen contributes more to this blog than ‘you’.
As I’ve said before, if anyone is paying you, Karen S, it would be some nutty right-wing outfit.
“When asked to rationalize your accusation, you couldn’t.” Who else, but the inimitable Karen S.
WTf…are you “yammering” about???
If anyone needs help, honey, it’s you. Get some.
Anonymous – you are the one claiming over and over again, every day, that there is a conspiracy in which I’m getting paid, just to post comments on a blog. Sounds pretty delusional, since my opinions vary by topic. To what end, then? I’m clearly not a bot, since I typically post supporting evidence for my position. Now you claim you don’t think JT is paying me. So, connect the dots for all of us. When you make an accusation, you should back it up. Otherwise, you’re just a woman making a false accusation to fraudulently discredit someone you don’t agree with politically. Kind of undermines the entire believe all women movement.
You comment on here frequently. Most of the time all you do is insult people without putting much thought into it. Or you repeat talking points that you can’t debate or back up. Does that make you a paid commenter? Lots of people disagree with you. Why target me for a false accusation, and then repeat it like OCD?
You appear to be an unstable person lashing out, unable to help it.
JT wouldn’t pay anyone to post and I’ve never said that he does.
Beyond that, your comment doesn’t merit a response.
So you made it up. A woman weaponized a false accusation for political purposes.
More nonsense and high-drama from Karen — who is clearly a little “touched”…
Thanks for the laughs, honey.
Just another one of Karen’s school-girl games. She knows that no one — certainly not this person — has ever said that Jonathan Turley is paying her. It’s quite the con. “Someone” does not equal “Jonathan Turley” but we see how Karen S rolls.
Hey, it’s your fantasy, not mine. I have no idea how your mind works. Please do explain your conspiracy theory in more detail.
There’s no “conspiracy theory” but you clearly love the phrase — without any understanding of its real meaning. There’s no “fantasy” either. It’s nice to see that for once, though, you’ve distilled your thoughts — something that you seem unable to do for the most part.
Meow meow meow, Diane.
So TIA is a cat (or makes noises like one) and has an imaginary friend named Diane.
No no, here’s the key question to ask ‘the other’ Anonymous:
Do you accept Robert Swan Mueller III as your lord and savior?
Look how the Left howl when Conservatives do to them what they have done to Republicans since Richard M. Nixon. Hysterical. Suck it up baby. You Jen Gennai are now schooled in what awaits all Democrats when Trump begins his full fledged campaign for 2020. Trump will win because he plays as dirty as the Left and is unrelenting in going after them. Trump 2020!
Project Veritas’ Bombshell Video Ruffles Some Feathers
https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/25/project-veritas-bombshell-video-ruffles-some-feathers/
James O’Keefe’s explosive video exposing Google’s political agenda appears to have ruffled some feathers in the media world.
Jen Gennai, the Google executive seen talking to Project Veritas undercover journalists about Google’s plans to prevent “the next Trump situation,” has already published a response complaining that she was taken out of context.
Jen Gennai’s teary response. LMAO!!!
This is not how I expected Monday to go!
And maybe some people will take a pause and reflect on how toxic and menacing our online discourse has become, about how quick we are to believe the worst of each other, and think about the human cost of demonizing and doxxing people, the way that Project Veritas has done to me.
https://medium.com/@gennai.jen/this-is-not-how-i-expected-monday-to-go-e92771c7aa82
here is the damaging video
Insider Blows Whistle & Exec Reveals Google Plan to Prevent “Trump situation” in 2020 on Hidden Cam
Indeed, the Google (and Twitter and Facebook) party line is pretty much the same as this guy’s: “Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?”― Joseph Stalin
good point!
Thanks Estovir.
SJW’s are at Google to train AI in the social justice narrative (the way Google sees it) and where that doesn’t work they have people manually change the data in the search engine and elsewhere. They also remove youtube videos. Along with that they have demonitized people like Dave Rubin who is a self reported Liberal that has conservative guests on his show. This video was removed by Google. It has been published elsewhere. Google doesn’t want the video seen or easily obtained. One of the locations for the video is at:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/re9Xp6cdkro/
…and that address should be sent to others.
I am not a fan of Elizabeth Warren but when it comes to Google she is a hero recognizing that it is not just the presidency that is involved but the nation itself. Government + Google = is a good descriptor of Fascism. She wants Google broken up. A Google executive said that would be a bad idea because then it would be left to smaller companies to determine the content on the net. (listen and observe what she said and determine for yourself what that means.
I hope some of those that have argued various points of view on this blog with me listen to this video and comment. If one is doing a search on a topic use another search engine than Google since Google is feeding you what they wish you to hear.
The masked person in the video states he is afraid for his life.
The left pumps stove gas into the room, then starts playing with matches, and they haven’t got a clue. They just keep on attitudinizing. This didn’t end well in Spain. The trouble is, Spaniards shooting eachother full of lead had only the most circumscribed effects on the balance of power. Years ago, a bemused observer of one of those corporate take-over battles so common a generation ago offered this, “The score at half-time is ‘Allied-Bendix-Martin Marietta 0, Japan 36’. China is surpassing us in productive capacity and has 4x our demographic weight. We cannot afford to be tearing each other to pieces this way. Of course, our side isn’t running the lawfare games, turning common carriers into political partisans, stuffing the ballot boxes, manhandling higher education, conjuring up rent-a-crowd, or harassing businesses and public speakers.
Americans lack what the Spaniards had, when things jumped off in 1936
in a word, “huevos”
In your imagination only.
Let me spell this out more clearly. In 1936 the Spanish rebels had balls. they had a leader and they had an army and they had the will to use it on their foes.
Americans lack the balls for what they did, the balls, the guts, but even more so we lack the cohesion, the shared identity, the deep cultural and social spirit which makes individual courage into a powerful collective. We may have physical bravery but on a collective level we are atomized individuals who are mostly moved to sustained joint action by money and not a lot else.
I’ll say it again and hope history proves me wrong, before it’s too late. but I tend to think probably it’s too late already
they will get to where they can train AI to do their censorship job for them, and then disorganized conservative atoms lacking molecular connections will really have a problem
gotta get off the internet more and link up in real life
Trump didn’t “win” the first time around. Russians manipulated social media to engineer an Electoral College vote count to suit them, and maybe even changed votes in Florida and possibly elsewhere, but he still lost the popular vote. In fact, according to all polls, he also lost all of the debates, yet here he is, preening for the cameras, smelling up the White House where he doesn’t belong and messing things up royally, every single day.
I couldn’t agree more that our national discourse has become crude and vicious, but it is a reflection of Trump and his narcissism, his divisive rhetoric, his lack of any clear, coherent agenda and his abuses of power. He is a power-hungry narcissistic tyrant, but Republicans won’t stand up against him. You have the Hypocrite-in-Chief, Pence, and his dumb homely wife standing next to a man who brags about grabbing women, who praises White Nationalists and who has created human rights violations by caging young children, some of who have died, and most of whom can’t bathe regularly or have a change of clean clothes, they don’t have access to hygiene items or fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet, we taxpayers cough up $750 per detainee per day. They care more about tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, rolling back consumer protections and environmental regulations and stacking federal courts with radical conservative judges. They don’t stand up for American values, and those of us who are patriots, whose ancestors helped craft this country and whose ancestors fought for our freedom are simply stunned. It gets worse every single day. We can’t understand how anyone could defend such a person who cannot rationally respond to criticism without engaging in grade-school level insults. We decry the fact that this person refuses to hold regular news conferences, which all predecessors in recent history have done. The main reason is that he has accomplished so little other than stomping on the Constitution and what it stands for, plus he can’t think on his feet. On this blog, his defenders engage in the Kellyanne Pivot maneuver whenever Trump gets caught doing or saying something outrageous and stupid. He has his own television network–Faux News–that spends considerable air time telling devotees not to trust mainstream media, and the devotees buy into this. TRUMP is the problem here, and until he’s gone, it’s only going to get worse. I wonder how much in reparations we taxpayers will be on the hook for as a result of the intentional infliction of emotional distress he inflicts on migrant children.
The Russians manipulated like a hamster to cause dissention rather than to push votes towards one side. Google is manipulating like a polar bear and getting stronger. It wants to control the vote. One expert has said Google manipulated 18 million votes last election or will have that capacity for this election.
https://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-blames-sexism-russia-and-bernie-sanders-her-election-loss-685971
This list is over a year and a half old, and Hillary and Hillaryites have likely come up with even more excuses to add to this dated list.
With so many “reasons” to explain why Hillary was cheated out of her expected coronation, why does Natacha ( and why do others) limit themselves to only one?
There’s an entire smorgasbord of lame excuses out there, and those who keep whining about only one excuse are unfairly limiting themselves.
