As someone who has taught defamation torts for thirty years, the Trump Administration has been a bonanza of such cases and controversies. While many claims of defamation have been resulted in filings, we have had a number of high profile political controversies turn into actual tort litigation. I regularly criticized Donald Trump for his calls to change defamation laws. On the opposing side, figures like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough raised equally poor understandings of defamation law in considering lawsuits against Trump. However, not surprisingly in our age of rage, there has been a slew of defamation claims raised from leading lawyers to universities to academics to police officers to the Dominion company to Sarah Palin to Jerry Falwell Jr. to Roy Moore to Joy Reid . . . well, you get the idea.
What is striking is that some of the most reckless figures or groups are often the first to raise such claims, including Trump himself. The Lincoln Project is the latest example. The group participated a disgraceful campaign of intimidation against lawyers and law firms that began soon after the election, including alleged efforts to dox or troll people with opposing views. This includes work that was previously discussed as potentially defamatory. It is now saying that it has a strong case against Rudy Giuliani who himself seems a perpetual defamation machine. The claim arose after Giuliani held a signature interview with unhinged and unsupported allegations, including that someone associated with The Lincoln Project helped orchestrate the recent riot on Capitol Hill. While the Project says that this is an open and shut case, there are serious impediments facing such a lawsuit and it is not, in my view, sure thing under controlling case law.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon interviewed Giuliani on his podcast War Room and was taken back when Giuliani leveled a sensational and entirely unsupported allegation in discussing the Senate trial:
“The defense is going to have to show that this thing was planned and a lot of the people involved in the planning, antifa and even some right-wing groups, were enemies of his. And they were doing it in order to hurt him. Including some right-wing groups that operate for the Lincoln Project or have been working with the Lincoln Project at various times.”
Bannon cut off Giuliani with “Hang on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa—what are you saying ‘working for the Lincoln Project?’ Right-wing groups like who?”
Giuliani refused to name his source, saying “One of the people who organized is well known for having worked with the Lincoln Project in the past” and said that his unnamed individual “had the same motivation the antifa people had.”
When asked a third time to name the individual, Giuliani stated “I don’t know if I can reveal his name because we have that from anonymous sources, but he worked in the past for [Senator Mitt] Romney.”
Bannon correctly noted “This is why we’re getting blown up all the time. You can’t throw a charge out there like that and say, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a double-secret probation guy who I can’t mention but he worked for Romney and he worked for the Lincoln Project.’”
It was clearly reckless but was it defamatory?
Lincoln Project itself did not help its case by publicly celebrating its own defamation. Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt said Saturday that he was “thrilled” by Giuliani’s interview and the defamation. The group joked on Twitter that it wanted “trial by combat.”
That does not exactly seem like an aggrieved and harmed plaintiff.
The group’s attorney Matthew Sanderson later sent a letter claiming “a textbook case of defamation” by “accus[ing] The Lincoln Project of an infamous and criminal act it had nothing to do with, as you very well knew. You lied.” Sanderson gave Giuliani until Feb. 3 to “retract your statement fully and to apologize to The Lincoln Project. Refuse at your peril.”
Defamation law is heavily curtailed by the First Amendment and often the most despicable defendants are protected in the use of vile and hurtful language. That was the case in Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011). I previously wrote that such lawsuits are a direct threat to free speech, though I had serious problems with the awarding of costs to the church in a prior column. I was therefore gladdened by the Supreme Court ruling 8-1 in favor of the free speech in the case, even if it meant a victory for odious Westboro Church. Roberts held that the distasteful message cannot influence the message:
“Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.” Roberts further noted that “Westboro believes that America is morally flawed; many Americans might feel the same about Westboro. Westboro’s funeral picketing is certainly hurtful and its contribution to public discourse may be negligible. As a nation we have chosen a different course — to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”
The Court in cases like New York Times v. Sullivan have long limited tort law where it would undermine the first amendment:” Given that Westboro’s speech was at a public place on a matter of public concern, that speech is entitled to “special protection” under the First Amendment.” Ironically, the Lincoln Project could ultimately echo the position of the lone dissenter: Justice Alito. The dissent gave little credence to concerns over the constitutional rights raised in the case. He insisted that “[i]n order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims like petitioner.”
It is not clear who will be suing as individuals or the group or both. However, the standard is quite high. In New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court ruled that tort law could not be used to overcome First Amendment protections for free speech. The Court sought to create “breathing space” for the media by articulating that standard that now applies to both public officials and public figures. In order to prevail, a litigant must show either actual knowledge of its falsity or a reckless disregard of the truth.
This is a matter of great public concern and political debate including equally outrageous claims made by the other side accusing individual members of conducting surveillance for rioters. Courts are understandably hesitant to delve into the super-hearted environment of political speech absent the clearest and rawest forms of defamation.
Of course, simply saying that something is your “opinion” does not automatically shield you from defamation actions if you are asserting facts rather than opinion. However, courts have been highly protective over the expression of opinion in the interests of free speech. This issue was addressed in Ollman v. Evans 750 F.2d 970 (D.C. Cir. 1984). In that case, Novak and Evans wrote a scathing piece, including what Ollman stated were clear misrepresentations. The court acknowledges that “the most troublesome statement in the column . . . [is] an anonymous political science professor is quoted as saying: ‘Ollman has no status within the profession but is a pure and simple activist.’” Ollman sued but Judge Kenneth Starr wrote for the D.C. Circuit in finding no basis for defamation.
Giuliani might rely on this passage:
The reasonable reader who peruses an Evans and Novak column on the editorial or Op-Ed page is fully aware that the statements found there are not “hard” news like those printed on the front page or elsewhere in the news sections of the newspaper. Readers expect that columnists will make strong statements, sometimes phrased in a polemical manner that would hardly be considered balanced or fair elsewhere in the newspaper. National Rifle Association v. Dayton Newspaper, Inc., supra, 555 F.Supp. at 1309. That proposition is inherent in the very notion of an “Op-Ed page.” Because of obvious space limitations, it is also manifest that columnists or commentators will express themselves in condensed fashion without providing what might be considered the full picture. Columnists are, after all, writing a column, not a full-length scholarly article or a book. This broad understanding of the traditional function of a column like Evans and Novak will therefore predispose the average reader to regard what is found there to be opinion.
A reader of this particular Evans and Novak column would also have been influenced by the column’s express purpose. The columnists laid squarely before the reader their interest in ending what they deemed a “frivolous” debate among politicians over whether Mr. Ollman’s political beliefs should bar him from becoming head of the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. Instead, the authors plainly intimated in the column’s lead paragraph that they wanted to spark a more appropriate debate within academia over whether Mr. Ollman’s purpose in teaching was to indoctrinate his students. Later in the column, they openly questioned the measure or method of Professor Ollman’s scholarship. Evans and Novak made it clear that they were not purporting to set forth definitive conclusions, but instead meant to ventilate what in their view constituted the central questions raised by Mr. Ollman’s prospective appointment.
A court would have to explore that line between stating fact and opinion. Giuliani did seem to be stating a fact as to his source and what the source would recounted in the allegation. He was quite specific that the person worked in the past with Senator Romney. Indeed, he indicated that he had “sources” to back up the allegation. But what was the allegation?
Truth is always a defense in defamation but Giuliani has a report of making allegations without sufficient support.
It appears to come down to one line: “One of the people who organized is well known for having worked with the Lincoln Project in the past.” Giuliani would need to show that there was one person who helped “organized” the riot and “worked with the Lincoln Project in the past.” Those are generalized terms. What constitutes “worked with” can have a wide meaning. If someone corresponded with the Lincoln Project or posted material in support of the group, would that constitute “working with” the Project? That does not seem like a particularly powerful foundation. In the recent Palin case, there was a direct allegation of the former governor encouraging an assassination effort. Likewise, in the settlements over the Sandmann coverage, there were false allegations that he was the aggressor.
Even if litigation could show that there was no such person or that Giuliani lacked a reasonable basis for the claim, there is also the question of how damaging such an alleged loose association would be for the Lincoln Project. Clearly, the Lincoln Project thought it was a joke and was “thrilled” by the interview. Courts have been leery of broad allegations of group libel and associational harm in defamation cases. In Neiman-Marcus v. Lait (1952), a New York federal district court addressed a defamation claim arising from the publication of the book “U.S.A. Confidential.” The author wrote that “some” models and “all” saleswomen at the Neiman-Marcus department store in Dallas were “call girls.” It also claimed that “most” of the salesmen in the men’s store were “faggots.” The store had nine models, 382 saleswomen and 25 salesmen. The court found the size of the group of women was too big to satisfy a group libel standard. However, the size of the group of salesmen was viewed as sufficiently small to go to trial.
At this stage, I would give Giuliani the edge in prevailing in the case (on appeal if not at trial) absent additional evidence or additional statements. It is not a frivolous claim to be sure but it is not nearly as conclusive as counsel suggested in his letter. Of course, such letters are meant to state the strongest case and I certainly do not fault the language or motive. However, this will be a challenge on these interstitial points in going from an allegation to a verdict to an appeal.
(music to tune of Hail Britainia)
Jewlianno, guili rules the waves!
Rudy does his duty and it pays!
I would give Giuliani the edge. Yes, he seems to always smile and have a good time!
I suppose Rudy is going to end up telling us that the Kracken is his anonymous source. And the Kracken will say she heard it from Lin Wood. And then Lin Wood will say he heard it from God.
the Trump Administration has been a bonanza of such cases and controversies
Cuomo and DeBlasio have had more controversies in one year than Trump had in 4.
This latest vaccine roll out fiasco in NYC does not look good
White people received nearly half of COVID-19 vaccines in NYC despite dying at a lower rate than Black and Latino residents
https://news.yahoo.com/white-people-received-nearly-half-182605464.html
White New Yorkers received 48% of the nearly 300,000 vaccine jabs given to residents so far, according to new city data.
Black and Latino residents made up 11% and 15% of vaccine recipients, respectively, as of January 31.
The CDC found Black and Latino Americans have gotten hospitalized with COVID-19 at 3.7 and 4.1 times the rate of white people, respectively.
New data from New York City shows white people have gotten nearly half of COVID-19 vaccines so far.
White New Yorkers received 48% of the nearly 300,000 vaccine jabs given to residents so far. Black and Latino residents make up 11% and 15%, respectively.
Non-New York City residents have received 25% of the city’s vaccines. Among non-New Yorkers who got vaccinated in the city, white people got 59%, and Black and Latino 7% and 10%.
White people have made up fewer cases, hospitalizations, and deaths from COVID-19 in the city in comparison to Black and Latino residents, who have been hit hard by the virus. The rate of death among Black and Latino residents is 269 and 291 per every 100,000 people; the rate of death among white residents is 150 per 100,000.
