Rov_Scam
23hr ago
The Ramos Gin Fizz:
2 oz gin 1 oz heavy cream 1/2 oz lemon juice 1/2 oz lime juice 2 tsp sugar 1 egg white a few drops of orange flower water
Put all the ingredients in a shaker and shake with ice for at least a minute, long enough to beat the egg. Then pour into a Collins Glass and top with club soda. Don't try to substitute any ingredients, either. Orange flower water is from the flower of the plant and not the fruit, so substituting orange juice or orange bitters will give an entirely different flavor. It's not a particularly easy ingredient to find, though it should be available at Whole Foods and most Asian grocery stores.
This may be the perfect cocktail, as it checks off every box: The gin does what the gin does, the cream give it richness, the citrus makes it refreshing, the sugar adds sweetness, the egg white gives it body, the soda gives it a crispness and backs the intensity off a bit, and the orange flower water... that's for mystery. It's also completely immune from bastardization, because it's immune from becoming popular enough for that to happen. It has a lot of ingredients, one of which isn't used for anything else (though it isn't expensive). It takes a long time to make, but you can't order one in a bar or make it in huge batches. You have to make them at home, one or two at a time. But I assume you it's worth the effort. That brings me to another favorite gin drink, the Gin Rickey:
Gin Lime Juice Club Soda Just enough sugar to take the edge off
I used to drink Gin and Tonics but after a while the sweetness of the tonic water became cloying, and switching to diet didn't help. These really cut through on those summer days when it feels like a Precambrian swamp outside. And you can order these in a bar. In fact, ordering these in a bar that prides themselves on their cocktails hits a certain sweet spot: Nobody ever orders them, but bartenders feel like they should know how to make them, so you're likely to get a "What's in that again?" Thus, you can avoid some bastardized house version by explaining to the bartender how to make the drink without being one of those assholes who orders drinks the bartender doesn't know how to make.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
They didn't ask the question because he was Jewish, they asked because he lived in a kibbutz in Israel for a while and worked on an army base. They had to ask. The same reason they had to ask Tim Walz if he was an agent of the Chines government because he lived there for a while and took kids on field trips there afterward. They also have to ask these people if they've ever had affairs, if they've ever been arrested, if they have any criminal contacts, if they've ever been treated for a mental condition, if they've ever used drugs, if they've ever embezzled state funds, if they're having financial problems, and any number of countless other things that you'd be embarrassed about if someone asked you because of the implication.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
That quote was referring to Federal Obstruction of Justice charges, which are separate from the interfering charges. These cover things like jury tampering and destroying evidence. Physically obstructing ICE agents would presumably be covered under both state and Federal laws. I was listening to a left-wing radio program last night and the host and his guest were in agreement that protestors shouldn't do anything that physically prevents ICE agents from apprehending their targets, so this doesn't seem controversial to me.
The gang example is complicated. Typically, in order to be liable as an accomplice you have to have knowledge of the crime being committed, not just general knowledge that the people you are dealing with are probably up to no good. The complicating factor is that all 50 states plus the Feds and DC have enacted a cornucopia of anti-gang laws over the past 40 years that, in some cases, expand accomplice liability to "gang members", and may of these laws have been challenged for overbreadth and vagueness, and some were recently modified as part of recent calls for criminal justice reform, so any answer would be highly dependent on jurisdiction, and the constitutionality of some of the more recent reforms may still be an open question (attempts to solve some problems may create others). But based on general principles, I don't think that his knowledge of specifics would be relevant, provided that he knows that a crime is being committed. For example, if he's a lookout for drug dealers and he knows drugs are being sold illegally, I think that would be enough to invoke accomplice liability, even if he didn't know what kind of drugs or what the roles of the other members of the gang were. But again, it really depends on the specific fact pattern.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
I'm going to loop in @zeke5213a because this response acts as one for his comments as well, as I think there's some conflation going on here. Before we get going I want to point out that the original topic of this discussion was relative base rates for certain behaviors, and someone's assertion that opposing ICE was always wrong, to which I responded that that was simply a value judgment and that from a neutral perspective opposing ICE was only wrong if those doing the opposing were breaking the law. From there the discussion seems to have morphed into whether the protestors in Minnesota are breaking any particular laws. To that point, I will concede that there are probably some protestors who are unambiguously breaking the law, and you can count those into whatever base rate discussion you want, but I get the impression that nobody really cares about that anymore and is more concerned about the prospect that the protestors in Minneapolis are, en masse, committing any crimes. And I want to make it clear right now that that makes for a more interesting discussion than whatever stemmed from the half-forgotten base rate comment I tossed off last night before dinner, and I'll be addressing that question and I could care less about base rates at this point, and I get the impression that neither of you care much about that either.