Keep on repeating your lies about Russia Russia Russia because it’s better if you misunderstand and underestimate the forces that arrayed against you and all the other running dogs of globalism
https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/331714-axelrod-on-clinton-it-takes-a-lot-of-work-to-lose-to-donald-trump
Probably one of the better explanations given. And the advice
” If I were her, I’d move on” was taken to heart 🤔😉 by Natacha when Axelrod gave it over two years ago.
I think it was Jimmy Carter who signed the Hatch Act Reform Act which allows government workers to yak or promote politics when they are off duty. What about that aspect of the Hatch Acts?
I fail to see any reason except the well known DNC/Socialist trait of victimizing women Any Woman should suggest themseves to the gender traitors of the far left. As for the Hatch Act? Especially after the chief violater was one of their own garbage can rejects
Who dragged that dead piece of nothing out of the back room closet? When they get serious and bring in Comrade Kerryi the coward of SE Asia to explain why his three scratches got him a free pass while others had to lose limbs or die.
It was a sign of things to come and acting the maisy daisy certainly rubbed off but was it from Clinton to Kerry, Kerry to Clinton.,or do they all just breed that way?
It certainly explains Victimizer Booker and the rest of the nekulturny no civilizado party that puts kids in wire cages and treats them as Heinlein used to put it worse than the family dog
No wonder the left is so tainted with their history of ill treatment and considering how they are still treating the DACAs.
/s/ For the record US Army Infantry and not one day in REMF status while completing my tours of duty
There are about thirty members of the House of Representatives I can say I admire. The remainder have no business subpoenaing the Counsellor to the President. She broke that Hatch Act knowingly and defiantly. Fire her.
However, there’s abundant precedent for Presidents to forbid their counsel, legal or otherwise to be questioned under oath by a highly political House committee.
If the same executive privilege Obama flaunted with slight provocation has any meaning, it applies in Kellyanne Conway’s case.
Trump’s directive not to testify is one of the stronger charges in the (possibly) forthcoming impeachment complaint. I agree, though, with Lawrence Tribe’s initial contention that The House should not file for impeachment because of the mess it would create. Tribe has changed his mind; but I have not.
Trump supporters say nothing to see here, again, and again. So what if Trump and his cabal of crooks and grifters bend, break, ignore norms, rules and laws, So what they say, if Trump gets help from his love letter buddy or his Russian pal who openly said he helped him, So what, he’s one of us, he tells it like it is. Which should tell you everything one should know about a Trump supporter.
trained in group cohesion and mental toughness by years, decades, of tangling with adversaries
Thank you, to the adversaries!
“love thine enemies” – because they will make you stronger
What you should know about a Trump supporter is that we see the forest for the trees, bucko.
You believe that you see the forest for the trees. Whether you really do is up for debate. “Bucko.”
No, I don’t just believe, I actually know.
PS I won’t call you “Bucko” because you are no “Bucko”….FishWings, on the other hand, is a “Bucko.”
“No, I don’t just believe, I actually know.”
It’s been said that only a fool is absolutely certain of anything.
It is said that knowing oneself is Enlightenment. 😉
“So what if” Fishwings ever had an original thought and expressed it?
“So what if” Fishwings ever had an intelligent view that Fishwings herself actually expressed about issues?
“What if” Fishwings can do no more than what Fishwings always does, which is to consistently avoid what’s mentioned in the 2 sentences above?
To what Russian pal are you referring “who opening said he helped him,…” When and where was it that to this “‘Russian pal’..
.openly said he helped [Trump]…”
I find Professor Turley’s arguments here to be outrageous, egregious, preposterous.
Because it has some account of what a press secretary does all day, I’d refer you to Ron Nessen’s memoir of his years working for Gerald Ford. The Hatch Act is never mentioned. (Ford went campaigning with an entourage of 20-odd people, btw). Your article mentioned recent appointees ‘cited’ for trivia, but w/o recommendation they be terminated. The notion that a political appointee merits termination for shooting darts at the opposition is absurd, and it’s hardly conceivable the issue would have been raised in any previous circumstance. It is particularly so when the appointees work includes giving press interviews. This is sillier than the emoluments gambit. The progenitor of it is a protege of John McCain that someone in the bowels of the White House cleared for a discretionary appointment.
Trump is having terrible trouble with people on retainer or on staff who have it in for him, and we have every reason to believe there’s a GOPe wrecker in the White House personnel office. So, you get this guy and Christopher Wray and Rod Wear-a-Wire Rosenstein
” The notion that a political appointee merits termination for shooting darts at the opposition is absurd, and it’s hardly conceivable the issue would have been raised in any previous circumstance”
well said. that’s what i mean about context.
one isn’t surprised that journalists almost never give proper context but you would hope that a professor could
So we taxpayers pay the salaries of White House personnel, pay their office expenses, pay for their telephone, computers, e-mail accounts and all of the other expenses of being employed so that they can spend their taxpayer-paid time and resources campaigning for Trump? No, you Trumpsters have no problem with this because you don’t have a problem with him caging young children to punish their parents for seeking asylum, with him serially raping women, bragging about molesting women, constantly lying, obstructing justice, withdrawing the US from treaties, calling Mexicans rapists and criminals and then wondering why they don’t cooperate, lying about having a better health plan, lying about Mexico paying for the wall, his racism, xenophobia or misogyny, so why should Hatch Act violations matter? In fact, he can do what he pleases because he panders to you white people who are afraid of minorities, afraid of change, afraid of women being in charge and just love a crude loud mouth bully.
Meanwhile, in other news, Trump’s denial of raping E. Jean Carroll is based on “she’s not my type”, implying that if she WERE his type, well then that would be different. This is after denying he ever met her, despite photographic proof to the contrary. Doesn’t matter to Trumpsters, because they are immune from facts. Then, there’s the story from Texas about the migrant children who haven’t had a bath, used a toothbrush or soap or had a change of clothes in weeks, and the Administration’s defense that “safe and sanitary” requirements don’t include soap, bathing, toothbrush and toothpaste.
that lady is full of garbage. i read her column in elle and posted an example yesterday, she’s attention seeking behavior lady like so many others who decide many years after failing to report it that she was raped by so and so. why she didn’t go to the cops? because she’s lying thats why.
these people are generally trying to get a moment in the sun or a settlement. they are not serious victims.
now if it was a kid who delayed reporting you could understand that. that would be different. but she was no kid when this supposedly happened. it’s a phony story, flat out.
The Emoluments clause, the 25th Amendment and associated quack psychiatrists, Michael Cohen’s tax returns and taxi medallions, Paul Manafort’s tax returns and wire transfers, Russian internet trolls, Stormy Daniels, Christine Blasey Fraud et al, and now this broad. Two rules for them: (1) any port in a storm and (2) it’s always raining. Their constituency never seems to get tired of it. Idiocracy is now.
if illegal immigrant families get caught, they have procedures to follow, which have been in place across more than just one current Trump adminstration, including obama, so why do you liars keep on pretending it was just trump “caging children?”
here’s a genius idea. it was the IRRESPONSIBLE PARENTS WHO BROKE THE LAW AND BROUGHT THEIR KIDS ACROSS THE BORDER WHO BEAR PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY IN GETTING THE POOR KIDS LOCKED UP.
OF COURSE we have to detain the kids in proper safe clean and humane conditions .but detain them we must or we will have no borders and just chaos
How for example did the Saracens deal with the “Children’s Crusade” in 1212 to reclaim the Holy Land? Well not too many made it to Jerusalem in the first place but those who did, probably were a lot worse off than the average migrant to the USA in 2019 that’s for sure
here you can read about it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade
Natacha fancies previous presidents did not have a public relations staff or a liaison staff with their respective party committees.
at some point “conservatives” will have to develop the instincts and habits that American workers did in the pre-Wagner act era and use the same kinds of instrumentalities that organized labor used, to contain certain sorts of problems which face us now.
until then it’s just endless mouthy jibber jabber and they own all the megaphones.
there’s a lot of good Mexicans out there but what if I told you that one of my friends who worked in the Crook County prosecutor’s office told me almost 20 years ago there was an epidemic of Mexican rapists and child molesters in Chicago?
He was a Democrat, and he should have known since he was prosecuting them.
Not that other American residents don’t do rapes and abuse too; but according to him, there was something going on there. The statistics were clear inside the office, but of course, since 90% or more of Chicago and Crook county officials are Democrats, and most Mex-Ams vote Democrat, nobody was saying anything.
20 some years ago, how many more since then?
https://news.gallup.com/poll/139376/child-abuse-underreported-latin-america.aspx
Hey, I have a really bad idea. Let’s import more of a serious problem into America!
“{Trump] he can do what he pleases because he panders to you white people who are afraid of minorities, afraid of change, afraid of women being in charge ”
AND WHAT WAS THIS STORY ABOUT?