New York City – where white residents make up 42% population and Black residents make up about 24% – has given out just over 500,000 vaccine jabs total as of January 31. The city does not have the race or ethnicity of 40% of adults who received at least one dose in NYC.
Read more: The most powerful people in Congress got their covid vaccines but no one seems to know when the thousands of people who keep Capitol Hill running will have their turns
The city’s data are consistent with reports from other areas in the US that show a racial disparity between who is getting first access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Insider’s Shelby Livingston analyzed data from six states that found white people gotten access to vaccines ahead of Black Americans and other racial minorities.
In North Carolina, for instance, Black people comprise 22% of the population but just 11% of vaccine recipients, while white people make up 68% of the population and 82% of those vaccinated, according to The Associated Press.
The CDC found Black and Latino Americans have gotten hospitalized with COVID-19 at 3.7 and 4.1 times the rate of white people, respectively.
White New Yorkers who are above 65-years-old had gotten vaccinated at a higher rate, while Asian, Latino, and Black vaccine recipients skewed slightly younger. Healthcare workers got first access to the vaccine in New York City.
About 148,000 people got both shots needed for the full Moderna and Pfizer vaccine in New York City.
Johnson & Johnson, which just reported a 66% effectiveness at preventing COVID-19 from using its single-dose vaccine, is expected to file emergency authorization with Food and Drug Administration within weeks.
Experts warned Black Americans and other communities of color might be hesitant to get vaccinated in the US due to a history of racist medical experiments or overall mistrust of the healthcare system, Insider’s Aria Bendix reported. Latino Americans who communicate in Spanish, for instance, have missed crucial information on the vaccine due to the language gap.
Residents of Washington Heights, a predominately Latino neighborhood, said a nearby vaccination meant to service the community gave many doses to white people from other parts of the city and state, according to The City. Some people who work out outside the site could not communicate with the Spanish-speaking residents.
One would have to be a Dumb SOB to get shot up with these so call Vaccines. They’re a GD eugenics Bio-Weapon likely meant to sterilize males/females, ph you up if it doesn’t get you buryed if you’re older! BTW: Have you ever once asked, looked at their vax inserters of what the hell is big phama is putting in all those vaccines? Likely not, most idiots just likely line up begging to shot in the arm with only God knows what.
“Sunday Live: France Says COVID Vaccine Does Not Work, Collapsing Hoax
Infowars.com
January 31st 2021, 3:55 pm
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Alex Jones breaks down French President Macron’s admission that the COVID vaccines don’t work, all but obliterating the hoax. We also discuss the Democrats’ fear that President Trump may not be convicted in their second sham impeachment crusade, which would leave him open for another presidential run in 2024.”
https://www.infowars.com/posts/sunday-live-democrats-terrified-trump-may-not-be-convicted-run-again-in-2024/
Since 2001, there are likely thousands of innocent Americans defamed by the U.S. Department of Justice. Cointelpro style blacklisting tactics use “Employment Tampering” as a weapon to defame and discredit citizens exercising legal First Amendment activity. Problem is there are no cops on the beat in 20 years to correct Cointelpro.
Off topic but of important interest I think:
On Fareed Zakaria’s CNN show this morning, his opening monologue brought up the issue of vaccines for the under developed world. Beyond the humanitarian concerns, he spells out the enlightened self interest concern we should all consider. He quoted Bill Gates to the effect that it may be another 3-4 years before these countries receive adequate supplies of vaccine. Now consider the spread of the South African strain recently and the effects of having a large part of the world’s population as breeding grounds for new strains which may or may not become lethal for the entire world. Also consider that projections are that the economic effects of this lingering pandemic will be severe and also impact the advanced world, and maybe as much as the under developed world. Not sure on the source, but he quoted someone to the effect that $1 spent by the advanced world to help on this will save $4.58 down the road in damages.
In short, this is an international crisis and the smart strategy would be for countries like ours to prepare to get the vaccine out across the world ASAP after we have covered our own.
By the way, for those who have not watched Zakaria’s Sunday morning show on CNN, it is by far the smartest of the Sunday news shows, whether you agree mostly with him or not. His topics are often international and he features smart guests, including people like the conservative historian Niall Ferguson. He is whip smart and even if you don’t agree with him, his arguments will go to facts and reason, not partisan shouting.
Bill Gates said vaccinations will help reduce population. Imagine that!
Snopes claims it’s false– but it came out of his own mouth. They even have the clip.
Really, he didn’t mean it! He meant something different, you just didn’t understand! There’s other clips of him saying it too. Hmm, only snopes is smart enough to hear English
Dont worry folks, when we are all “depopulated” Gates will have plenty of robots to do the work!
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-depopulation/
There are half a dozen vaccines being produced by China. These are not used at all in the west, but are being used in Brazil and under developed coutries.
These are more traditional vaccines that have just not gone through the extensive safety testing that the developed world requires.
It is likely they have higher complcations rates. But those still are dwarfed by the risk of C19.
China is estimate to have produced 1B doses by the end of march.
Absolutely the rest of the world is an issue. If we do not erradicate C19 within a few years. we will likely have it forever.
But there is good reason to expect we can accomplish that.
I would further note that the mRNA vaccines that are being used in the west have major advantages of being able to be developed safely and rapidly and a likely a complete game changer with respect to infectuous diseases. The existing mRNA vaccines can be modified in days to deal with mutations that make them ineffective and distributed as fast as they can be produced.
That said at this time they have distribution and storage requirements that make them highly unsuited to use in undeveloped countries.
Those may be solved in time. But not likely before about 6B people need to be vaccinated.
Finally, C19 is far less of a problem in the undeveloped world. C19 mortality is highly skewed to age.
One of the reasons for very low mortality rates in much of the undeveloped world is that life expectancy in those countries is as much as a decade lower so there are far fewer people for C19 to kill.
The average age of people in africa is below 20. The life expectancy is under 60.
People are not dying of C19 in Africa, because there are few people that C19 kills.
John one hopes that your more optimistic view of vaccine production is correct, but if not we would be wise to consider other options. As to the youth of the underdeveloped populations, new strains do not necessary require high morbidity rates and remember, our most serious threat right now is one from South Africa. Lastly, there are many cases of serious damage done to the systems of those who still survive, and these tend to be to the lungs, heart, and brain. One of my clients is a doc at a teaching hospital and expert on epidemiology. He told me the coatings to patients lungs was unlike anything they have seen before, and very alarming.
“John one hopes that your more optimistic view of vaccine production is correct,”
Even ignoring the chinese – vaccine production should increase at an exponential rate.
Everyone wants a share of 6B doses – there is near half a Trillion dollars in vaccines.
But I also noted that Covid19 is pretty designed to attack countries with high life expecancy due to excellent heath care.
Countries that have lots of very old people in poor health.
This is NOT the undeveloped world. Covid19 could run through Affrica and kill a tiny portion of the people it kills in the US.
Because there are just not that many people over 75 in Africa.
Herd imunity can be acceived through vaccination. It can also be acheived through infection.
“but if not we would be wise to consider other options.”
That would require other viable options.
It appears we are already starting to see results from vaccination. That will become clearer soon. 36M americans were vaccinated before Biden was inaugurated. It takes 2+ weeks from vaccination to see the earliest possible results and 4+ weeks for those results to peak.
“As to the youth of the underdeveloped populations, new strains do not necessary require high morbidity rates”
If you have data that the mortality curve for new strains is substantially different – please provide it.
Atleast one of the new strains has a higher transmission rate, but I have read nothing sugguesting it is actually more deadly.
Further even a higher mortality does NOT mean a different mortatily curve.
C19 has a radical age related mortality curve. For most people under 40 it is milder and less dangerous than the flu.
I know 50 year olds who got over it in 3 days. But if you are over 80 you have a 30% chance of dying.
So long as that mortaity curve is unchanged – most undeveloped countries will not have large effects.
C19 will sweep through them relatively quickly and kill very few people.
“remember, our most serious threat right now is one from South Africa.”
That is more contageous, I have not seen where it is either more deadly or has a different mortality curve.
“Lastly, there are many cases of serious damage done to the systems of those who still survive, and these tend to be to the lungs, heart, and brain.”
Again almost exclusively to people who were in the high mortality group.
“One of my clients is a doc at a teaching hospital and expert on epidemiology. He told me the coatings to patients lungs was unlike anything they have seen before, and very alarming.”
There are likely 4 general groups.
Those who die.
Those who nearly die and are further debilitated for the rest of their short lives.
Those with long covid – which we are getting a handle on
Those who have no long term effects.
Every infectuous disease leaves some people who do not die by have life long consequences.
These are usually 2-3 times the number who die and are demographicaly in nearly the same group as those who die.
For covid that is people who are already near death. The lost life years for those who died is actually quite low, It will be even less for those you are citing.
Obviously the other option to counting on present vaccine production to take care of the underdeveloped world would be paying for producing more vaccines and quickly..
The fact that new strains developing has nothing to do with the morbidity rate of the host population means that we all remain vulnerable to new strains that might develop in underdeveloped areas. See the current South African strain.
There is already commitments of about half a trillion for vaccines. The cost per dose is quite low – the primary cost of vaccines is developing them. That is high – but not half a trillion.
Pharma is producing vaccine as fast as they can – they are not stupid.
And they will produce it ever faster over time. Right now there is absolutely nothing you could possibly do that could make them produce more faster. They know damn well they could sell every dose they produce 10 times over.
Further while they have a committment to produce about 20M doses every 2 weeks for the US INITIALLY and more over time.
With a locked in price if they deliver that will be very profitable for them.
Any extra doses that they can make beyond what they have already contracted they can sell for several times the contract price.
Again they are not stupid.
Biden just bought an extra 40M doses.
There are only two ways he could have done that:
Convince Pharma to shortchange some other country,
or if Pharma was producing atleast 40M more doses than expected.
As I noted to you before China is expected to have a billion doses by April.
China is expecting to make a fortune selling them world wide at $20/dose.
And they will.
Next vaccinating underdeveloped countries is probably the lowest priority right now.
If you are looking to reduce deaths as quickly as possible – vaccines should be distributed based on death rates.
Underdeveloped countries have very low death rates from covid because they have lower life expectancy and poorer health systems.
So they have fewer elderly and those they have are in better health. If they were not they would be dead.
Regardless, you have MOSTLY been demonstrating some ability to engage in critical thinking regarding Covid in the past couple of posts.
Do not blow it.
Getting things right is not magic – it is math. We are Probably going to have to vaccinate undeveloped countries at some point to wipe C19 off the face of the earth. But we are not going to do so to save their lives. Most of their death rates are low because of the demographics that covid targets. The developed world will likely be paying to vaccinate the undeveloped world to keep this from coming back in 3-4 years.