With that out of the way, there's really a two-step analysis involved in all of these questions. The first step is to ask whether the speech in question violates a particular law. The second step is that, if the answer is yes, to determine if the enforcement of that law is precluded by the First Amendment. The conflation I'm referring to comes from the specific conduct of the ICE protestors, which seems to have two components:
- Yelling epithets at ICE agents, videorecording ICE agents, and being boisterous generally
- Alerting neighborhood residents to ICE presence
That being said, I tried to focus on the First Amendment question, because laws vary across jurisdictions but the Constitution is a showstopper. The general rule here is that speech is protected unless it falls into an exception, and I couldn't find any applicable exceptions. What it seems like you're bringing up is the criminal speech exception, which is an exception for speech that is integral to criminal conduct. When discussing criminal conduct, it makes sense to think of various tiers of culpability. I'll use the bank robbery example because it's the most clear-cut:
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Principle: This is what most people think of, i.e., you're the one walking into the bank and pointing a gun at the teller. Pretty much everyone understands that this creates liability for robbery or whatever the relevant crime is.
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Accessory: The liability here is the same as it is for the principal, and it includes anyone who was involved in the crime prior to or during its commission. In your robbery example, the lookout is aware that the crime is going on and is actively participating in it. If you're guilty at this level, you're charged with the underlying crime, in this case robbery. Though liability is the same, some people may think it isn't or shouldn't be because the defendant played a limited role in the crime.
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Accessory After the Fact: This is its own thing and isn't charged as part of the underlying crime but as a stand-alone offense. This liability applies when someone who wasn't involved in the planning or commission of the crime but has knowledge of it provides one of those involved assistance in avoiding capture. If the bank robbery lookout went to his friend's house and told him what happened, and the friend let him lie low at his house for a couple days and arranged for a ride out of town, the brother could be charged as an accessory after the fact, but not with robbery. there are three reasons why this wouldn't apply to the ICE protestors. I'll say as a preliminary that this isn't actually charged very often (it's most often used as leverage to get cooperation) and my cursory Google research revealed very little. What I can tell you from experience is that I've never heard of anyone being charged with this based on a communication alone. Sometimes the communication is part of the evidence, but those are cases where substantial other assistance was also provided. I certainly haven't seen any indication that the activity would override First Amendment concerns, though it is certainly possible. The second problem with applying it to ICE protestors is that it requires that the defendant have knowledge that a crime was committed and attempt to assist a specific person accused of that crime. I can almost guarantee you that very few of the ICE protestors even know the names of the targets let alone know what crimes they may have committed, which brings me to my third point. Much has been made about deportation actions being civil and not criminal, and while this is usually irrelevant to the conversation, this is one of the times when it matters, because, even if the first two concerns weren't a problem in a specific case, you can't be an accessory after the fact to a non-crime. If it were US Marshals trying to execute a warrant for illegal entry, then it would be different, but they don't do that because then they would have to give the guy a lawyer and be subject to heightened procedural safeguards. There are simply too many complexities here to make this something worth pursuing.