ONE OF TRUMP’S RIGHT HAND WOMEN KELLYANNE AND YOU GUYS WANT TO BROWBEAT HER WITH EVERY JOT AND TITTLE
AND SARAH SANDERS
AND ELAINE CHAO
AND KIRSTEN WHATEVER
WOMEN: IF YOU’RE NOT DEMOCRATS GET READY FOR ABUSE!
Hatch Act, Logan Act…meh. Huber & Horowitz…bring it.
The Hatch Act: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-hatch-act-3368321
These employees may not:
use official authority or influence to interfere with an election
solicit or discourage political activity of anyone with business before their agency
solicit or receive political contributions (may be done in certain limited situations by federal labor or other employee organizations)
be candidates for public office in partisan elections
engage in political activity while:
on duty
in a government office
wearing an official uniform
using a government vehicle
wear partisan political buttons on duty
According to the rules the question arises what is Conway’s duties? This is extremely unclear. Her duties seem to conflict with the Hatch Act because her specific duties are very general and seem to be an extension of the President. This to me to make a very big difference as her advocacy and duties require her activities everywhere.
No, Allan. Her salary is paid for by the taxpayers. That’s the test, not her job description. The Hatch Act cannot be circumvented by a title or job description. She cannot engage in campaigning while on the public payroll, on public property or using public resources.
For that matter, the president and vice- president’s salaries “are paid by the taxpayer”.
That does not preclude campaign activities by them.
The courts may decide if her position as advisor to the president subjects her to restrictions under the Hatch Act.
It certainly would cover Civil Service employees, but even there the Act seems to have been modified and watered down considerable over time.
It looks like the plan is for her to stay, and if those pushing for her dismissal chose to, they can take it to court to try to force her termination.
But, the POTUS and Vice POTUS still can’t campaign on government property, using government resources. There is no exception for Conway, and they’re not trying to claim there is: it’s just the usual Trump MO: obstruct justice, defy Congress.
The only way Trump would fire her is if she turned on him. He’s insulted her husband every way possible and she still hasn’t turned on him, so that’s not likely. I agree with JT: Democrats should go after her vigorously. Jail her if she defies a court order.
But, the POTUS and Vice POTUS still can’t campaign on government property, using government resources
I have news for you: the pr staff and the advance staff of the White House are paid government salaries.
Kellyanne is being cited for public commentary. Site not at issue.
Good to know from a REAL EXPERT in this area that the President and VP can’t “campaign from government property”.😄😃😂🤣
I think that our self-proclaimed lawyer Natacha may want to volunteer her services involving her favorite interpretation of the Hatch Act.
Bessie Braddock to Churchill: “Sir, you are drunk.”
Churchill: “And you, Bessie, are ugly. But I shall be sober in the morning, and you will still be ugly.”
Actually, an old joke retold by WC Fields in a 1930’s movie. If Churchill said it, he stole it.
“Actually, an old joke retold by WC Fields in a 1930’s movie. If Churchill said it, he stole it.”
Churchill’s birth preceded the 1930’s by half a century so Churchill had plenty of time to say that and for all you know WC Fields copied it in the movie. This is your problem Anon. You make accusations without proof and sometimes make accusations of theft like you did here also without proof. One has to be very careful when they read what you write because you make no attempt at being honest.
Was Churchill the first to say it? I don’t know. For all we know it was said by unknown people and copied by both Churchill and Fields.
The remark is much in character for Churchill, who had some great put-downs. You’ll notice Anon checked Quote Investigator, then lied about it.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/17/sober-tomorrow/
DSS as usual you are correct. I don’t think Anon knows very much about Churchill and probably never read a book about him. Churchill was a Renaissaince man and quite funny. I can’t remember the name of the book but one of them I read provided an enourmous number of Churchill quotes that were along this line so though I don’t think we will ever know the exact truth of who wrote what, the joke, as you have already said, was characteristic of Churchill
Anon is a chronic liar.
“Anon is a chronic liar.”
And Allan is “brainless”.
The Doofus Duo is back to plagiarizing the work product of others
It’s in quotes. And we both know that you’re the source. “Doofus.”
” And we both know that you’re the source”
The Doofus Duo, Brainless Diane.
Here’s a couple good books about Churchill
https://www.amazon.com/Churchills-War-David-Irving/dp/0380763141
3 volumes
don’t worry about Irving’s bad rep as a “denier”– he is a superb military historian who unlike most of the hallowed names of academic history departments, actually uses primary source materials in his research
Academic historians make use of primary sources as a matter of course, Kurtz. Howard Zinn managed to be retained at a research university by reworking his dissertation into a university press book and producing monographs that were, in effect, compendia of newspaper columns. The academic job market hasn’t been that soft in a good while. Rank and file teaching institutions may have weak publication requirements (a couple of academic papers and you’re OK), but if you want to keep your job at a teaching institution with cachet or at a research institution, you need to have a string of journal articles and / or a monograph derived from primary resources.
ok well maybe they’re better than I thought they were but then I will revise and just say that Irving made superb use of primary sources in his ww II military histories.
he never finished his primary degree at university but did something more useful, he became a steel worker in germany and learned the language and made contact with the people who lived the war in person.
he’s an onery cuss whose big mouth and bad habits have got the better of him many times, but that contrary streak has also produced some interesting work
He’s kind of a creep whose motor is the feeling that Adolf Hitler got a raw deal from the press and the professors. Joseph Sobran’s remark on one of his theses was that it was more plausible that the Holocaust never happened than that it was the work of underlings operating behind Hitler’s back. If you demonstrate to people in one venue that your judgment is impaired, they’re going to be skeptical of what you write in other circumstances, no matter how many footnotes you have referring to finding aids in German-language archives.
There likely is a lot to dispute about specific numbers (as their has been in regard to the Ottoman situation in 1914-19). A great deal of this is guesswork. However, ginning up a death toll of 75,000 (Irving at one point) or 300,000 from disease and not violence (Mark Weber) is just gamesmanship.
irving may indeed be a creep. creepiness and being a historian are two different things. as to his motor I am not sure that I could judge such things but you’re free to do so.
i very much enjoyed his book on nuremberg. this was an excellent book by a non-lawyer about a famous trial. i recommend that. i couldn’t finish even one of the Churchill books
his book on Dresden woke a lot of people up to what they were vastly ignorant about, namely the terror bombing of axis populations by allies
as for the denier stuff, that was not his focus, not in any of his works. he had one footnote about it in the Nuremberg stuff which quoted a Red Cross number of casualties which was around a million if I recall. it was not at the core of the charges laid at Nuremberg and so it was not core to the book
as to his innumerable short essays I am not a consumer of all that dreck. i understand however one of the chief points that pisses people off: his assertion that there is a lack of any documentary evidence which proved AH gave an actual order to enact any particular “endlosung.” I am not aware of anything which proves he was wrong about that assertion about a lack of evidence. in fact i understand he offered a prize to anyone who could furnish it and the general response is “they must have destroyed it.” ok, well, maybe so but that does not constitute evidence in itself.
however these days if you debate such things it can land you in prison, at least in Europe that is, just as Irving found out, and I should like to go back to Europe soon so I prefer to avoid the topic.
i guess i should say that up until his himmler book the denier stuff was not at the core of any of the works. maybe he covers it in the himmler book at length i would not know since i have not seen it. yet. i don’t know if he even published it yet. it was a long time coming.
actually i read parts of the dresden book, parts of churchill vol 2, the entire book “Desert fox,” nearly all of Hitler’s war, and Nurember cover to cover. so i guess maybe he has some things on the denier stuff that escaped my attention in the other works.
i have never been too interested in splitting hairs of all the massacres and genocides in history. it is too full of them for me to keep track and it’s all very sad and tragic and I only have so much compassion energy to expend in one day.
for example i am sure Ghengis Khan exterminated whole tribes whose names history has entirely forgotten. it would not stop me from learning about Ghenghis Khan if it were so.
“for example i am sure Ghengis Khan exterminated whole tribes whose names history has entirely forgotten. it would not stop me from learning about Ghenghis Khan if it were so.”
Kurtz, Jack Weatherford wrote a book on Ghengis Khan that if I remember correctly was more sympathetic to him than what I had seen before. I read it years ago and was discussing it with another who criticized the author for not treating Ghengis Khan only in the light of a ruthless killer.
As I’m sure many people know, the Ottoman situation as you call it, left a lot of dead and refugees among the Greeks and Armenians and Arab Christians steaming mad for decades at the Turks as if they did not hate them already. And it is with the greatest affection for Greeks and Armenians and Arab Christians that I say, the hair splitting over these things comes at the expense of more profitably directed attention focused elsewhere.
One might apply the same wisdom to Native Americans or any number of different peoples who have suffered tragic displacements in the past two centuries alone.
his book on Dresden woke a lot of people up to what they were vastly ignorant about, namely the terror bombing of axis populations by allies
Is it really your thesis that no one wrote about the effect of air war on civilian populations until Irving shambled into town?