We do not know how long immunity lasts, Though it is likely atleast 2-3 years. We must have C19 nearly wiped out in that time or we will never get rid of it. If immunity lasts longer – then we have longer.
Regardless, it is in OUR interests more than theirs to wipe covid out.
Self interest is also why the claims that there were not enough covid Funds under Trump was stupid.
Insurance companies pay for vaccinations. Most do not even have a copay. Medicare pays for vaccinations. Private insurance does.
Why ? Because vaccinations are cheap and the disease is not.
When I hear the data that the MMR vaccine appears to be 77% effective as a C19 vaccine. I went to CVS and got an MMR vaccine.
I would have paid $400 for it. It was free. My insurance covered it.
They did not do so to be nice to me. They did so because the cost to them of almost any infectuous disease is higher than the vaccination, by orders of magnitude.
Anyone claiming there is no money for vaccination is LYING. Medicare will pay for it. Private insurance will pay for it.
It is cheaper than a doctors visit. It is cheaper than an ER visit, and it is damn sure cheaper than 10 days in the hospital.
It is in the interests of insurers to get us all vaccinated.
I have responded to your post, but I would note that it was one of the most reasonable posts you have made.
As was your response.
I would ask you to consider something.
No one. Not me. not you, not Trump, not Biden wants people to die.
They do not want that because most of us are decent people that care for others.
They do not want that because for those in power it is very much not in their interests.
Trump lost the 2020 election due to Covid. Though more because democratic governors used it as an excuse to impliment mailin voting than because voters bought blaming Trump.
Trump would have destroyed Biden in a normal election – with or without Covid, and he would have had a massive landslide if Covid had not disrupted the economy.
Democrats got incredibly lucky. To be clear – aside from the election changes which were lawless and wrong, the rest is just the way the ball bounces. Niether Trump, not Biden, nor Clinton are entitled to have everything go their way in an election.
You say Hillary lost in 2016 because of Wikileaks – that is life. No candidate is entitled to control of all stories that come out.
Regardless, you do not have to agree but you should consider the possibility I am right. This is why we are likely to have a holy war over mailin elections in the next year. Why the democrats want to pass HR1. Because the narrow victory they had in 2020 and the losses in the house and state legislatures are a giant warning sign for 2022. You think I am wrong ? Maybe. But I would bet lots of money that an awful lot of democratic leaders believe I am right and are trying to figure out how to deal with that.
But back to my main point. Our elected officials do not deliberately fail. They do not fail do to their own carelessness or negligence.
Most failure in government is due to the nature of government. Biden can not fix that, and even Trump probably can not in less than a decade – if at all.
When we eliminate instutional failures – such as the FDA (or any part of government) should never be able to decide when a drug gets to market. There is plenty of data that demonstrates that institutional paranoia, and delay kills far more people than getting government out of drugs ever would.
Regardless, eliminate institutional failures and what you have left is policy failures.
CAGW is a complete crock of horse$hit. IF you buy it and try to do something about this non-problem you are trading reduced global standards of living for nothing.
Our ability to produce is finite at any moment, but constantly growing. Whatever you forcibly redirect elsewhere does not contribute to standard of living. The cost of all those green jobs is about double salaries – because without the CAGW nonsense they would be producing something we did value.
You are free to disagree with me about CAGW – though the “science” is settled – there is no evidence of consequential human caused global warming or warming of any kind that will not be more beneficial than harmful.
Regardless, my point is not about CAGW. It is about policy failure. While I think democrats are substantially more politically corrupt that most republicans – though I am not going to try to pretend that McConnell is not as despicable as Pelosi, to a very large extent they beleive they are doing the right thing. Trump does, Biden does.
That does not mean they are right.
Biden is going to succeed or fail based on the real benefits or harms of his policies.
The same is true of Trump.
The Trump is a stupid evil liar or Biden is a stupid evil liar arguments are divisive and distracting
We will spend the next 4 years – if Biden survives them, fighting over the latest stupid, evil thing Biden did or the latest lie he told.
You spent the past 4 years doing that – badly, you should expect it in return.
There will be plenty of oportunity.
But the success of failure of the Biden administration will be determined – not be stupid, evil liar arguments, but be the real benefits to the people. IF we get another 4 years of 1.8% growth democrats are toast.
The real debate – both between democrats and republicans, and between you and me, should not be about who is the stupid evil liar.
But about what actually works.
I do not honestly believe that you want people to be worse off, even though I beleive that will be the result of adoption of your policies.
And I can absolutely assure you that I want everyone to be better off, and I beleive that my policies my ideology is the best root to that.
Best for me, best for you, and best for most everyone else.
That is the debate I would prefer to have here or anywhere else.
But that debate requires engaging in critical thinking. To look past the surface effects of anything, Not believing what you are told. Actually checking the facts, and being prepared to confront the possibility that you are wrong when the data indicates that is the case.
Maybe not Biden nor Trump but I believe, yes, Bill Gates wants people to die.
His global health initiatives are fundamentally about reducing global population. This is because he wants to decrease global CO2 emissions because global warming. And since Bill Gates can do math, he gets it that the only long term way to get to a “sustainable” ie net zero carbon emissions economy, is to have a few less billions of carbon emitting humans walking around this planet.
The snopes and all those self appointed Inquisitions claim this is heresy, conspiracy theory, but I have heard his 2010 Ted talk, and studied his grants and health initiatives since then. Well, you can listen yourself, linked below
Oh perhaps he does not want a lot of people to die from disease. According to his wife, if disease in the third world comes under control, mortality goes down, and then women will have less babies. Ergo, how they claim that vaccinations will actually lead to population decline. This is how she explains it. Well, ok. Even so, depopulation is thus explicitly the goal. Hence, that is just taking them at their word for it.
or perhaps the more blatant conspiracy theorists are right as to the means. Perhaps this vaccination for covid will have an effect on population fertility.
Nobody knows if it will or not of course, because there were no long term tests as have been always otherwise required for other vaccines. This is an “emergency”
You guys feel free to trust bill gates and big pharma all you like. I am up on all my other vaccines, I am no anti-vaxxer. But hell if Im getting this mRNA vaccine thing. My DNA is just fine the way it is, warts and all.
Sal Sar
https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_innovating_to_zero/transcript?language=en
What a croc from Kurtz. So, birth control is wanting people to die. This is dumb ass talk.
I have no problem with birth control.
I have major problems with pushing people who do not want it to use it.
With respect to population – read Julian Simon’s the ultimate resource II.
More people is a good thing not a bad one. BTW there is vast amounts of data to prove that.
I would further note that along the way Simon systemically destroys just about every malthusian claim of the last half of the 20th century.
Unfortunately Simon is dead.
If gates has bought population control and CAGW – then he is an idiot. and he has done some stupid things with his money.
I beleive he dumped a billion into mosquito nets in Africa – because pesticides are evil.
The result – malaria spiked, and people used the nets to cook with or fish.
William, we all have had youthful embarrassments. I was convinced Lee Harvey Oswald either didn’t do it or had accomplices.
what, now you know better? I mean, Vincent Marchetti, a retired CIA agent who also testified at Church committee, claimed in an article in 70s, there was a cabal, with E Howard Hunt, in it to his eyeballs, and Frank Sturgis, and the Corsican on point at the “grassy knoll”
Hunt sued him for Defamation, won, then lost appeal, then LOST when Mark Lane retried the case. And won the case for Marchetti et al. The jury believed there was indeed such a cabal, after hearing relevant evidence. I’ve linked the cases, let me know if you want to see them again
Amazingly, after going to all that trouble, decades later nearing death, Hunt made a confession that indeed he was the bagman for just such a cabal, which was in fact green lighted by LBJ, imagine that.
But this is all “discredited” according to “debunkers” etc
Now, in my embarrassing youth, I heard it face to face from Bob Blakey, recounting the findings of the HSSA, that indeed there was another shooter on the grassy knoll, though he did not claim to know who it was. At the time, I am embarassed that I believed the first government story, and doubted Bob.
Now, perhaps there were flaws in the HSSA investigation. But some flaws we have found, actually undermined the bogus government story.
Years after that, Blakey said, “CIA lied”
But I suppose you know better, like the debunkers do
One can easily forgive the errors of youth, but what about the errors of the older and supposedly wiser?
But you will be happy to know that you and our friend Art are together on believing in the magic bullet theory. Enjoy!
Sal Sar
Yes, I now know better Kurtz. I recommend Case Closed by Gerald Posner, which was criticized by fellow assassination expert Vincent Bugliosi, but who still found it impressive. H e essentially agreed with the conclusion.
The usual suspects in the assassination industry as well as paranoids like Stone attacked him vigorously, but he blows holes in their theories while largely explaining the doubts about Oswald.
I understand the thrill of believing in conspiracies which you think you have a key to, but reality is usually more boring, and most conspiracies like this one require too many members to keep quiet for decades.
I think the official story on the JFK assassination is unlikely to be correct.
Beyond that there is no specific alternate theory that is demonstrably more credible.
Nor do I think there ever will be.
We have LBJ on Tape to Hoover and later to Russell explitly directing them to wrap this up quickly and that the conclusion MUST be that Oswald acted alone.
I even understand why LBJ did this.
Any hint of involvement by the USSR would have resulted in a nuclear war.
Any hint of involvement by Cuba would have resulted in a war with Cuba and the risk of war with the USSR.
Any hint of Mafia involvement would have resulted in a mess inside the country.
Any hint of CIA involvment whould have been disasterous for much of government.
And then there is the possibility that LBJ himself was involved.
Put simply there is no alternative to Oswald acted alone that is not incredibly dangerous – atleast at the time.
This was not thoroughly investigated and that can not be fixed.
Many credible people believe the magic bullet-lone nut narrative peddled by the Warren commission. I realize that. I do not.
Robert Blakey is not an assassination industry person nor a paranoid. He is yet alive. He was a distinguished lawyer and professor of law. He is a person of integrity and character and long public service. You may not realize this but he mostly wrote up the RICO law on his own. Under the direction of a Democrat senator for whom he worked. Nixon wrote it into law, and RICO laws have been instrumental in suppressing organized crime over the decades. We can thank Bob Blakey for his cunning law.
Later He lead the House Select Subcomittee on Assasinations investigation. The report is out there. It may have some flaws. Perhaps quite a few less than the incredible Warren report. But when I was much younger than I am today, I heard him say face to face with perfect clarity, there was another shooter on the grassy knoll. I remember the look on his face. He was sure and certain of it and was not lying nor guessing. This was long before I ever read any books about it. I believed him then and I believe him now.