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Obstruction/Impeding: This is the level in which the authorities don't have to prove that an underlying crime was committed, just that the legal process was interrupted in an impermissible way. We can forget about any liability at the Federal level, because the statutes simply don't cover it. Charges relating to impeding Federal employees (the once ICE agents most often cite when trying to get protestors to back off) explicitly only include forcible actions. The Obstruction of Justice statute includes an enumerated list of specific activities, none of which the protestors are known to engage in. At the state level, the statute looks more promising, as it doesn't specifically contain any language that would preclude any of the protestors' activities, but the case law interprets the statute as only applying to physical obstruction outside of very specific circumstances that are unlikely to apply. The state courts also specifically rejected the idea that warning someone of their impending arrest was prohibited under the statute, ruling that the obstruction had to be directed at law enforcement and not third parties.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
It could potentially violate noise ordinances, yes. But the way the Minneapolis ordinance is worded makes it clear that it almost certainly doesn't violate the law there:
389.60. What constitutes violation. (a) Any activity, not expressly exempted by section 389.50 or this section which generates sound regardless of frequency that is more than ten (10) decibels (A scale) above the ambient noise level when measured within any dwelling unit (other than the one of sound source) in a condominium, townhouse, apartment house, multi-unit dwelling, single-family dwelling, or similar dwelling between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. All measurements applying to the above shall be made indoors with the doors closed, and within the dwelling.
(b) Any activity not expressly exempted by section 389.50 or this section which generates sound regardless of frequency that is more than five (5) decibels (A) scale above the ambient noise level when measured within any dwelling unit (other than the one of sound source) in a condominium, townhouse, apartment house, multi-unit dwelling, single-family dwelling or similar dwelling between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. All measurements applying to the above shall be made indoors with the doors closed, and within the dwelling.
There are obvious evidentiary problems here in that you have to know what the ambient noise level is and whether the sound exceeds it by the specified amount, but the problems go beyond ones of evidence; the statute is worded in such a way that there is no violation without a measurement. This could be a case of bad drafting, but if you look at noise ordinances generally they seem aimed at specific problems like noise emanating from point sources or adjacent apartments. They aren't really designed for intermittent loud noise coming from outside.
I hope a case like this goes up to the Supreme Court so we can get a clear ruling on this.
At least in the present situation there's no chance of that happening. Federal law requires that any interference with law enforcement be "forcible", and Minnesota caselaw does so as well. On the state side there are some limited exceptions, but warning people of police activity is specifically exempted. I can't speak for other states, but nobody in Minneapolis is able to be prosecuted for this.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
Forget about Nazis doing it and you'll have your answer. If they're using force or threat of force then it could be illegal. If they're merely asking then I'm not even goign to bother with an analysis of the First Amendment laws because, insofar as I'm aware, no state in the Union has laws that make it illegal to talk to strangers. For your second example, again, forget about the Jews and the Hitler speeches. If there is an applicable municipal noise ordinance and you can prove that the driver violated it, then they can be charged with the noise violation.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
Your scenario is a bit vague so I'll dress it up for you: If Alice feels strongly about the wrongness of the murderer's conviction and subsequent incarceration and she decides to engage in a boisterous on-woman protest on a street corner during which she yells words of encouragement for the fugitive and expresses hope that he will escape justice, then yes, she would be engaging in constitutionally-protected speech. As repugnant as one may find her views, opinions about the appropriateness of criminal convictions are a fairly common subject of public protest, and the fact that the police may find them distracting doesn't exempt them from constitutional protection. And even then, this case would still be somewhat stronger than what's going on with ICE, where the protestors don't even know the identities of the people ICE are looking for, or indeed if they're even looking for anyone (Renee Good was shot while ICE was returning to headquarters). They're just generalized warnings about law enforcement presence, and are as illegal as flashing your brights to warn a fellow motorist about a speed trap.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
As I said in another comment, if Nazis marching through the neighborhoods of Holocaust survivors and the Westboro Baptist Church harassing mourners during the funerals of soldiers is constitutionally protected, this certainly is.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
The state legislature can pass all the laws they want, but their application is limited to the bounds of the Constitution. Impeding the path of law enforcement may rise to the level of obstruction depending on the specific circumstances, but blowing whistles and shouting insults are expressive activities that don't fall within any exception to the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has already addressed this directly, and since they've already ruled that Nazis marching through a neighborhood of Holocaust survivors and members of the Westboro Baptist Church yelling insults during soldiers' funerals are protected speech, it's safe to say that people blowing whistles around ICE agents isn't going to cut it.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
There's not a "positive" for which anti-ICE can be in the right. Furthermore, ICE is right X% of the time and wrong (1-X%) of the time, whereas anti-ICE is wrong 100% of the time.