There are two competing theses: that the Ottoman government tried to murder the Armenian population; or that the Ottoman government tried to forcibly deport much of that population and generated a blood bath in the process. These were settled populations who had been their for centuries, not the inhabitants of zones sparsely populated with hunter-gatherers and pastoralists who had kicked out the previous band of hunter-gatherers and pastoralists. Turkey has a long history of abusing it’s minorities over the century which succeeded this demographic disaster, so I’m not seeing the analogy to our situation here. The enemy of the Amerindian population in this country since 1990 hasn’t been the U.S. government or the white man, it’s been anomie.
no i did not so nobody wrote about it
I said ” a lot people were ignorant”
i based this on the three page quote from Irving in “slaughterhouse five” a popular book by kurt vonnegut that introduced the fact to the general public
people had heard of hiroshima and nagasaki but were generally unaware of what was directed at germany, especially younger people who maybe were not familiar with ww2 veterans who shared the truth with their social contacts
i find it hard for example to understand the shock of the 60s generation at My Lai massacre where American soldiers killed 500 Vietnamese civilians but were apparently unconcerned with terror bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo
one raid on Tokyo saw somewhere between 88,000 and 97,000 killed in one night. maybe a lot more, perhaps. and a hundred thousand some wounded
hamburg, 43,000 civvies and 37,000 in one night
dresden, 135,000 and maybe a lot more since all the many refugees in town were uncounted, and bodies were incinerated in the attack
I wont get into Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those are more well known attacks
people maybe can wrap their heads around 500 but a number that’s 270 times more than that may not really be imaginable for most folks.
I will leave it to somebody else to moralize over these things. i just want to have a sense of facts and what people know about them
Kurtz, any way you look at it war sucks. In the case of Germany and Japan they lost and I wouldn’t sacrifice American lives to save the people of those countries whose leaders were murderers.
This isn’t that difficult.
In My Lai, you had a very anxious group of soldiers ordered to waste a group of civilians who weren’t firing at them. It wasn’t something done in the heat of the moment, either. Lt. Calley was put on trial because the whole thing seemed madcap.
Most people respond to narrative, not to statistics. Also, the VietNam War was a live issue in 1969. The political opposition favored the Communists or were so wrapped up in striking poses that they did not care about consequences. The left was and is chock-a-block with idiots like Jill who fancy the whole world is free of violence until its introduced by some American / Israeli bogey. (One of the amusing aspects of the alt-right / sailerite / palaeo nexus is that it’s chock-full of people who think the same way and differ from the left only in that the alt-right types despise blacks and despise Jews qua Jews quite).
It’s doubtful there were many people protesting the war in VietNam animated by any historical event not in their personal memory. As far as the older crew was concerned, Germany and Japan had it coming. (Prosecuting the war without killing a large number of civilians was certainly a technical challenge that few of us could understand).
Bessie Braddock was an MP from 1945 to 1970. The WC Fields version was from 1934.
Churchill was a drunk, a coward, a fraud, and a serial lying, blood thirsty, war mongering, psychopath.
if you think this is a big deal then you sure never lived in chicago
you must not be aware that campaigning in office is not the exception it is more the rule
Democrats are well known experts in campaigning in office on the public nickel and during the paid for time supposedly at work. It’s almost funny they’re browbeating Kellyanne with this were it not so pathetic.
Every president has a public relations staff, an advance staff, and an ‘office of political affairs’. The Office of Special Counsel never noticed before because reasons.
Mr. Kurtz – The Hatch Act does not apply to Chicago politicians. Nobody is seriously arguing KellyAnne isn’t violating The Hatch Act. They (you) just don’t care.
I am aware it applies to federal workers not state. Nonetheless many states have similar laws. And, there is a cultural reality of “democracy” that belies the absurd notion that political appointees must never “campaign” while executing their charges.
yes, I don’t care, because the Hatch act is much ignored by Democrats and this is a pot calling the kettle black situation
In essence all the spying on Trump was involved in political espionage and should come under the Hatch Act
The HAtch Act doesn’t require they “never campaign.” Just not while doing their day job that we’re paying for.
a super insignificant story that eclipsed a lot more important things when it was reported, but you guys freaked out over it. sad!
It’s apparently only insignificant when Republicans break the rules/law. Then refuse to show up to answer questions, fail to answer subpoenas, lie to Congress, lie to America, the list is much longer.
hmm, if you say so.
Enigma,
Just looking at one aspect of your comment…..”ignoring subpeonas” ….I think the stage was pretty well set for that when Nadler & Co. immediately set out on fishing expeditions when the House changed hands.
There’s a reason why the phrase “Subpeona Cannon” became well- used and well-known. The Trump Administration had stated it had already turned over 1,500,000 pages of documents about midway through the Mueller investigation.
You had a 10 month FBI investigation that preceeded the nearly 2 year OSC investigation. The final report did not produce the “smoking gun”, the impeachment bonanza, that you and others hoped for.
So in addition to the FBI & Mueller investigations, Nadler and Pencil Neck are now going to uncover something beyond those 10 month +22 = 32 months of investigations? Do you think the those investigations were lacking in resources and motivation to investigate, and that House Committee showboating is actually going to somehow turn up “something” the other investigations missed?
I understand legitimate Congressional oversight, and the Nadler- Pencil Neck show ain’t it. So the FU response from the Trump Administration was predictable and probably inevitable…..at this stage, there’s no reason to expect the White House to cooperate with these clowns.
“when Republicans break the …”
…”They’re all talking about, “Well, did you see what Kamala Harris did to Biden? Wow, isn’t that cool?” But they’re not analyzing this for what it really means and how it is particularly being seen by the American people. But because they are the biggest hate group in the country right now — and there’s no contest. The Democrat Party is a nationwide political party. It’s bigger than any special interest group. It is bigger than any lobbying group. It is bigger than any 501(c)(3).
It is bigger than any group at all out there. And since they are a hate group, they are the kingpins of hate in the American political system. They are the biggest threat to civil liberties. They are the biggest threat to freedom of speech. They are the biggest threat to the Second Amendment. They are the biggest threat to the innocence of unborn life. They are the biggest threat to anybody who is not one of them. They are the biggest threat to prosperity. They represent the biggest threat to private property. They represent the biggest threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that exists in this country today. The Democrat Party is that. That is what they have become.
They are a bigger hate group than the KKK, which has always been the military, quote, unquote, wing of the Democrat Party anyway. There isn’t a right-wing group that can hold a candle to these people. The entire Democrat Party, there is no grandfather, there is no reasonable place to go in the Democrat Party where you get some wisdom. There are no adults in that party telling these kids to stop behaving this way.
They’re all on the same page now. Their attitude, their views on abortion and human life is just shocking. There isn’t any comparison to the pro-life view and the pro-abort view that the Democrat Party has. And if you’re gonna assign hate to one of those groups, you’re not gonna find hate on the pro-life side. By definition, you can’t. But you can certainly find it on the so-called pro-choice side.
They seek control over life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and they do so from a position of rage and anger. They are angry that the concepts of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness exist. And their mission is obviously to shut them down. Whatever it takes, for example, to save the planet from things human beings cannot and never have been able to control. But it will allow them to control people all over the country if they ever do achieve their climate change objectives.”…
“And if you’re gonna assign hate to one of those groups, you’re not gonna find hate on the pro-life side. By definition, you can’t. But you can certainly find it on the so-called pro-choice side.”
Some of them literally kill doctors. You might want to rethink your position. Otherwise an amazing rant, I think you’re losing it more than usual.
“I think you’re losing it more than usual.”
The report was talking about the group as a whole. There are always a few bad apples and killing anyone is wrong even the baby. That is the difference between your side and mine, Enigma. I believe killing is bad though at times might be necessary while you believe killing is good even when it is a baby that hasn’t had the chance to be sinful.
You are a hater and I the opposite. You lost it when you placed hate above everything else.
enigmainblackcom says: June 28, 2019 at 4:11 PM
“The HAtch Act doesn’t require they “never campaign.” Just not while doing their day job that we’re paying for.”
Many of the people who post comments to this site don’t care. They would care if the tables would turned, but not when it’s one of theirs.
I know it is difficult for you to understand but she wasn’t printing campaign buttons during her work hours and on government time.
AS usual you won’t provide the actual data, place and time reqiored for the Hatch Act violation. How can anyone draw a conclusion until they have been apprised of the facts?
So, what exactly is her job in the Executive Department?
I ask that question because of Article 2 Section 2 Clause 2 of the US Constitution; “He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”
Now forgive me but it does say; “but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”, that means that Congress creates all positions within the Executive Department and Congress determines the method of appointment for all persons in the Executive Department, and Congress determines which positions can then be appointed by the President alone, but under no circumstances does the president have the authority to create and staff any position anywhere in the Executive Department, or any other Department within our government, without the approval of Congress!