The HSSA report was itself a government report just as the Warren report was. So at best you have two official government stories that are contradictory. I think you are uncharitable to attribute my belief to thrill seeking. it does not thrill me it makes me sick.
And years after the HSSA investigation, Blakey admitted that “The CIA lied” and mislead the HSSA. Mark Lane called the HSSA a whitewash. Perhaps that was also uncharitable towards professor blakey. But it was many years after his win against Howard Hunt, and his book about it, that Blakey more or less conceded that CIA mislead the HSSA. I’ll leave it to you to read about how if you like, it is tiresome to me now.
As to people keeping it quiet. It has not been kept quiet. We know the CIA lied about many aspects of these investigations, profusely because of what has been declassified.
We also have it from Howard Hunt himself, who confirmed what Victor Marchetti had said decades before, that Hunt sued him for defamation about, and yet then Hunt waited until nearing the end of life to confirm
Mark Lane’s successful defense of the defamation trial brought forth other witnesses who “did not keep it quiet.,” You can read his book if you like. Or if you are as convinced as you are about every other conventional opinion that you harbor, well, then, feel free to keep on believing.
For my part, it’s not a stretch to imagine that the LBJ, guy who was first in line to take over if JFK died, knew and green lighted the hit. It would certainly not be the first time in history that a successor head of government arranged his own succession.
Sal sar
Oswald barely passed his minimum shooting threshold in the military years prior. There was no long range target area near him to practice. He purchased his Russian POS rifle, which barely and seldom worked, for about then-$15 from a small black and white ad in the back of a magazine. The bolt-action requires manual ejection of each discharged shell, grossly disturbing one’s aim and accuracy of an already almost worthless rifle at a long distance moving vehicle.
How exactly did Oswald shoot and kill JFK when at least two of the USA’s best military marksmen failed to replicate Oswald’s shots? Luck is the only answer, which isn’t.
The rifle was Italian. Mannlicher Carcano 6.5. It is not known for accuracy. I had one. Then all my guns sunk in a boating accident. They’re all gone now. I don’t have any left!
Sal Sar
here’s jesse ventura a combat tested SEAL operator, failing to duplicate the impossible shots. oh, and he wasn’t the only one who tried.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSWSgcuYqDo&feature=emb_title
nobody with a lot of time on the rifle range much believes Oswald acted alone. it’s a joke
“…During his Marine Corps service in December 1956, Oswald scored a rating of sharpshooter (twice achieving 48 and 49 out of 50 shots during rapid fire at a stationary target 200 yards [183 m] away using a standard issue M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle), although in May 1959, he qualified as a marksman (a lower classification than that of sharpshooter). Military experts, after examining his records, characterized his firearms proficiency as “above average” and said he was, when compared to American civilian males of his age, “an excellent shot”.[61]
However, Nelson Delgado, a Marine in the same unit as Oswald, used to laugh at Oswald’s shooting prowess and testified that Oswald often got “Maggie’s drawers”; meaning a red flag that is waved from the rifle pits to indicate a complete miss of the target during qualification firing. He also said that Oswald did not seem to care if he missed or not.[62] Delgado was first stationed with Oswald in Santa Ana, California, at the beginning of 1958, meeting him for the first time there and a little more than a year after Oswald first made sharpshooter.[62]
Skeptics have argued that expert marksmen could not duplicate Oswald’s shooting in their first try during re-enactments by the Warren Commission (1964) and CBS (1967). In those tests, the marksmen attempted to hit the target three times within 5.6 seconds. This time span has been heavily disputed. The Warren Commission itself estimated that the time span between the two shots that hit President Kennedy was 4.8 to 5.6 seconds. If the second shot missed (assuming the first and third shots hit the president), then 4.8 to 5.6 seconds was the total time span of the shots. If the first or third shot missed, that would give a minimum time of 7.1 to 7.9 seconds for the three shots.[63] Modern analysis of a digitally enhanced Zapruder film suggests that the first, second, and final shot may have taken 8.3 seconds.
Many of CBS’s 11 volunteer marksmen, who (unlike Oswald) had no prior experience with a properly sighted Carcano, were able to hit the test target twice in under the time allowed, although they were all afforded multiple attempts. The only man who scored three hits was firearms examiner Howard Donahue from Maryland….”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_rifle
do you know who bought the Zapruder film? Time – Life did.
who got the deal done? CD Jackson. Who’s he? Well he was Henry Luce’s right hand man. (Luce owned Time Life)
And, an impressive chap. An old OSS hand. Real tight OSS buddy with Frank Wisner, who was one of those who got the OSS remade into CIA.
Oh, and Wisner ran Operation Mockingbird too. The one where the CIA recruited reporters and journalists and editors all over American media to serve as agents of disinformation
I find it hard to believe a lot of the accepted orthodox interpretations of 20th century history. I appreciate how clever these fellows were.
ah i found a little note from Prof Blakey about how the CIA lied to him and actually Oswald WAS in contact with a CIA controlled group the DRE, and they lied to both the warren commis and the HSSA about it. If the CIA lied about these other things, then maybe they lied about a lot of other things we will never know too. Like whether or not there was this other alleged plot involving all these other CIA alumni like Howard Hunt.
Sal Sar
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/interview-g-robert-blakey/#addendum
“I am no longer confident that the Central Intelligence Agency co-operated with the committee. My reasons follow:
The committee focused, among other things, on (1) Oswald, (2) in New Orleans, (3) in the months before he went to Dallas, and, in particular, (4) his attempt to infiltrate an anti-Castro group, the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil or DRE.
These were crucial issues in the Warren Commission’s investigation; they were crucial issues in the committee’s investigation. The Agency knew it full well in 1964; the Agency knew it full well in 1976-79. Outrageously, the Agency did not tell the Warren Commission or our committee that it had financial and other connections with the DRE, a group that Oswald had direct dealings with!
What contemporaneous reporting is or was in the Agency’s DRE files? We will never know, for the Agency now says that no reporting is in the existing files. Are we to believe that its files were silent in 1964 or during our investigation?
I don’t believe it for a minute. Money was involved; it had to be documented. Period. End of story. The files and the Agency agents connected to the DRE should have been made available to the commission and the committee. That the information in the files and the agents who could have supplemented it were not made available to the commission and the committee amounts to willful obstruction of justice.
Obviously, too, it did not identify the agent who was its contact with the DRE at the crucial time that Oswald was in contact with it: George Joannides.
During the relevant period, the committee’s chief contact with the Agency on a day-to-day basis was Scott Breckinridge. (I put aside our point of contact with the office of chief counsel, Lyle Miller) We sent researchers to the Agency to request and read documents. The relationship between our young researchers, law students who came with me from Cornell, was anything but “happy.” Nevertheless, we were getting and reviewing documents. Breckinridge, however, suggested that he create a new point of contact person who might “facilitate” the process of obtaining and reviewing materials. He introduced me to Joannides, who, he said, he had arranged to bring out of retirement to help us. He told me that he had experience in finding documents; he thought he would be of help to us.
I was not told of Joannides’ background with the DRE, a focal point of the investigation. Had I known who he was, he would have been a witness who would have been interrogated under oath by the staff or by the committee. He would never have been acceptable as a point of contact with us to retrieve documents. In fact, I have now learned, as I note above, that Joannides was the point of contact between the Agency and DRE during the period Oswald was in contact with DRE.
That the Agency would put a “material witness” in as a “filter” between the committee and its quests for documents was a flat out breach of the understanding the committee had with the Agency that it would co-operate with the investigation.
The committee’s researchers immediately complained to me that Joannides was, in fact, not facilitating but obstructing our obtaining of documents. I contacted Breckinridge and Joannides. Their side of the story wrote off the complaints to the young age and attitude of the people.
They were certainly right about one question: the committee’s researchers did not trust the Agency. Indeed, that is precisely why they were in their positions. We wanted to test the Agency’s integrity. I wrote off the complaints. I was wrong; the researchers were right. I now believe the process lacked integrity precisely because of Joannides.
For these reasons, I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the Agency and its relationship to Oswald. Anything that the Agency told us that incriminated, in some fashion, the Agency may well be reliable as far as it goes, but the truth could well be that it materially understates the matter.
What the Agency did not give us none but those involved in the Agency can know for sure. I do not believe any denial offered by the Agency on any point. The law has long followed the rule that if a person lies to you on one point, you may reject all of his testimony.
I now no longer believe anything the Agency told the committee any further than I can obtain substantial corroboration for it from outside the Agency for its veracity. We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission of a chance to obtain the full truth, which will now never be known.
Significantly, the Warren Commission’s conclusion that the agencies of the government co-operated with it is, in retrospect, not the truth.
We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency.
Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story.
I am now in that camp.”
— G. Robert Blakey
I found this interest:
Censored Documentary “Planet Lockdown” Airs In Full
257,797 views
Jan 30, 2021
https://banned.video/watch?id=6015ebecf3a193173965d160
It seems a large number of Trump haters have ties to Pedos, what’s up with that? Are most American hating Commie/Fascist also Pedos?
https://truckingboards.com/bb/threads/co-founder-of-lincoln-project-admits-being-a-pedo.110584/
A large number of Trump supporters have ties to Pedos, what’s up with that?
Ghislaine Maxwell was a sex trafficker for Epstein, and Trump calls her a nice person.
Cites.
John, don’t you see that I was making fun of Oky’s silly claim?
He said “It seems a large number of Trump haters have ties to Pedos, what’s up with that?” and gave a single person as an example, so I said the same about Trump supporters and gave a single one as an example. Notably, you didn’t ask Oky for cites.
I do not care about your spat with Oky,
Are you making a counter claim or not.
If all you are doing is making fun of Oky and you are unwilling to support your accusation,
Then no one – including Oky should take it serious.
I am sure that somewhere in the world there is a trump supporter that is also a pedo. But I can not think of one.
I can name a long list of high profile Pedo’s that are anti-Trump.
I would note that this debate is actually important.
The core premise of Qanon – is that lots of powerful globalist paedophiles are at war with Trump.
Those like you on the left use Qanon as a synonym for everything in the world that is bat$hit crazy.
I am not arguing that there is not lots of craziness in Qworld.
I am not part of it and not well informed on it,
But I have seen atleast the titles of Frequent Qworld claims that arrests are imminent, that the other show will drop any moment.
And all that just sounds to me like the nonsense from Rachel Maddow, MSNBC, CNN. WaPo or NYT.
Without going deep Qanon is about as bat$hit crazy as the MSM.
As to their central thesis – it is disturbing that there are alot of globalist paedolhilish people who are antitrump.
Makes you wonder if there is some strong correlation between child perves and anti-trump.