That's simply a value judgment that doesn't get us anywhere. Being anti-ICE is only "wrong" when the activity in furtherance of that position breaks the law. You may not like the fact that people are protesting, recording their activity, or warning the community of their presence, but all of these things are both legal and constitutionally protected.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
There's a degree of equivocation though. The worst thing the mobs you described did was mildly irritate people for periods lasting up to five minutes (if I'm being generous). The feect on one guy was that there was a parade of cars behind him honking, which happens to anyone who drives in rush hour on a daily basis. It's not nothing, but it isn't in the same league as being detained for a day or more. The acceptable false positive rate you're really looking for is the number of people who were accosted by ICE but weren't detained.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
The fact that Jennifer Welch is a divorced divorce attorney probably puts her in the 99th percentile for hatred towards men.
I'm willing to give divorce attorneys a pass on pretty much anything. Back in April I was having a really bad day at work. I was appearing for a Zoom deposition and instead of doing it at a hotel Plaintiff's counsel thought it was a good idea for an old guy with limited technical ability to do it from his home without assistance. He lived in the middle of nowhere. And there had just been major storms in the area. The whole thing was delayed due to technical difficulties beginning about 15 minutes in, and every time we tried to continue with questioning some other issue would occur. After several hours of this the court reporter had a "technical expert" call in and try to walk the guy through some process. This woman had a high, whiny voice and talked to the guy like he was in kindergarten. I was about at the end of my rope, it was 1 pm, and the guy had answered about ten questions so far.
I went into the kitchen to get coffee and the wisened old of-counsel in my office asked me how I was doing. I told him that I probably died in a car wreck on the way to work and was actually in hell, and proceeded to tell him about my shitty morning. He said "Just look on the bright side: You could be practicing family law. And you'd have to carry a gun." That pretty much stopped me cold and I vowed that I wouldn't get too annoyed by minor professional inconveniences anymore.
I would add that I interned for a family law judge in law school, which judge handled child custody, and it's nothing I have any desire to get within a mile of.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
From January to October of last year, only 170 US citizens were detained by ICE as reported by ProPublica. Of those 170, many were arrested for interfering with ICE operations. Compare this with 234,211 removals (I don't have data on arrests or detentions, but I can assume the number of arrests/detentions is greater than removals. The "US Citizen arrest rate" is at most 0.07% of the ICE arrestees, probably much smaller due to fact that there are more detentions than removals.
It's interesting that you preceded this little tidbit with examples of four non-ICE being accused of ICE. How many people accused of being ICE actually were ICE? If you're implying that a certain false positive rate is acceptable, at least show that the behavior you're complaining about is above that rate.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
if anything I might expect group 3 to be more free with their money, justifying a higher fee
This is not true. The reason credit card companies aggressively market Group 4 cards, and are able to charge higher fees for them, is because Group4 cardholders generally have more money than Group 3 cardholders, and since interest isn't a factor, they charge a much higher percentage of their purchases. They are the most valuable customers which is why credit card companies aggressively market rewards programs. Merchants tolerate the higher fees because the people with those cards spend more money. When you tell them that they have to pay the same fees for low-value customers, it doesn't make sense, especially since the banks are already getting paid for the processing costs through interest payments. The only reason they charge fees at all on these is to offset the cost of offering lower interest rates than on other cards.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
Tagging @Opt-out and @magicalkittycat to continue their inclusion in the discussion.