So I will ask again, what is her job and who authorized it’s creation and staffing by the President?
I know, you guys are too smart to answer this question with a Constitutional reference, but give it a try!
“So, what exactly is her job in the Executive Department?”
I didn’t read the rest as I have learned it is a waste of time.
However, since you think you are so smart maybe you can add something to the discussion so we can each draw our own conclusions.
Quote or tell us what Conway did along with the time and place that you feel violates the Hatch Act. Then you can tell us why. I’m not interested in your why before you provide a complete description of the action you believe violates the Act.
First, I wouldn’t waste my time adding to your discussion which is futile on its face, and you think any answer I Provide is beneath your intelligence.
But just to add to your discussion anyway, since it is my time I’m wasting, the Hatch act covers a process that is unconstitutional and shouldn’t exist in the first place, that being campaigning for any office in our Government especially President, due to the fact that the Presidency is not an office that you can Campaign for and win, you must be selected for the position by being on a majority of the Electors ballots who Voted, not a Majority of Electoral College Votes.
We don’t have Electoral College Votes, we have Electors that Vote. And just like the Baseball Hall of Fame induction process, you can want to be inducted all you want, but unless you appear on a majority of the Electors ballots, you aren’t getting in, and the President must have a similar majority of the Electors, and the Electors are the Electorate for the Selection of the President, not Parties, and not those registered to vote in any State, who the Electors vote for on their behalf.
Now if you had bothered to read what I wrote in the first place, which I know you did, then you would know that she has no business in the White House in any Capacity what so ever, and even if she did, then the States as they are assembled in Congress could remove her at their will, no matter what she did or was perceived to have done, in violation of the Hatch Act or not.
Now if you had bothered to read what I wrote in the first place,
reminds one of the old joke: you might look better after having a few drinks but in your case there isn’t enough hard liquor to want to read your “contributions”…global warming and all that
🤡
Wow, what a bunch of juvenile pathetic wannabes! I’d claim I couldn’t be bothered to read too, if what I was reading directly contradicted my arguments! But you are faced with the Constitution, and it’s written on a 6th grade level, so what’s your problem? Still in grade school!?
“First, I wouldn’t waste my time adding…”
But despite that desire you waste your time in paragraphs of garbage. Again I stopped reading the second you started discussing the Presidency because you couldn’t answer the question asked. You never can. You have a canned response for everything and generally it doesn’t pertain to the subject matter or anything else.
I’m laughing at you, andI will keep laughing at you, you small insignificant wannabe!
Federalist, I am glad to make you laugh even if the laughter is inappropriate and represents a deeply depressed individual. Keep posting and make sure you include a few extra paragraphs so that someone somewhere can find that little drivel of insight you might have.
I find that our conversation thread has digressed to the point that I can no longer be civil, so keep playing with yourself, maybe you will be able to find satisfaction!
“I can no longer be civil, so keep playing with yourself”
Federalist that would mean there was a time when you were civil and not berating or bragging. That time never existed. You have been playing with yourself so much that not only your eyes are blind but so is your brain.
dimes on the dollar federalist is a post menopausal woman who likes cats
No indication from the writing that federalistpapers is female, much less a cat lover. That person is cut from the same cloth as the departed ‘dhili’ in substantive terms.
hatch act, ha ha, the Democrats are experts at ignoring that law. this is typical news: true as far as it goes, but misleading in the larger context
too many laws. i wonder how many small people comply with the regulations about giving 1099s — not many i would say
https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-1099-misc
just anther preposterous, onerous, much ignored law that made little sense in the first place
the people can’t comply with all these diktats! let the pitchforks come out and soon!
anybody ever thrown a battery in the garbage? thats a violation of federal criminal statutes and you can be charged whether you intended anything bad or not. one could go on and on but why bother. laws are just for policing one’s political adversaries, right?
I can almost guarantee that anyone in business has broken a law at one time or another. Anon has probably broken some that could land him in jail, don’t ask, don’t tell. I am not saying that he is a crook rather when he complains about the President based on Jan’s own work experience he should know that it is almost impossible to build without breaking some rule or omitting some type of paperwork.
I think what people want to see is government employees doing their jobs and not using government owned property for their own personal use. In Conway’s case it appears she is doing her job.
It’s hard to get excited about accusations that Conway violated the Hatch Act. It’s not even treated as a crime…there’s an administrative process that can only suspend, fine, or fire.
All Americans would do well to ignore the US House for the next 15 months, then see what happens to the Democraps
Da Struggle Iz Reel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q5FdzHaOuE
Notably, the Special Counsel, Henry Kerner, is a longtime congressional GOP staff member and has denied Conway’s assertions that this is merely an effort to silence her.
He worked for John McCain. This pseudo-controversy has nothing to do with law. Trump needs to fire the White House personnel director for malicious incompetence.
1. She’s a confidential employee
2. The ‘Hatch Act’ violations are humbug.
The White House shouldn’t make it easy for the latest fishing expedition.
SBG, maybe you should read the Mueller Report so you have a clue about what is going on.
https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
A Trump fan complaining about lies would be funny if not so sad.
Mueller and before him McCabe and Company spent 32 month (not counting the antecedent period when they were running informants). ‘investigating’ and came up with bupkis. Indictments of Russian security officials they knew they’d never have to argue in court, harassment of various parties with manufactured process crimes, charges against Manafort and Cohen in regard to tax matters and wire transfers about which the President knew nothing and would have no reason to know anything. They spent over a year trying to collar Trump for obstructing the obstruction investigation. They tried a three-felonies-a-day entrapment scheme against George Papadoplolous.
You’ve pretended for weeks that there’s some sort of untapped gold mine in the Mueller Report when what there really is is obfuscatory verbiage. You have no integrity of any kind, intellectual or moral. Everybody’s on to you.
The Mueller Report revealed that Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen were shameless, pocket-stuffing hustlers. And comically Rick Gates was shamelessly ripping off Manafort. We also learned that Trump’s old friend Roger Stone is a very weird guy. ..Oh yes, we also learned that Russian Military Intelligence units were probing our election security. Yet none of these revelations means anything to uncritical admirers of Donald Trump.
Roger Stone has been known to be a libertine for a long time. Is that what you mean by weird? I guess his pot legalization contact was the one who supposedly had the connection to Assange. But that guy was a Democrat so no problem– for him.
I enjoy Stone, have listened to him chattering about politics quite a bit for years now.
https://stonedefensefund.com/
Sanctuary cities repeatedly defy federal immigration law. State marijuana laws violate federal drug laws. Do they get to pick and choose?
Karen, that may be in particular cases, but local police are not required to enforce federal law, and rounding up illegals who have not committed other high priority crimes that the locals are concerned is avoided in US cities which are not sanctuary cities.
Karen wants to bring back the days of Reefer Madness.
That’s a good question. State and local police must FOLLOW federal law, but they are actually servants of a different sovereign so in their activities, they must respond to that sovereign first, as a practical matter, in everything.
So you have situations where state law has legalized pot, the local cops are going to have to follow local law and let that go. However, they can’t themselves be involved in it, still subject to the federal laws themselves, even if they are not in their official capacity enforcing them. this gets complicated!
The police are not used to round up illegals. Rather, when they have an illegal alien in custody for committing a crime, for instance, rape or murder, they are required to cooperate with an ICE detainer.
Sanctuary cities will attract violent felons under deportation orders, as well as non violent people under court ordered deportation. The latter commits non violent crime like identity theft, and there was a whole cottage industry of staged auto accident shakedowns, some of which was run by illegals. All of this increases the danger for legal residents and citizens in those sanctuary cities.
“Karen wants to bring back the days of Reefer Madness.” Peter – state law on marijuana contradicts federal law on marijuana. It doesn’t matter if you like to toke or not, or the inherent value of pot. It’s reality. As for pot itself, it has a lot of potential for medical use. It is also being developed into a stronger drug, and is now 7 times more potent than it was in the 60’s. They are turning an herbal tranquilizer into something on track to be abused. Extracts already are abused. Pot is also correlated with psychosis, which requires further study. Pot isn’t like heroine, but it’s not vitamins or purely benign, either.
The opiod epidemic genesis was the development of a new class of painkillers believed to be safer than its predecessors. That was wrong. Now pot is considered no more dangerous than a glass of wine. That’s wrong, too.
https://childmind.org/article/marijuana-and-psychosis/
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/substance-use-disorder/cannabis-induced-psychosis-review
Turning pot into a legal street drug detracts from its medical potential. Pot sent 455,668 people to the emergency room in 2011, alone. If that happened with a prescription drug that was marketed as safe as a glass of wine, that company would be under investigation.
Making pot more potent was a mistake.
Not enough cannabis in the world to make sense of your blabberings.
🙂
“Not enough cannabis in the world to make sense of your blabberings.”
*********************
Never stopped the Dims from trying. Pass the Cheetos, man!