If you don’t care to understand claims in context, that’s your problem.
If you’re unable to think of a “trump supporter that is also a pedo,” then you’re not paying attention and you’re also not interested enough to look it up. Roy Moore is an example.
As for Maxwell, who socialized with Trump and whom Trump has wished well, she’s awaiting trial for enticement of minors, sex trafficking, and perjury.
“If you don’t care to understand claims in context, that’s your problem.”
You have provided no context.
“If you’re unable to think of a “trump supporter that is also a pedo,” then you’re not paying attention and you’re also not interested enough to look it up. Roy Moore is an example.”
Roy is not a particularly nice person. But he is not a pedo.
And if he was – that is ONE.
“As for Maxwell, who socialized with Trump and whom Trump has wished well,”
He said he MET her several times – that is not socialized.
He did not pardon her.
“she’s awaiting trial for enticement of minors, sex trafficking, and perjury.”
Yup, Has she implicated Trump ?
Travelers on the Lolita Express
Bill Clinton – 26 times
Kevin Spacey
Chris Tucker
Ron Burkle
Casey Wasserman
Les Wasserman
Larry Summers
Naomi Campbell
What the hell is wrong with some of you people??? It’s late here yet I see now some of you lack the knowledge of just what the hell the meaning of Prima Facie Evidence Is!. Well, I’ll give you a few minutes of work I do in my spare time.
If the Covid 19 vaccines are so “Safe & Effective” as Big Pharma/NIH/CDC/etc… like to always claim, why in the hell has at a minimum so far France, Australia, & the largest vaccine maker in the world, Merck, have Stopped with the Vaccines going forward now??? How many have been killed/harmed so far?
I know, you couldn’t give a crap you’re just ph’in around & not a serious person it would seem to many.
Back on the same related Topic , Now about your Pedo Friends.
What is the illegitimate Fake Joe Biden’s daughter saying about Pedo dads? Come on Man, tell us Commie Joe!
What does Hunter Biden has to say about those parcelly blacked out pictures with those underage kids & you Hunter that are floating on the internet? Come on Man, tell us Hunter!
The for now temporary Sen Majority Leader Chucky Schumer, Come on Man, tell us more American Hating Commie/Fascist about your head Aid caught in the middle of all that Pedo crap.
And tell us Anon, did you happen to notice just how many Pedos that were arrested the last 4 years?
Rep Adam Schitt anyone?
That more then enough wouldn’t you think….
Trump’s Impeachment Defense Team Quits
Lawyers Had No Mind To Argue False Election Claims
Former President Donald J. Trump has abruptly parted ways with five lawyers handling his impeachment defense, just over a week before the Senate trial is set to begin, people familiar with the situation said on Saturday.
Those departures include his lead lawyer, Butch Bowers, whose hiring was announced last week, a person familiar with the situation said. Four other lawyers who were reported to be joining, including Deborah Barbier, a criminal defense lawyer in South Carolina, are also leaving, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.
Mr. Trump had pushed for his defense team to focus on his baseless claim that the election was stolen from him, one person familiar with the situation said. A person close to Mr. Trump disputed that that was the case but acknowledged that there were differences in opinion about the defense strategy. However, Mr. Trump has insisted that the case is “simple” and has told advisers he could argue it himself and save the money on lawyers. (Aides contend he is not seriously contemplating doing so.)
The decision for Mr. Bowers to leave was “mutual,” another person familiar with the situation said, adding that Mr. Trump and Mr. Bowers had no chemistry, a quality the former president generally prizes in his relationships. Mr. Trump prefers lawyers who are eager to appear on television to say that he never did anything wrong; Mr. Bowers has been noticeably absent in the news media since his hiring was announced.
Jason Miller, a Trump adviser, said that the former president and his aides had “not made a final decision on our legal team.”
Mr. Bowers is the only lawyer whom Mr. Trump’s aides had confirmed would defend the former president. Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Mr. Trump’s who represents South Carolina, was said to have helped line up Mr. Bowers, a well-known figure in the political world there who was working to establish a broader team.
The departures of Mr. Bowers and Ms. Barbier were previously reported by CNN. A third lawyer, Josh Howard, of North Carolina, is also no longer part of the team, another person familiar with the situation said. And two other lawyers from South Carolina, Johnny Gasser and Greg Harris, will also no longer be involved, one of the people familiar with the situation said.
Mr. Trump is due to file a response to the House charges by Tuesday.
Edited from: “Trump Parts Ways With Five Lawyers Handling Impeachment Defense”
Today’s New York Times
I thought that you placed no credance in hearsay ?
Of all the claims above – which ones do you have an actual credible source for ?
I would note that we have had bazzillions of these “aides say Trump is contemplating X” stories that have all proven false.
Most recently Trump did not pardon himself or his family. He did not pardon Assange or Snowden though he should have,
He did not try to stay in the whitehouse he did not declare martial law or the insurgency act. He did not fill DC or the citties with National Guard.
As president he tolerated violent protests right in front of the whitehouse.
He did not drag in the national guard and drive protestors out of Washington entirely.
We were told in June that Trump’s removing violent protestors from the block in front of the whitehouse was unconstitutional
So why were protestors not allowed into the capital ?
Why is chairmen Xiden unleashing law enforcement to supress protests and dissent ?
“Why is chairmen Xiden unleashing law enforcement to supress protests and dissent ?”
Why do you ask loaded questions? Are you doing it out of ignorance or on purpose?
Why is the question loaded ?
Trump faced often violent protests throughout his presidency and did not task the military and the DOJ to go after protestors.
He brought the NG to DC briefly in a relatively low profile manner in June to deal with looting and arson.
Yet a single capital protest with little violence – certainly far less than that in a single day in early June has resulted in a permanent NG presence int he capital and a massive crackdown on nearly non-existant white supremecism, and harmless right wing militias, …..
We have the snowflake president.
I do not need to load anything.
I haven’t been posting here for 4 years. The question is loaded because it assumes things that you haven’t shown to be true: “chairmen Xiden [is] unleashing law enforcement to supress protests and dissent.”
The Capitol insurrection occurred while Trump was in office, and tens of thousands of National Guard were sent to the Capitol while Trump was in office. About half have since gone home, and the DoD says most of the rest will leave in the next month.
“I do not need to load anything.”
Correct, but you did it anyway.
“The Capitol insurrection occurred while Trump was in office, and tens of thousands of National Guard were sent to the Capitol while Trump was in office.”. Yup, they were brought in immediately after the Capital protest.
I would note that the impeachment includes a claim that Trump did NOT bring them in.
You can not impeach Trump for not doing something and then claim he did.
Regardless, they stayed because Biden requested them. Democrats control the inauguration.
“About half have since gone home”
There were 26000, there are still more than are in all of afghanistan.
“and the DoD says most of the rest will leave in the next month.”
Last I here they are there until the end of March.
Why are they there at all ?
There are 2400 Capital Police – that is just serving the capital building itself.
That was more than enough to have the capital opened on Jan 6, and to allow protestors to enter the capital and protest in a safe fashion.
Instead the capital was locked down, which is improper for the house and senate while in session.
The business of the congress is the public business.
The violence on the 6th was small compared to Antifa, BLM. Nothing was burned, there was very little looting.
The destruction was primarily breaking into a building that was supposed to be open to the public.
Protestors did not shoot anyone. The police shot an unarmed woman under circumstances where the use of deadly force was not justified.
Had this been leftists in 2017 Trump would have been blamed.
And in fact therte WERE protests by the left in early 2017,
And there was looting and arson, and rioting.
And no national guard.
In May and June when there was significant rioting arson and looting in DC and many DC police were injured the NG was called in for one night and really did not particpate in much.
Yet, for Biden The capital mush be occupied by the national guard ?
Sorry, I am not making any unsupported assumptions.
Democrats are very affraid of the people.
This is what things look like when those in power grasp that they do not have much legitimacy.
This it what it looks like what you do not have the consent of the governed.
“Correct, but you did it anyway.”
Been over that – no assumptions.
We have had 4 years of over loaded nonsense from you.
You can figure out how to cope with the shoe on the other foot.
However, not surprisingly in our age of rage, there has been a slew of defamation claims raised from…..
America was once a nation with a strong desire for high achievement. Reading Ben Franklin’s autobiography is a pleasure as is reading speeches by Abraham Lincoln and many leaders in between. Even JFK’s words to Congress and the nation in 1961 about sending a man to the moon was aspirational.
What we have become today is dark, evil and a place where not even angels would tread. Harold Myerson is a very dark, bleak case in point. America is on a trajectory for nothing that is good
https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/put-the-republican-party-on-the-domestic-terrorist-watch-list/
Put the Republican Party on the Domestic Terrorist Watch List
BY HAROLD MEYERSON
But the Republicans’ indulgence of the Greenes (Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) ) in their ranks—and there are many such—is of a piece with their overwhelming refusal to hold Trump responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol, much less their own current colleagues, such as Arizona’s Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, who also encouraged the January 6 rioters. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution says that no government official can hold office “who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” That surely applies to Trump, but it increasingly appears that it should apply to most Republican members of Congress as well.
I’m not familiar with defamation law and have a question: does it matter that the Lincoln Project is a group and most people (like myself) don’t know who is a member of the group? All I know about the LP is that it is (reportedly) a group of leftist attorneys who hate Trump and run t.v. ads criticizing and taunting him. The name of one of the members was mentioned in the column, but it’s not a name I recognize. I don’t know who the other members are or whether it’s a large or small group. So for me at least, any defamation would be against the organization, not any individuals. This is distinguishable from the Newman Marcus case since the 25 salesmen in the Dallas store were readily identifiable by persons living and shopping in the area.
They’re actually an assemblage of people who used to be in the political consulting business, conning Republican politicians. One of them is the character John McCain hired to run his 2008 campaign. The Maverick had impeccable judgement, no?
Presumably they’re financed by Pierre Omidyar or some such person.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/12/11/these-are-the-billionaires-who-gave-to-anti-trump-super-pac-the-lincoln-project/?sh=2e888b635edd
Mendel, Griffin, numerous billionaires funded the Lincoln project misinformation slurs.
Sal Sar
What misinformation slurs?
It’s not a group of leftist attorneys. They’re all conservatives who dislike Trump. Some are attorneys, like George Conway (Kellyanne’s husband) and some aren’t.
Actually, they’re all grifters.
Anonymous, if I had a family member working as a prominent Democrat–even a Democrat I despised–I would never try to upstage my family member just to insult his or her boss. I hope you don’t admire George Conway or would do to your spouse what he did (or his daughter did, for that matter).
“working FOR a prominent Democrat–even a Democrat I despised” — Sorry for the remedial English.