You got it half right. I practiced bankruptcy law for a couple years, and I've seen the credit card industry a little closer-up than I would have liked. The first thing that should be noted is that all credit cards charge interchange fees ranging from around 1%–3% to cover the cost of processing the transaction. From there we can put cards into four rough categories:
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Secured Cards: These are the lowest level, and aren't advertised. I dealt with them a lot, though, because they exist more or less to help people who just filed for bankruptcy build credit. The way they work is the borrower puts a small amount of money down (I usually recommended around $500) that acts as their credit limit and collateral for the "loan". Then they use it like any other card, except I usually recommended they only charge a small amount on it each month and just pay it off to build a consistent payment history. There are still interest rates and late fees, but I honestly never looked at them because they aren't designed for people who are going to be paying interest.
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Cards for People with Terrible Credit: These are just what they sound like. They have no rewards and the highest interest rates, and are only given people with the worst credit scores. People with recent bankruptcy discharges would often get applications for these in the mail; I would tell them to put them in the garbage and go the secured route. These were people trying to reset their financial lives, and the last thing they needed was access to easy cash whenever things got tough. With secured cards the loss is limited to the amount of the deposit, while with these things can quickly spiral out of control. I gave this advice even to responsible bankrupts who filed due to e.g. medical debt or because of an atypical rough patch (divorce, unemployment, disability) where they were forced to rely on credit cards; these people didn't need my lecturing and were quite different than people who just overspent. Most of the overspenders, though, were so chastened by the experience that they never wanted to look at a credit card again, and I had to talk them into the safety of the secured route since it was worth it for them to build their credit if they wanted to get a car loan or mortgage in the future.
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Credit Cards for People Who Use Them For Credit: These last two categories are available to anyone with a halfway decent credit score, but they're targeted at people who pay interest. It's really easy to target this market—advertise low rates. No one would be enticed by a low interest rate if they didn't have any intention of paying interest. These predictably have the lowest interchange fees, since the banks are making money from the interest payments. They don't offer any rewards, because the reward is the lower monthly payment. They're marketed through their interest rates, credit limits, and introductory 0% periods.
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Reward Cards: These cards are specifically marketed towards people who don't run balances. After people realized that getting a credit card and paying the balance off every month was a convenient way to build credit and not deal with the inconvenience of cash, banks realized that that they were ignoring an important market segment. The ubiquity of credit card use allowed the companies to charge higher interchange fees, and since the fees were accounting for a share of revenue on par with interest payments, it made sense to try to attract these no-balance customers through reward enticements, which are paid for out of the fees. The interest rates are relatively high because the people who apply for these cards aren't concerned about the rate, and if they end up paying it it's just a bonus for the issuer.
The point I'm trying to make here is that outside of the absolute bottom of the market, credit worthiness doesn't really play into how these cards make their money, because the cards' users are differentiated by what marketing segment they belong to. There's nobody out there who would qualify for a low-interest card that wouldn't qualify for a rewards card, or vice-versa. The reason the interest rates are so high on credit cards (the lowest I've seen a client have was around 15%) is because of the ease of use. I may be able to get a better rate from a bank, but I have to go to the branch and submit paperwork and wait and then get a fixed amount of money with fixed repayment terms. With a credit card I get a limit and I can borrow money pretty much on the spot. Regardless of credit worthiness, this is an inherently riskier form of lending.
The difference is that Arkansas and Alabama were two of the more adamant segregationist states. Minnesota is not exactly a hotbed of illegal immigration.
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