The meaning of Karen S.’s post would be clear to most people.
Normal people would not be perplexed, or find those statements incomprehensible.
A normal person might dispute the statistics presented, or the implication of those stats.
Someone going out of their way to be an *******, like YNOT, will “contribute” bitchy little remarks that contrast with the approach of a normal individual.
Tom:
I took it as if you have a drug epidemic, you don’t legalize the drug of choice for new users especially when its demonstrably dangerous.
Mespo,
There’s been an ongoing debate about the pros and cons of pot for decades.
At one end of the spectrum, there’s the belief that it’s
I’ll effects are understated, that it is often “a gateway drug”, etc.
At the other end of the spectrum is are the most evangelical proponents of pot who tout it as the potential cure or treatment for a very broad range of ailments.
We’re still learning about the link between alcohol consumption and certain types of cancers, especially for relatively heavy “social drinkers”.
And booze has been a legal, common substance that’s been with us for centuries, and we’re still learning about it.
Pot use was relatively uncommon until the mid-1960s, so we have only a couple of generations of experience/ observation/ study about its effects.
And the idiocy of keeping it as a schedule 1 drug, along with heroin, crack cocaine, etc., greatly complicates actual scientific research.
I think the jury is still out on the potential uses and dangers of pot.
What Karen S. pointed out—- the huge increase in potentcy of pot compared to earlier days—- us true.
It’s also true that as pot use has become more common, acceptable, and legal, there’s been an increase in adverse reactions, pot-rared ER visits, etc.
We still don’t have a good way of determining levels of impairment for drivers, like we do for alcohol impairment tests ( if nobody is “cheating”, padding the results).
The technology might catch up, but evaluating impairment in those who use pot presents some special challenges.
Overall, just based on what I’ve seen, the people I’ve known who’ve used pot, and “stayed with” pot use as their drug of choice, generally did not seem to develop major problems.
In the case of regular, heavy users, their IQs seemed to drop a few notches😑, but other than that, I can’t say that they’ve run into big health or legal
issues.
So put me down as “an agnostic” on the pros/ cons of pot.
I think the jury is still out, and so far out, that it’ll take us decades to get more definitive answers. – Tom, but this might post as “anonymous” thanks to no sign-in box below this reply.
Auto correct. “Heroin” not “heroine”.
Said by I-can’t-ever-be-brief Karen S. She must not have anyone at home who wants to listen to her. True of others, here, as well, it would seem.
Trump & Trumpsters are actually working hard… to make the U.S. a 3rd world country and it’s getting close to being too late to reverse course. Even relatively intelligent people now agree that truths about Dear Leader are “fake news” and alarms raised about the dangers of fascism are met with mean-spirited insults from not only Trumpsters but even from the country’s premiere right-wing propaganda Wurlitzer organ and its supporters here on this site.
Wait a minute? It’s Trump’s fault that the country is becoming Third World?
Democrats gave homeless right to sleep laws and bills of rights. So you now have lots of homeless drug addicts and mad people throwing garbage into ephemeral stream beds, dropping needles, and pooing on the street. Skirting around homeless is now quite common in blue CA.
Drug use is glorified as a way to have fun. Many of the homeless are drug addicts.
We now have the highest homeless population in the entire country.
Democrats support illegal immigration. Gov Newsome is advising those under a court deportation order to not open the door or cooperate. That action alone means there is no justifiable reason to deport anyone. Sanctuary cities, drivers licenses, lower cost auto insurance than citizens, health care, section 8 housing. It all drains resources and housing away from those legally allowed to be here. This makes the homeless crisis worse.
There are now plagues going around homeless areas, and transmitted to cops, and other taxpayers who have the misfortune to have to walk by those areas. Typhoid. Typhus. Antibiotic resistant TB. Scabies. Bed Bugs. Hepatitis A. Andy Bales, of the Union Rescue Mission, is permanently bound to a wheelchair because he picked up multiple bacterial infections trying to help the people on Skid Row. (https://www.laweekly.com/union-rescue-mission-ceo-will-never-walk-again-thanks-to-bacteria-crawling-on-skid-row/) I was down in the city once, and could smell feces where a city worker was leaf blowing, with nothing but a dust mask. Feces. It was an area where the homeless keep congregating. They get them to move a hundred feet, and then they move back. There was so much human waste in the area that, even after the city had hosed it down, the poo had become part of the city’s dirt. You can smell it when they use leaf blowers, which means you are inhaling infectious particles.
There are a great many places in CA that look worse than a Third World country. I’ve traveled to multiple third world countries. I didn’t see human feces or vomit on the ground, or needles. People were just poor. No human being should live like our homeless do. If they can’t take care of themselves, then they need to be committed in some way. Rehab or mental health institutions. But they can’t be allowed to lie in their own filth on the sidewalk.
Democrats are moving to make the homeless situation even worse, encouraging more of it. They are designating parking lots in parking scarce LA for homeless encampments. Offering unlimited storage. Right to sleep laws. Right to loiter laws. Homeless bill of rights.
The homeless on the streets who can form a sentence will often tell you they want to live on the street because they don’t want anyone telling them what to do, such as to stop doing drugs. That’s why they so often turn down shelter when it’s offered. Those who are just down on their luck accept the offer of help, and don’t defecate in the sidewalk. They’re the easy ones to help.
Democrats decriminalized drug offenses, not just for marijuana. It’s getting quite hard to put anyone in jail in CA, with the way they keep emptying out the prisons and refusing to prosecute. That means that there is no leverage to use on an addict to get them to go to rehab. It used to be a choice of rehab or prison. That would be the impetus some people needed to turn their lives around. People have been on the radio saying that such a choice got them clean. Now there’s nothing. Granted, there is a libertarian argument to be made that it shouldn’t be illegal to do drugs. What I see is the drugs one of the main reasons fueling homelessness. The other is the mentally ill lurching around on the street. Haven’t seen improvement there, either.
We are the highest taxed, most business unfriendly state in the union, and we have potholed streets and homeless encampments with medieval diseases to show for it.
Once again, Democrat policies brought ruin.
Karen working over time with her bogus history. Homelessness exploded due to court rulings before and in the Reagan era on committing people to mental hospitals and loitering laws.
You both are wrong! The country is in a state of anarchy because of divisions created and manipulated by Political Parties which are unconstitutionally usurping power and authority over our legislative and governing processes!
I know, y’all are too ignorant to understand what I just said!
Since you did not include the judiciary, which I correctly pointed out as having caused the change in US laws on loitering and mental health facility commitments about 40 years ago, I’m going to have to declare you ignorant of the problem fed.
Wow, you are an arrogant imbecile! I did not include the judiciary because our justice system was assembled according to the same divisions based upon Partisanship and conflicts of interest related to Party Affiliation.
We are in a state of anarchy due to the lack of governing Authority.
Anarchy noun
an·ar·chy | \ ˈa-nər-kē , -ˌnär- \
Definition of anarchy
1a : absence of government
b : a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority
the city’s descent into anarchy
c : a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
2a : absence or denial of any authority or established order
anarchy prevailed in the ghetto
b : absence of order : DISORDER
not manicured plots but a wild anarchy of nature
— Israel Shenker
Now, you can continue to attack me for your own ignorance, but I think you should put your arrogance aside and see the big picture.
And by the way, we have been progressively sinking into anarchy since Reconstruction, where Control was the order of the day to maintain control over our Governing systems and the economic systems in both the States and as a Federal Government!
I’m going to be nice and just tell you, and your ilk, to wake up, you are in a cult!
Most offensive regular poster award goes to: federalistpapersrevisited, again!
Tough, get over it!
Oh wonderful person, why do you cast your pearls of wisdom before us swine here? Surely there are other destinations on the internet where your valuable jeremiads would be better received. Shake the dust off your feet and move on, please! Let us remain mired in our abject ignorance. We don’t deserve your insights! Surely someone else will, you have only to find them. they’re out there– on a different website.
Sorry I’m here to stay! There is one sure fire way to stop me from pointing out your ignorance, stop replying to my comments! Obviously they are not for you!
“Sorry I’m here to stay! There is one sure fire way to stop me from pointing out your ignorance, stop replying to my comments! Obviously they are not for you!”
*********************
Oh let him stay, Mr. Kurtz. How else will we get such gorgeous elucidations as I found on his site. Here’s a beaut: “We are slaves to our own society and the Government that rules over it!”
Let that little bit of Zen sink in and run over you. We are slaves to our society and our government. A literate person said that and not snickering. A guy like that has to be kept around for comparison’s sake if nothing else.
Like your namesake said and federalistpapersreviled paraphrased: “”Sick! Sick! Not so sick as you would like to believe. Never mind. I’ll carry my ideas out yet—I will return. I’ll show you what can be done. You with your little peddling notions – you are interfering with me. I will return.”
Heart of Darkness? More like Heart of Stupid!