If I thought that boss were a true danger to the country, I’d put the country first.
If I thought a family member were abusing a child, I’d report them to CPS.
George Conway is a conservative. I don’t agree with a lot of his politics, but I agree with him about Trump, and I think he was right to speak out. If Kellyanne were moral, she wouldn’t have worked for Trump. She also seems to be an abusive parent.
AFAICT, the only reason they’re not divorced is because they’re Catholic and believe that divorce is wrong. They live separately.
Anonymous, I believe you’re right if the “danger” is immediate and demonstrable, like say, the Unabomber, but your threshold of proof is way too low.
I believe there are Democrats that are a danger to the country. I can’t prove it as an immediate and demonstrable fact. That is simply my hypothesis. I don’t harm family over political hypotheses.
George is no hero. Find somebody else to rally around.
My threshold of proof _for what_ is way too low?
As for GC, who said he’s a hero? Not me.
Your implied HYPOTHESIS that Trump is a danger to the country.
C’mon, man. Whether you want to admit it or not, you believe GC was heroic for DENOUNCING HIS WIFE’S OWN BOSS. I’ll grant you, he was either heroic or narcissistic. With something like that, there is no in between.
Whether you want to admit it or not, you pretend to be a mind reader. Stop already.
I don’t believe GC is heroic. He isn’t. He’s simply right about Trump. Most people who are right aren’t heroic.
Trump IS a danger to the country, though not as much as when he was president. How truly bizarre that you think my threshold of proof for that is low, given how much evidence there is of the harm he did, not least in the tens of thousands of people whose lives could have been saved if Trump had dealt effectively with Covid.
Anon, if you denounce your wife’s boss publicly and repeatedly for being a danger to the country even though he is the President of the United States, you are either gutsy or schlepping off her notoriety, but I can accept you might see it differently.
Seriously, if YOUR spouse was hired by President Donald Trump to be a key spokesperson and advisor for his administration, would you publicly and repeatedly denounce him? I’m assuming you would.
“How truly bizarre that you think my threshold of proof for that is low, given how much evidence there is of the harm he did, not least in the tens of thousands of people whose lives could have been saved if Trump had dealt effectively with Covid.”
That depends on which expert you ask, and nobody dealt effectively with covid except in some Asian countries. Nobody outside of Asia was prepared. Cuomo made mistakes that cost many lives, but I would not characterize him as a “danger” to the country, nor would I humiliate my wife if she worked for him.
Your threshold is too low. You are too political.
“Not least” doesn’t mean “solely.”
Cuomo made mistakes with Covid, but his mistakes weren’t as big as Trump’s, and Cuomo hasn’t spent months lying to the country in an attempt to overturn the election.
You view of the data is too limited.
Please cut the crap.
Name something that Trump should have done and provide the evidence that it actually worked anywhere ?
I can easily name something Cuomo did that killed people. LOTS of people.
we are all tired of these vague undefined claims.
There is 50,000 times more evidence that the election was stolen than that anything Trump did or did not do altered the US Covid Death toll.
Anon, Attorney General Letitia James has accused Cuomo’s administration of underreporting nursing home deaths by as much as 50%, and you know what? I really don’t care. He might have fudged the numbers. Lied all the way through. If so, he should take heat for it, but that doesn’t make him a “danger” to the country or even New York.
Nobody had to wreck his marriage over Cuomo.
Nobody had to burn down buildings over Cuomo.
Nobody had to loot stores over Cuomo.
Nobody had to assault policemen over Cuomo.
And the same is true for Trump. He was never a danger to the country.
TRUMP’S BIGGEST POLITICAL ASSET WAS THE HISTRIONICS AND HYPERBOLE OF PEOPLE LIKE CONWAY.
“His mistakes weren’t as big as Trump’s.” Cuomo was not President; he is just a governor. You can only speculate as to how Cuomo would have performed had he been President. My speculative opinion? Probably about the same.
“Cuomo was not President; he is just a governor. ”
Correct and the constitution give no role in public health to the federal government.
That is the domain of the states – Governors, Cuomo
“You can only speculate as to how Cuomo would have performed had he been President.”
No need to speculate – we can know. We may not know what he would have done.
But we know it would not have worked – because no manditory government policy measures worked.
Diogenes, figure out how to keep your arguments straight.
If you’re making an argument about George Conway (“Nobody had to wreck his marriage over Cuomo”), don’t say “Nobody had to burn down buildings over Cuomo,” because GC didn’t burn any buildings down.
You and a bunch of people don’t think Trump is a danger to the country. GC and I and a bunch of other people think he is a danger to the country.
You note that Cuomo “Lied all the way through.” So did Trump. Can you admit that both of them did this, or can you only admit it for Cuomo?
Can you bring yourself to focus on the many, many ways that a President affects the country? Can you deal with Trump’s attempts to pressure state officials into changing vote counts and his endless meritless claims about the election having been “stolen”? Can you deal with the harm he’s done to US relationships with allies? Etc. Etc.
How is Trump a danger to the country.
This was nonsense when he was president. It is total idiocy now.
Trump’s only “threat” is stalling the left wing agenda.
Even if that agenda was all rainbows and unicorns rather than snakes and $hit, slowing change down is NOT a danger to the country.
You claim there is evidence of Harm – provide it ?
Trump’s 4 years were inarguably better than Obama’s 8.
The odds of Biden not being worse than Obama are very low.
So how is it that there is massive evidence of Harm by Trump ?
Thwarting your agenda is not harm.
John, open your eyes.
There’s a very long list of things that Trump and his administration did wrong that resulted in the US having one of the highest rates of death per capita in the world.
Just a few examples –
mishandling early on: https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2021/01/pandemics-outset-trump-admin-risked-exposing-dozens-feds-covid-19-avoid-bad-optics/171740/ (and you can go back even further in time to show things like mishandling the national stockpile by failing to check for and replace expired items, and like defunding key monitoring positions in China)
f’g up the federal aid to states to help them prepare for the vaccine roll out: https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/31/trump-officials-lobbied-to-deny-states-money-for-vaccine-rollout/
continuing to have rallies with lots of people exposed to the virus
failing to model mask use
failing to ramp up test availability
etc.
etc.
It’s a long list.
I’m not going to waste more of my time trying to convince you. If you want to understand better, spend your own time on it.
According to the data the US death rate per capita is 1382/M
That is 9th in the world with half of Europe having higher rates.
The UK rate is 1597/M Belguium is over 180o/M
So you are wrong.
I would further note that the death rate in Sweden is now Below nearly all of Europe.
But again we can pretend there is some political or ideological significance or you can accept what study after study has found:
Covid 19 death rates accross the world can be determined purely from geographic and demographic factors alone.
Death rates increase with
population density.
In countries with older populations.
In countries with greater life expectancy.
In countries at higher latitudes.
Pervesely in countries with better healthcare – because that means they have a larger population of less healthy elderly who are only alive because of excellent heatlh care.
But Death Rates DO NOT correlate to any government policies at all.
In fact Deathrates are 3-5% HIGHER in places that imposed more manditory measures than those that did not – after regressing for other factors. BTW if you do not regress Manditory measures come out even worse.
You start with a patently bogus claim – why should anything else you assert be trusted ?
Maybe you can be excused for not knowing that Gibraltar has by far the highest mortality rate or that Belgium is about 25% higher than the US, Or that the US is about 9th – With many european countries in the top 10 and all european countries in the top 25.
But you have to be completely ignorant of the news to not know that the UK has been hit far harder than the US.
So why should anyone take any of the rest of your claims seriously.
As to stockpiles. These were created near the end of the Bush admin. VP Biden used nearly the entire stockpile during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009-2010. Instead of replacing the PPE, The Biden/Obama admin chose to use the money to stockpile Flu Vaccines.
Absolutely under Trump this policy continued, until Covid.
Was that a mistake ? While there were a few weeks of fears of a PPE crisis. There never was an actual shortage. Medical fascilities have had more than enough PPE from day one to the present. There was a very short delay towards the start when TP, Hand Sanitizer and PPE was in short supply. And we were told we were screwed – because it was all coming from China and the Chinese were keeping it for themselves and the US did not know how to make this anymore.
This of course proved false. The US ramped up TP, Hand Sanitized PPE rapidly and for nearly all the past year all of this has been readily available and cheap.
Not only can you buy all the PPE you want – cheap, But you can get it customized. You can get artsy masks or message masks or whatever you want.
BTW Trump is not responsible for this. The Free market is.
Cut the crap on state aide for distributing Vaccine – that is total stupidity and a blatantly stupid lie.
Any reporter spraying such nonsense should be fired.
It takes very little to understand how stupid this is.
1). The federal government BOUGHT the vaccine. Trump promised that and it was part of the original Covid Bill.
The max cost to but the vaccine for every single american is about $12B at a cost of $40/dose and the real cost is probably $20.
Regardless, that is a tiny part of the massive Covid bills.
2). The federal government is delivering or paying to deliver the vaccine to pharmacies and hospitals. Again part of Covid Bill #1.
3). Insurance companies and/or medicare are paying to remove the vaccine from the refridgerator and inject it into someones arm.
The only cost the states pay is their own maladministration costs – deciding who gets it when. Something they have entirely botched.
4). By Jan 20, 2021, 37M doses had been delivered and injected – that is over 39 days since the vaccine was first available.
That is nearly the 1M doses per day that Biden is claiming he will average by the End of April.
Biden is barely planning to do any better than Trump. And Trump had to get the program off the ground. Faucci is claiming that we will not reach herd immunity until October. If that is the case Biden is NEVER going to do any better at deliving vaccines thatn Trump.
5). Lets assume that the entire cost of the vaccination program was ENTIRELY on the states – that would be less than $20B accross the US – and that is to Vaccinate 300M people. At 1M people per Day that is 66M dollars per day – In CA the most populous state that is $8M/day. In my state that is about 4M/day. Or the entire cost for the 40M vaccinations from the time the Vaccine was available until Biden took office would be 160M in my state. To be clear that is the cost to the state if the state paid EVERYTHING. In fact the state is paying almost nothing. It is unlikely that the uncovered costs in CA the largest state is more than $5M for the entire delivery of the first dosees.
$5M is a fortune to me. It is less than Zuckerberg gave to philadelphia to F’up the election.
The money claims are a blatantly stupid lie that anyone with a 5th grade set of math skills can work out.
Covid funding has been a massive bloated cash pig for government to abuse. It has been a massive waste of money, that it took very little to grasp would have ZERO impact. When you shut busin essed down – they are down. They do not produce.
Standard of living is NOT determined by how much money you earn it is by how much you produce.
No amount of government money dumped into the economy can make life actually better overall when you tell much of the country they can not produce.
It is clear from the nonsense you sprayed that your education sucks.
Demand your money back.
Either your math skills as worse than a 5th grader or you are not sufficiently capable of critical thinking to grasp that the claims you have bought make no sense mathematically.
Lets address replinishing the stockpile. Money for that is allocated by congress. It was created by Bush and has been on the budget since.
Bush. Obama/Biden and Trump have had about the same money to spend on the stockpile every year.
Prior to Covid the only withdrawls from the stockpile were under Obama/Biden in 2009.
Bush Obama/Biden and Trump were all OBLIGATED to spend the money. Congress controls the purse not the president.
No president can put the stickpile money into some other fund.
The only choice the adminstraction has is to decide what to spend it on.
The decision to shift from spending it on PPE to spending it on vaccines which must be discarded regularly and replaced was made by Obama/Biden and continued under Trump.
Frankly the stockpile is a stupid idea. The stockpiled vaccines are a waste of money, and the Obama/Biden administration actually made the correct decision – Stockpiling PPE is also a waste because the markets can gear up when needed very fast – which they did.
Whoever is telling you this ludicrously stupid and easily disproven BS – you should cancel your subscription and find sources that are more truthful.
Whoever told you the Death rate per capita in the US was the highest in the world – LIED. You could have checked that before posting it.
But you did not. Posting false information when it is easy to check falls on you. Tou damage your own gredibility.
I can not beleive that you have bought the stockpile nonsense – you were not born yesterday. During this entire mess Healthcare workers were ALWAYS able to get enough PPE. They were nervous The stockpile resources which Obama Biden had nearly depleted in 2009 almost ran out before market supplies kicked in. But only idiot leftists did not grasp that markets can move incredibly fast when they are motivated.
The lesson you should have gotten was that all the naysayers back in April that predicted a crisis in PPE or anything else were proven wrong. I have enough hand sanitizer to bath in. Not that it matters – because we are pretty sure it is not passed by contact. I have a mask for every day of the week. I have face sheilds, I have PPE that I will never use. And I am a cheap skate, unlike most people I passed up the artsy masks.
Every time you see someone wearing a designer or message mask – you should be thinking “Free Markets are amazing – whatever I need they provide, cheaply and in any way I want it”.
In 2016 Sanders was campaigning that we do not need 20 different deodorants, or dozens of different sneakers. That we could save money and better take care of the less fortunate with less options.
So how is it that the US free market not only delivered everything we needed, and many things we did not, but it gave us thousands of choices, and it did so cheaply.
If you had a brain you would grasp that Sanders is wrong. That in fact the choices we have are why we are better able to care for the less well off. Why more of them have jobs.
Wherever you heard that States did not have necescary finds to deal with vaccinations – cancel your subscription, and please quit listening to that source.
Further AGAIN learn 5th grade math and some critical thinking.
Lets do the math differently. My state had 800,000 doses that it could have delivered in the first 39 days.
As I noted the entire cost was covered by either the federal govenrment or insurance, or medicare.
But again lets assume it was not:
At $1/dose that is 800K dollars out of the state budget. At $100/dose that is $80M out of the state budget.
The entire cost of the vaccine and delivery is not $100/dose it is less than 1/2 that.
But are you saying that the great state of Pensyvania can not come up with $80M to vaccinate people
The PA state budget is $35B
Again – before engaging your fingers – try engaging your brain.
The stupidity that others are selling you is on them. A wise person would quit listening to sources that have spread false information.
But your decision to spread false information that even the smallest sanity check would have revealed as nonsense is on you.
Your failure to think before you post garbage is on you.
People in government ALWAYS claim they need more money to do anything. It is pretty much ALWAYS a lie.
If you graduated from HS you should know that by now.
Pennsylvania BTW has been running a surplus for sum time. That is because republicans have controlled atleast on chamber in the legislature for all of the 21st century.
John, you simply aren’t honest.
“half of Europe having higher rates” is false.
“the death rate in Sweden is now Below nearly all of Europe” is false.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality — sort on “Deaths/100K pop.”
It’s pointless for me to waste my time when you cannot be honest.
I got my data from RCP. It supports BOTH of my claims.
I provided my Data
You have not been trustworthy in your claims in the past.
The EU as a whole has slightly more total deaths than the US and slightly larger population than the US.
There is very little difference between the EU death rate and the US death rate.
Sweden is NOT part of the EU and has a lower death rate than the EU – though not by much.
The US has a slightly higher Death rate than the EU. But lower than many EU member states.
Eliminate New York from the US and we have done better than the EU.
Look at only red states and we have done incredibly well.
As I have said many times – C19 does not care about politics or policies, it cares about demographics and latitude.
But if you want to pretend it is about politics – be my guest. YOU LOSE.
If you wish to make this partisan – fine the entire reason that the US is not leading the world is BLUE STATES.
If you are unable to look at data rationally and HONESTLY – I can play the partisan game too.
Using the NBC data for total deaths in each state, calculating each state population using total deaths and deaths per 100K
and using the 2020 certified election results to determine what is a red state and what is a blue state.
There are 192M people living in “blue” states, and they have had 1400 deaths per million.
There are 141M people living in “red” states, and they have had 1240 deaths per million
Yes hundreds of thousands could have been saved if Trump had magic powers – but he did not.
You claim people could have been saved – HOW ?
We can see in the US the differences between red states and blue ones.
We are now finding that New York has been lying BIG TIME about the deaths in nursing homes.
NJ. NY, RI, MA have the highest death rates in the country.
TX and FL have done substantially better than CA.
There are a bunch of possible conclusions:
C19 death rates vary with longitude, population density, and demographics. Which means that no government policies have had any effect.
or
Democrats are really bad at public health.
There are arguably other possibilities, though the first is most certainly correct.
Regardless, there is no correlation at all – not in the US, not in the world between Covid policies and death or infection rates.
To those with working cerebral cortex’s that means there was nothing that government did that worked, and therefor nothing government should have done.
To the extent there is any evidence at all – the evidence is that voluntary measures outperformed those imposed by force.
Thanks, John. I support your points.
Also not addressed in all of this is that the policy measures that were tried have never been tried before.
Prior to the Bush administration the US would have done exactly what Sweden did.
The last time any nation tried anything like what we did in 2020 was in 2018, it was only done on small scale by cities, Bars were closed for PART of the day. And it did not work. No one tried it again after.
Lockdowns etc were not part of the public health tool kit until some high school student proposed them as a science fair project – and it did not win. But her father brought it to the Bush administration which was looking for SOMETHING to be able to do in a “pandemic” and this fit the bill.
No credible person has ever claimed that lockdowns do anything accept keep the healthcare system from being overwhelmed.
The US healthcare system never came close to being overwhelmed. Lockdowns can reduce the death toll – but only if they prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed. That is the only beneficial effect they have.
They actually stretch out the pandemic, and they INCREASE the risk for the most vulnerable who must avoid others for a far longer time period.
We now have something like 30 studies on the effectiveness of masks.
In the laboratory an N95 mask will reduce transmission by 77%. That is under optimal conditions.
In the real world that is likely closer to 50% – PER EXPOSURE.
Real world long term tests in Netherlands showed a max 20% benefit over the course of 90 days. That would reduce to 5% over a year,
Because every single exposure is a new chance to get infected and well MATH. I know those on the left do not grasp that, but even hospital personel wearing full PPE with a 97% effectiveness all tested positive for C19 antibodies after 2 weeks in a C19 ward.
There is no achevable protection level that will stop a disease this transmissive given enough exposures.
BTW the netherlands study involved 5000 people, using n95 masks and everyone who did not use the mask properly and always was removed from the study. Further it was a controlled study.
It is possible for an individual to attempt to avoid covid. But doing so requires MANY things.
It requires the majority of other people to get Covid – preferably as fast as possible.
It requires avoiding contact with others to an enormous extent.
It requires religious masking in the few instances you are with others.
Put simply – that CAN NOT be a public policy.
ha ha anonymous thinks working for orange man bad is immoral. i wonder what you think of we lawyers who work for murderers and the whole gamut of persons accused and sometimes convicted of crimes. i generally steer clear of crime matters, but I have represented a few crooks myself. and others who might make most people blush at how naughty they supposedly were. they have a right to a lawyer too. yes even for mundane civil matters. yes i have done boring lawful work for dastardly clients. to be honest these were some of my most interesting and rewarding representations. a lot of my other work almost put me to sleep.
that’s what my liberal professors taught me was good. “you have to take who walks in the door” one of them used to say.
I had a fantastic prof who came in the day after his client was executed and made a glorious speech about civil liberties. the criminal was a heinous evil person but he too deserved a lawyer and a fair trial. this is our system– don’t liberals believe in it anymore? i wonder more and more every day
funny how other liberals would shame us now for doing so. I guess they don’t make liberals the way they used to do.
Sal Sar
Kellyanne Conway wasn’t working for Trump as a defense lawyer. Cut the crap with the false comparison.
“Funny how other liberals would shame us now for doing so. I guess they don’t make liberals the way they used to do.”
What you and Professor Turley are fighting against is an “illiberalism” known as postmodernism. It’s a preposterous lie told by pompous eggheads to skulls full of mush. It’s an ivory tower with a pig sty for a foundation. It’s proof that intellectuals have an unlimited ability to deceive themselves, even more so than everyday folks like me who have to live with the consequences of bad decisions, whether we make them or not.
Keep fighting, Sal.
I have some sense of postmodernism since it emerged from Heidegger and I am a student of Heidegger.
Presently these running dogs of global capital are called neoliberals. Neoliberals are essentially billionaire lackeys pretending to be social democrats.
They understand how billionaires manipulate liberal democracies with owned mass media and donorship based control of universities
But instead of acting like genuine “Leftists” and resisting that, they suck up to them and hold their hands out to be first in for apparatchik jobs
They are a cynical group. And here is where there cleverness fails them.
They really misunderstood Heidegger. One of his notions was authenticity, what that means for our existence.
They have precious little authenticity. And so their lives are filled with anomie and atomization and they can only purge the pain of it through endless careerism, or consumerism, or bogus causes like all the sex-lib stuff. They make a cause out of those they don’t know and ignore love for those they do.
They lack the comfort of being part of genuine human communities because they revile them all as “oppression structures” or something like that. Whatever is a natural human form of identity and community, whether that is being a man or a woman, being a part of a family, being part of an ethnicity, being a person with patriotic feeling, those traditional and eternal forms of human community are all now deemed retrograde at best, and those who may laud them, “fascists!” Not true but these are the same people who can assert with a straight face, “there is no truth” when they play professor, as if that is “true” .. cousins of the same chaps who claim that society must intolerate, intolerance. these geniuses! The universities peddle these toxic lies like hotcakes.