FPR is what you get if George and Natacha bred. A Georgatacha, heavy on the Natacha genes.
She denies it, but I still think that someone may be paying her. Something about her just doesn’t add up.
To Anon about Karen S
You sound a lot like L4D, who was banned for repeated violations of the simple civility rules. She admitted on another thread that she keeps coming up with new Anonymous avatars to get around the ban. She, too, kept saying I was a paid commenter. How interesting that as soon as she was banned, you showed up with the same exact accusation. Does that even exist? I’ve heard of bots but not people actually paid a living to write blog post comments. I’m very curious why you seem to know so much about it. You also denied ever saying I was being paid. I suppose when you cannot contribute something of value to a conversation, you have to be a Mean Girl and lie. That’s a serious character flaw that you might want to consider working on.
You sure do post a lot of comments here. I drop in for a few minutes at a time as a fun outlet. But you’ve done some strange obsessive things in regards to me. Just yesterday, I think it was, you copied and pasted a single line of mild criticism someone else wrote the day before on another thread. It was like you cherished it as your dearest pet.
I wonder, do you print out my posts and have them taped on your wall to stare at? You mention my name at the same rate that L4D did. Perhaps the internet provides dangerous stimulation to unstable people, in the way porn is a dangerous habit to those with the propensity for violence.
“I drop in for a few minutes at a time as a fun outlet.” -comment by Karen S.
Now that’s a knee-slapper, Karen S.
As for the rest of it, Karen S is obsessing — again — and blowing things way out of proportion — drama-queen that she is. She inflates her own importance.
Take a hint, Karen S:
This is absurd x 9 says: June 24, 2019 at 5:17 PM
“…I realize you want to stick it to Anon and other leftoids for their various and sundry frauds, but discussions which include sentences like this are as useless as Karen’s 1000 word yammers about ‘socialism’.
Repeating:
“…are as useless as Karen’t 1000 word yammers about” [fill in the blank].
“Just yesterday, I think it was, you copied and pasted a single line of mild criticism someone else wrote the day before on another thread. It was like you cherished it as your dearest pet.”
It seems like you cannot control your frantic obsession with me, another similarity with L4D.
Hey, Current Anonymous. Please explain to everyone why you think Professor Turley is paying me for commenting on his blog post. I’m so curious why you have become obsessed with the idea that a public figure would pay a stranger to comment on a blog post when he doesn’t even read the comments section. Most people who read the blog probably don’t read the comments, either. You can’t seem to get the idea out of your mind, so rationalize it. Extra points for creativity, but you also have to explain how your rapier intellect chose me, out of everyone leaning conservative, to target with your tinfoil hat conspiracy theory.
You keep accusing me like you have Tourette’s. So let’s hear it.
Jonathan Turley most certainly isn’t paying you. That’s an incredibly safe bet, Karen S.
That’s another distortion by Karen S.
Some of your comments are good for a laugh, Karen S. I’ll give you that. (I’ve never said that JT is paying you. That, too, is a knee-slapper. And a lie.)
Karen’s motto: Why say in 20 words or less what you could say in 2000.
You clearly have an inflated opinion of yourself and your commentary — such as it is.
Keep on yammering. It’s what you do best, apparently.
Karen so happens to write a lot of information that is quite useful. You don’t have to read it anonymous but I would rather spend a little extra time reading what she says than a few seconds reading your trash.
Anon says: June 25, 2019 at 11:16 AM
Karen working over time with her bogus history. Homelessness exploded due to court rulings before and in the Reagan era on committing people to mental hospitals and loitering laws.
________
Karen S denies it, but I still think that someone may be paying her. Something about her just doesn’t add up.
Sorry about the duplication. Not that it doesn’t bear repeating.
Anon – Democrats keep saying they will solve all our problems if they get votes. The homeless problem is far worse than it ever was under Reagan.
Reagan agreed many years ago to a plan to decentralize mental health institutions. As governor of CA in 1967 he passed the Lanterman–Petris–Short Act, supported by the ACLU. It promoted outpatient care over commitment, and was a bad idea. When he became president, he signed the bipartisan Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, which funded state hospitals. The money was supposed to go through the state rather than the feds.
Mental health professionals gave a convincing argument that it was better for communities to build local centers, so that mental health patients can be closer to their families and connections. Only half of that took place. The main hospitals closed, but the communities never built the replacements. Patients were to be given more control over their own care, and have the choice for outpatient, or local facilities, and to administer their own medications. At the time, there were abuses in the institutions. It was too easy to commit someone, where they were forced to take lithium and all the other drugs. Those with milder illnesses were supposed to be treated outpatient, when before, they were institutionalized. However, the pendulum swung too far, with the result that the mental health no longer had the care they needed. The worse off could not be responsible for taking their own meds.
Reagan didn’t actually close a single hospital. Rather, he agreed to a plan to fund states to provide that care. The states had budget issues and closed hospitals, and they never built the community centered support system that was the core argument for these measures. I still consider this move to be the greatest mistake of his career as governor and president.
Democrats have ruled the state for decades. Homelessness is worse. Los Angeles country spends $619 million on homelessness in 2018 alone. (https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-homeless-housing-count-20190511-story.html) Didn’t fix it. The state can’t take care of its own. Apparently cannot build more mental health facilities or get legislation passed that would help institutionalize the crazy people on the street. But it has decided to blow massive amounts of money in the budget on a stupid vacation train to San Francisco (which would drain underground water resources), give free healthcare to the illegal aliens, and become a sanctuary state to attract more people to drain the budget.
Why would any reasonable person consider this flawed mental health policy permanent? Why would anyone excuse its not being fixed after over 30 years? We have had multiple presidents since then, multiple Congressional elections, and you want to blame Reagan?
Here in flyover at least, the subject of standards for involuntary commitment is not any kind of partisan issue.
I have experience with this in front of both Democrat and Republican judges and they are not a shade of difference in how they handle these things. They ALL generally just do their best according to the facts and law.
Here is a well informed organization advancing modest changes in law and policy.
https://www.nami.org/About-NAMI/Policy-Platform/9-Legal-Issues
There is an increasing recognition that there was an over-reaction which came in the wake of the development of the first generation of antipsychotic drugs, which did allow for a lot of people to be safely released. However, the over reaction was that perhaps too many were released, who could not really maintain their own care, regardless of the new medicines. So too much of the system was dismantled too fast, and it’s been too hard to get it all back up to a sufficient supply of inpatient care going forwards.
This realization that this has something to do with the narrowness of standards for involuntary commitment, is being slowly reformed back into law in various ways.
The more tangible and seemingly more immediate major problem with inadequate levels of critical mental health services and inpatient care is the constant state of triage. That is to say, a lack of beds and workers and sufficiently trained professionals, which of course is a consequences of whatever other problems exist in health care funding and payment systems in general. So the worst get immediate, attention but those who can probably stumble along for another few days or weeks are shown the door.
Whatever positions parties want to strike, the problem will never go away. Society will always need to find ways to pay for insane asylums in some form or fashion or by whatever name, because some people will always be a danger to themselves and others, and generally they will have already lost all their money and won’t be able to pay for their own care. This problem will never go away just like the need for jails and so we need to “just deal with it”
I am not sure why some locations have more homeless than others, except for 2 things.
Definitely it’s partly due to a) the weather and b) where they can get free food.
Major metros have food kitchens, and smaller towns mostly don’t. So they will always gravitate to major metros, and more so in warmer locations.
Karen, you don’t know what you’re talking about and still managed about 400 words.
Beyond the court case on loitering from 1975, the court made a series of rulings in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s making it significantly more difficult to committ mental patients against their will, or without proper and complete care. For better or worse – and some parts of this are legally and morally valid – it resulted in many who would have been previously locked up being now out on the streets and living in our parks. Reagan had very little to do with this, nor did Mondale, Teddy Kennedy, Obama, or whatever bugaboo you want to name.
Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418 (1979), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that set the standard for involuntary commitment for treatment by raising the burden of proof required to commit persons for psychiatric treatment from the usual civil burden of proof of “preponderance of the evidence” to “clear and convincing evidence”.[1]
Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972), was a United States Supreme Court case resulting in a Jacksonville vagrancy ordinance being declared unconstitutionally vague. The case was argued on December 8, 1971, and decided on February 24, 1972. The respondent was the city of Jacksonville, Florida.
Anon – “Reagan had very little to do with this”
Me – “The homeless problem is far worse than it ever was under Reagan.”
“Why would any reasonable person consider this flawed mental health policy permanent? Why would anyone excuse its not being fixed after over 30 years? We have had multiple presidents since then, multiple Congressional elections, and you want to blame Reagan?”
You would think that decades would be enough to solve this problem. Apparently not. Politicians are too busy dangling dollar bills in front of voters to bother with doing their job. Why do the tough work when they can always blame Reagan?