So there is a deep pain inside. That only gets worse. especially as fewer can dip their beaks into the trough of bureaucratic jobs to keep the careerism and consumerism narcotics flowing
For regular people, who are lucky enough to have missed being overeducated, or are too unsophisticated to reject their natural human communities, there is less “advancement” in career, but there is the simple joy of love for our own communities. Existence is still painful for us too, but we understand, there is no escaping pain in general. It soothes us to be part of what Goethe called, ein unendliche kette– an unbroken chain of existence.
Individualism, at least making a false god out of it, is a dead end. It is nihilism. Heidegger in his way, and even Sartre in his way, both understood deeply the nihilism of contemporary man, and sought an answer to nihilism. The answers, of course, were not new, they were ancient, only rediscovered and renamed in a way that might allow them to be swallowed by the foolish people of their time, and ours.
Of course you would not learn those answers by reading them past the 300 level. I am blessed that I decided not to finish a major in philosophy or try for a phd, that was lucky, because it enriched me before I learned enough to dislike it.
sal sar
Hear, hear!
If one doesn’t believe in objective reality, it’s all to easy to lack authenticity. Makes sense.
I am not particularly interested in any philosophy that does not work in the real world.
The only political philosophy that works in the real world is classical liberalism, and even it has the problem that self governing people are not naturally able to limit their meddling into the affairs of others and so power grows and as lord acton noted power corrupts.
Those problems are major issues with EVERY political philosophy.
Those of the left run affoul of the fact that they require people to be perfect – and that just does not happen.
I barely read your exegis of Heideger. It does not matter what Heideger said. It does nto even matter if perfectly applied with perfect people it might work.
There is only one political philosophy that works, and works proportionate to the degree it is applied – and that is classical liberalism.
But even that is unable to naturally resist the desire of self governing people to meddle in the affairs of their neighbors.
As to your constant rant about billionaires – I am not friend of the uber rich. But the problem is rent seeking.
With limited government and free markets, Billionaires and giant corporations must compete like everyone else.
There is no one to protect them, and they are in general more fragile than smaller businesses.
I would not say scurrilous things about Democrats I do know who are on the rise. But I find that sort of action disloyal and disgusting.
I prefer to believe that these are people of good faith who are trying to do their jobs. The worst true thing I will say is that some are awfully close to being billionaire sycophants. That’s the chief fault I would say of them. Whatever their other faults. Most of which don’t matter.
We need to focus on policies. It is fine to explore biases too of course. And ask questions. But in itself, there should be no need to dig dirt all the time after the big names. The economic policies are what should command our attention most of all, because those policies are what touch us most often. Not some petty dirt.
That’s not the approach the press took towards Orange Man bad of course. And, the billionaires want it that way. They want to focus on personality instead of policy.
If there are policy differences then they can and should be vigorously debated. The slander machine, however, that thrives on lies and innuendo, is reprehensible
Just remember, the billionaires want us focused on petty things, and keep our eye off the money-ball
I thought they played this game with Bill Clinton too. Focus everybody on his dalliance, and ignore his questionable policies like NAFTA, and his failures in national security– taking election donations from PRC officials even as he failed to secure our nuclear secrets from CCP spies. That was bad, a thousand times worse than “monica,” and yet it got very little attention.
Of course the billionaires mostly OWN the mass media, so is it any wonder they confuse us with BS and make us be distracted by sex stories all the time, appealing to our prurient side in order to distract us from their thievery. We need to get past that, among the rank and file of both parties.
Sal Sar
Great points, Sal.
No, they’re not conservative. They’re leftists. Conway is a lawyer; I don’t know about he others.
William, unlike Trump, they were all conservatives and long time members of the GOP. That’s just a fact.
No, they were contractors who took money from GOP campaigns. See Robert Stacy McCain on Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace a dozen years back.
Deco’s wrong again:
“Stephen Edward Schmidt[2] (born September 28, 1970)[3] is an American communications and public affairs strategist who has worked on Republican political campaigns, including those of President George W. Bush, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arizona Senator John McCain.
Schmidt was the senior campaign strategist and advisor to McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.[4] He pushed McCain to select Sarah Palin as his running mate, a choice which both Schmidt[5] and McCain came to regret.[6…..Schmidt attended the University of Delaware from 1988 through the spring of 1993, majoring in political science.[17] During this time, he registered as a Republican. He left three credits short of graduating because he did not pass a math course; Schmidt has said that he has been diagnosed with a learning disability that makes higher math difficult for him.[14] He joined the Delta Tau Delta fraternity,[15] was a member of the campus Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program, and did field work for Republican candidates in Delaware, sometimes wearing campaign buttons to class.[17] Schmidt graduated in the class of 2013.[18]
Career
Early campaigns
In 1995, Schmidt managed the unsuccessful campaign for Kentucky Attorney General of Will T. Scott, who is formerly a Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court.[19] This Kentucky campaign’s advertising strategy was featured in the second edition of George Magazine.
In 1998, Schmidt ran California State Senator Tim Leslie’s unsuccessful race for Lt. Governor of California.[20] Also that year, he was the Communications Director for California State Treasurer Matt Fong’s unsuccessful campaign to unseat U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer.[21] In 1999, he was the Communications Director for Lamar Alexander’s presidential run, leaving in June when the campaign reduced its senior staff.[22]
Washington, D.C.
Schmidt with President George W. Bush in January 2006
By late 2000, Schmidt was communications director of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.[23][24]
In 2001, he was the spokesman of the National Republican Congressional Committee,[25] becoming the Communications Director by 2002.
Schmidt joined the Bush administration as a Deputy Assistant to the President and Counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney. In 2004, he was a member of the senior strategic planning group, led by White House adviser Karl Rove, that ran President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign; Schmidt oversaw the reelection “war room”.[20] In 2005 and 2006, he was the White House strategist responsible for the U.S. Supreme Court nominations of Samuel Alito[26] and Chief Justice John Roberts.[20]
California
In 2006, Schmidt left the White House to become the campaign manager in the re-election campaign for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.[26] From there, he became a partner in Mercury Public Affairs, part of Fleishman-Hillard International Communications, in charge of Mercury’s operations in California.[27]
2008 McCain presidential campaign
See also: John McCain 2008 presidential campaign
On July 2, 2008, Schmidt was appointed to head up day-to-day operations of the McCain campaign in response to concerns that the campaign lacked coordination and a clear message. Rick Davis retained the formal title of “campaign manager”.[28][29]
Wallace: “…she moved to Florida to serve as Governor Jeb Bush’s press secretary and then became the Communications Director for the Florida State Technology Office in 2000.[9] Wallace worked on the 2000 Florida election recount.[11]
White House and Bush 2004 presidential campaign
Wallace joined the White House staff during George W. Bush’s first term, serving as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Media Affairs at the White House, where she oversaw regional press strategy and outreach.[12] In 2003, Wallace joined Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign as its Communications Director, wherein according to The New York Times she “delivered her political attacks without snarling.”[13]
On January 5, 2005, Bush named Wallace White House Communications Director.[12] The New York Times story announcing her presidential appointment carried the headline: “New Aide Aims to Defrost the Press Room” and described Wallace’s intentions “to improve the contentious relationship between a secretive White House and the press.”[13] According to The Washington Post, Wallace served as “a voice for more openness with reporters”, and former colleagues describe Wallace as having been “very persuasive in the halls of the West Wing.”[11] She left the White House in July 2006 to relocate to New York City, where her husband Mark was representing the Bush Administration at the United Nations.[
corporate hacks. scum
Being a member of the GOP doesn’t make one a conservative.
LMAO that you think these conservatives are leftists. Maybe you’re drawing on a No True Scotsman fallacy and think no conservative can oppose Trump?
LMAO that you think they’re conservatives. What are they conserving?
If you don’t know the political meaning of “conservative,” look it up.
Liars who sing the tune the billionaires call for them
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/12/11/these-are-the-billionaires-who-gave-to-anti-trump-super-pac-the-lincoln-project/?sh=2e888b635edd
Sal
How about you quote a few of their lies?
how about you go lick up their vomit like a dog and then tell yourself you’ve just had a fine meal
sal
That’s what you do with Trump, so you’d know better than I.
If you’re not familiar with defamation law, how do you know about the Neiman Marcus case?
Because Prof. Turley mentioned it in his post, above. I also vaguely recall reading it in law school, but that was more than 25 years ago….reading a case in a general torts class that long ago hardly makes one qualified to opine on the law of defamation.
It’s funny. I went to law school before you did, and I still remember the common-law elements of burglary, murder, and rape word for word even though I’ve never done any criminal law. I remember the discussions of Neiman Marcus and the Wally Butts/Bear Bryant allegation.
I want to know if Josh Hawley has a defamation case against the Lincoln Project for that hit piece ad I saw last night.
Put a paper photo of Rudy by a rat hole. Watch the rats run off for a mile.
First, according to the blog, Giuliani didn’t name a specific person. He merely said it was someone connected to the Lincoln Project and Romney. Second, it appears that the DOJ has no clue who really did what on January 6. They’ve been arresting people because someone, often a family member, identified them in a photograph. (That says something about the current state of America – families turning on their own members.) Various media outlets have blamed the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, who are quite a threat to the administration since they’re made up of the very people who actually have the background and training to stand against government, Antifa and God only knows who else. As for the Lincoln Project, they are nothing but scumbag lawyers who hate Trump. They’re capable of anything, including inciting riot as long as it reflects badly on the former president. By the way, Giuliani, DID in fact, uncover the dirt on Hunter Biden in Ukraine, and he revealed the sordid crap on his laptop. He may very well have proof of Lincoln Project participation.
Hunter, Gropiing Joe, and other family members of the Biden Cartel have offered much in the way of defense for their criminal misconduct….but then we do not have a Media, DOJ, or Congress that can be relied upon to conduct any such investigations.
Do you suppose “truth” being the best defense against allegations such as “The Mayor” uncovered might be seen as a real roadblock for legal action by the Biden Cartel?
After all it shall not have to defend itself in Criminal Court, Congress, or even in the Court of Public Opinion and keeping quiet and waiting for the winds of time to blow all the stench away is the safest path for it.
Please don’t show Guiliani photo on the blog. A fly flew by my screen while the photo was visible and the fly dropped dead.
You mean Maxine Waters without her wig?
Here again, the lady doth protest too much.
The Lincoln Project’s legal response to Giuliani is attached to this tweet as a letter –
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1355618315570393090
Giuliani regained a lot of credibility as NY mayor, but he was scum before he was mayor (look up his treatment of Richard Wigton while U.S. attorney) and he appears to have reverted to type.