Say what? Who’s blaming Reagan? Every city in America struggles with this problem because it is based on SC rulings all are subject too. The biggest variables are where is the weather nicest and the citizens wealthy enough to hand out the occasional panhandler reward. I don;t think city initiatives on shelters and services entices them, but maybe – I don’t know. I would favor tougher laws on behavior that ruins public spaces for normal citizens, likes parks, and does provide services for those in need but how that can be written under the SC rulings I don’t know. As a builder I like the built environment to be used as intended by the owners – in the case of parks, for citizens and family like entertainment, not as drug parks and campgrounds.
The small city I am near has somehow managed to make the downtown parks and squares pleasant again for use by normal citizens with families by moving services to the outskirts. I don’t know if they have cracked down on sleeping in the parks, but I assume they have somehow or there would be at least some stragglers.
Karen, there’s no indication from the available data that vagrancy is a more severe problem than it was 30-odd years ago. The Census Bureau produced an estimate in 1990 (from a count Mitch Snyder’s outfit tried to disrupt) of 230,000 while the Urban Institute thought 600,000. The Census Bureau produced another estimate in 2010 of 530,000. It’s difficult to measure because while you have an abiding population, people cycle into and out of vagrancy, which appears to be the state of roughly 0.2% of the population at any one time. A bibliography of small studies suggests that the share with discrete clinical diagnoses might be 20% or 25%. Liquidating the asylum is only part of the story here. The main story is catastrophic personal failure, and there isn’t much to be done about that other than palliative measures by local philanthropies.
Absurd, the problem escalated in the 1970s and 1980s for reasons I describe above, not the 1990s. Of course economic problems could exacerbate the problem.
Economic problems have very little to do with it. The vagrant population consists of people who don’t function in structured situations or who are not functioning at this moment. The economic problems of the 1970s consisted of manufactured shortages due to price controls, distortions in the labor market due to wage controls, and wretched inflation due to irresponsible monetary policy. You can also divine that there were escalating rates of frictional unemployment, likely the result of regulatory errors and welfare policy. This might push functional people into the circulating vagrant populaiton for a time. Or not. It’s a tiny segment of society.
“The vagrant population consists of people who don’t function in structured situations or who are not functioning at this moment. The economic problems of the 1970s consisted of …”
**********************
In the 70s, we called them bums. We were right then; we are right now.
“In the 70s, we called them bums. We were right then; we are right now.”
You’re a swell guy, mespo.
Then we agree that economic conditions can exacerbate the problem, regardless of what caused those conditions. Economic conditions did not create the drastic change in the problem back in 70’s & 80’s, court rulings on forcible commitments and loitering laws did that.
Then we agree that economic conditions can exacerbate the problem, regardless of what caused those conditions.
No, we don’t agree. It’s the sort of problem that insensitive to economic circumstances.
Karen, you have little understanding about the homeless issue. A very high ratio of homeless people grew up in the foster care system and never had a real family. Once they age out of foster care, their adult lives begin with NOTHING.
Foster care is the prison track. They are indeed kicked out of their foster homes at 18. They often have indifferent schooling under the public education system in bad schools, and don’t have anyone at home to help them with homework. The foster care system is a mess, and another example of how government is a poor replacement for a parent. No one thrives under government care.
After that, many get into crime and drugs. Those who get into drugs have a higher risk of being homeless. 40 to 50% of foster kids become homeless at some point after they turn 18. That does not mean that the majority of the total homeless population itself is aged foster kids. It just means that it’s another way that government care is a disaster.
One of the many risk factors for single motherhood that I’m always harping on is the risk for the kids to go into foster care and/or become homeless. And yet, Democrats fight tooth and nail at any efforts to reduce the increasing rate of single motherhood. We don’t need a scarlet letter, but we sure do need a seismic shift in the cultural acceptance of single motherhood.
Those who are just down on their luck accept help. Those homeless who are drug addicts or have mental health issues, don’t.
My husband tried really hard to help the homeless that were taking over the area. Had every representative he could find offer them shelter, rehab, housing…All declined. We were both naive, thinking they just didn’t know about the services available. They knew and weren’t interested in being told what to do, in their own words.
There is another persistent problem in the unwillingness of both parties to aggressively attack problems in law which relate to child abuse, such as the “incest loophole” which allowed for child molestors who abused their own offspring, to consistently plea bargain down to a lesser charge than those who abused strangers
http://www.vachss.com/mission/protect-zero/a_long_time_coming.html
Foster care, is in fact a better place for a lot of kids, than whatever hellhole their biological parents have kept them in at home.
Screening abusers from foster care systems, is again, a task which requires sufficient funding and public attention to administer effectively.
another problem is the GAL system which gives abused kids a non-lawyer to do a lawyer’s job. guardian ad litem.
The cheapness of the politicians of both parties, when it comes to funding the only programs we have to remediate the intergenerational problem of child abuse, is something that we will pay for ten times over or more in the future. Every kid that gets treated like a piece of garbage is all that more likely to become a terrible offender themselves.
Some criminals are born that way, yes. But not all. A lot of criminals were conditioned into their miserable existence by the other miserable criminals that raised them like so many wild dogs. Society either finds a way to deal with it or there’s more and more wild dogs instead of properly socialized human beings.
Karen, there are about 100,000 ba!tard children born in New York every year. The stock of youngsters enrolled in the foster care system is at any one time about 25,000, spread over 18 juvenile cohorts. That’s a cross-sectional figure of 1,400 per cohort. People cycle in and out of the system, of course, so the number who have some time in the system during their nonage is much larger, but it’s still an atypical destination for children born out-of-wedlock.
To paraphrase the Dear Leader:
“It’s the most transparent White House in American history. On a side note, everyone keep your mouth shut. But not you, Stormy. Fake news. Ask my attorney Michael Cohen. Great guy. Terrible guy. Tremendously fantastic, total witch-hunt. Norway.”
Stream of consciousness snark is still stupid.
The truth is often stupid mespo, and especially when quoting our president.
About mespo’s comment to Dave137: “Stream of consciousness snark is still stupid.”
Not necessarily.
Dave137 — Over 8 years how many times did President Obama stop and answer numerous questions from the press on the way to Marine One? Answer? None. And when President Obama DID answer press questions, how long did he take to answer ONE question, on average? Answer? About 5 rambling minutes per question. Which means he answered about 3 questions. Inform yourself, my friend. In contrast, Trump answers questions, on the fly, constantly, and he doesn’t filibuster and take 10 minutes to answer ONE question. You are sadly misinformed “Dave”…
Dave137 — everything President Obama did in public was carefully scripted and controlled. Everything. And what the public saw was always pure propaganda to boost his image and likeability. Both he and Michelle used late night talk shows, the Ellen show, the View, and all of Hollywood and pop culture to help them both carefully craft their public images of “cool” and “likeable”….and all of it was manipulation of public opinion that has very little to do with “truth.” But people like you buy into it hook, line and sinker. How pitiful.
Americans are fed a steady diet of propaganda. Consider this:
George W. Bush doesn’t deserve the media’s efforts at rehabilitation
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/374081-george-w-bush-doesnt-deserve-the-medias-efforts-at-
Excerpt:
“Our democracy is only as good as people trust the results,” former President George W. Bush declared in a presumably well-paid speech last week in the United Arab Emirates, a notorious Arab dictatorship. Bush is being exalted as if he is the second coming of George Washington thanks to his implied slams against the Trump administration. But Bush’s actions during his eight year reign did far more to ravage democracy at home and abroad than most people realize.
Thanks to gushing media coverage, Bush is enjoying one of the greatest comebacks in modern American history. In the summer of 2008, only 22 percent of Americans approved of Bush and 41 percent said he was the “worst president ever.” Last month, a poll showed that 61 percent of Americans now approve of Bush, and his support among Democrats quintupled, from 11 percent in early 2009 to 54 percent now. If Americans want to understand current political challenges, they need to recall Bush’s forgotten debacles.
End of excerpt
(He’s done pretty much the same “circuit” as the Obamas. Don’t pretend that this is limited to the Democrats. It’s the way things work.)
The sad state of the Democrat haters, liars, and failing policies have left them with nothing but smears. Jerry Nadler demeaning Hope Hicks, Cohen’s KFC parlor game, abuses by Dems at CIA/FBI and in the Obama administration, 24 month of lies from Schiff, Blumnethal, Pelosi, AOC, et al have proven that they care nothing for the truth or for the American citizens and care only for power. And since so many of their policies are shams, they are left with trying to create smear campaigns. Good book to read if you want to understand who the Democrats are is by Sharyl Attkison, who unveils their unethical ploys. All of these investigations, just like the Original Mueller investigation, were started not on truths but on lies, and all are intended to smear Republicans and conservatives with these lies. Read — https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062468161/the-smear/
SBG, maybe you should read the Mueller Report so you have a clue about what is going on.
https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
A Trump fan complaining about lies would be funny if not so sad.