Rov_Scam
16hr ago
You can slice statistics any way you want, it just depends on what factors you actually care about. The black vs. white disparity is about the same as the male vs. female disparity, but I doubt you'd recommend the alternative scenario where we say that guns and men don't mix well.
None of the articles you linked to said that prosecution was still being deferred under the diversion program for the 2021 offenses. I checked the docket, and it looks like he was convicted and sentenced under them, so I'm not sure what the point of this post is. He got into a diversion program, failed, and was sentenced to jail.
Edit: The sentencing guidelines, assuming all the enhancements I think might apply actually do apply, call for 17–34 months, at least some of which would be jail time. The docket shows that when he was granted HYTA status he was given credit for 532 days he served in jail while waiting trial and sentenced to an additional 3 years of probation. When you take the sentencing guidelines for a first-time offender into consideration the sentence doesn't look unreasonable, and even if I underestimated the sentence it still isn't unreasonable when you take into consideration the possibility of a plea to lesser charges. It's not clear to me that going to trial would have resulted in a more substantial punishment, and he probably would have been released for time served in any event. The only advantage he got was the opportunity to escape without a record if he completed his probation, and if he were able to do that then nobody would have any problem with the outcome.
Since he could barely make it 3 months without committing another crime, the judge revoked his HYTA status, meaning the prior convictions go on his record, and they didn't have to arraign him for months because they were holding him on the probation violation. He was remanded to custody following his second arraignment, and eventually plead guilty to the 2021 charges.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
If American workers are only 20% of the population (and the 80% are people actually looking for work, not children, retirees, housewives, etc.), then I don't think normal political considerations will matter much.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
I'm not sure that this is entirely true. Very low-skilled people are unemployable period, and lowering the pay rate doesn't do anything. For example, there's a guy I know who isn't the brightest, retired now but comes off as someone who was definitely in special education back in the 60s and 70s. He worked as a janitor at a local elementary school. In Pennsylvania the minimum wage is the Federal $7.25. Someone in his position would be making $22.62 this yer and $24.35 next year. Of course, that's because he's been there for 35 years, but even a new hire makes $16.60 on the current contract and $18.60 on the next. Grocery, retail, and fast food wages aren't much lower, even for 16-year-olds with no experience. The only exceptions I'm aware of are for people with disabilities, but that's more because they can only make so much before they lose their benefits. I don't think there is a significant population that's employable but for minimum wage laws.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
I understand what you're saying, but that feeds into my point: If an industry is going gangbusters companies can't be too picky about who they hire. I saw it myself when I was doing oil and gas titles; some attorneys would be the kind who would go into excruciating detail about every possible title defect and track down every piece of supporting documentation. Others would slap something together that vaguely resembled a title report and required substantial modification to turn into anything we could submit to a client. Everyone starts off in the second category, but when the industry is hot, we were willing to tolerate a lot more people like that because it was cheaper to correct their work and hope they got better than it was to turn down business due to lack of staff. When the industry's in a slump, even the first type of employee will have a hard time finding work. The difference is that the energy industry has no problem admitting when it's in a slump, and will openly state that as a reason they had to lay a bunch of people off. They don't try to bullshit investors to make them think it's about efficiency, because anyone can look at the price of oil. Tech companies can't seem to admit that demand for their products may be declining. Or that advertising and data harvesting for free products aren't as valuable as they thought.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
Having incorporated the rest of your comments to get an idea of what you are looking for, I think I may have a solution for you. A few preliminary items:
- I'm assuming that when you say "Colonial" you are referring to what is known as "Colonial Revival", which is a 20th century update of the Georgian and Federal styles that were popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Basically, I'm assuming you aren't referring to French Colonial, or Spanish Colonial, or Dutch Colonial, or any of the other "Colonial" styles which may exist in North America.
- As a 20th century American style, this type of house would have no need for a mudroom per se. Most of these were built in auto-centric suburbs beginning in the 1920s, meaning the front door would not be used much. Early examples of this style were mostly built in more upscale neighborhoods, and once it became more common after World War II most people would have had a car. Prewar suburbs with these houses would have likely had detached garages behind the house, and later examples would have had attached garages. In Pittsburgh, the terrain is hilly and the garage is usually integral and opens into the basement. What I'm getting at is that the home's occupant's wouldn't normally use the front door, so a mudroom would be built in the back, off the garage, or it would have an unfinished basement to use for that purpose.
- Despite the ever-ballooning American house size, the dimensions you've proposed aren't modest. I don't use foreign units without conversion so you'll have to bear with me here, but 100 sq. meters is about 1076 sq. feet. Since this is a two-story house, doubling that gets you to 2152 sq. ft., which is plenty big.
To give an example to tie it all together, this is a 5-bay Colonial Revival home in a suburb of Pittsburgh. It was built in 1968 by Bryan, who is a reputable local builder that mostly focuses on custom homes these days but was doing tract houses in the 1960s and 1970s (not to be confused with Ryan Homes, a national developer of tract houses that's been building junk since at least the 1970s). The total area is 1890 sq. ft., though the footprint is only 875 as the second story slightly overhangs on both sides. It has 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. You will notice that the driveway goes down the hill behind the house and the garage is integrated into the basement. Ignore the assymetrical front layout. Here's a more upscale example from 1910. While it precedes the era of widespread automobile ownership, at 6900 square feet, it owner would have probably had a car, or at least a horse. [Note how the driveway leads to a carriage house in the rear [https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4513598,-79.9114955,3a,24.5y,311.56h,95.08t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s_vxsZmkSMf0FSWoXMHGrIw!2e0!5s20220901T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-5.0819782887585205%26panoid%3D_vxsZmkSMf0FSWoXMHGrIw%26yaw%3D311.55661009264486!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDUyMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D]. The owner would not have entered through the front door.
I initially intended to tell you that your problem was hopeless if you wished to remain architecturally correct, so I consulted The Bible, namely Virginia Savage McAlester's indispensible A Field Guide to American Houses and consulted the sections on Colonial Revival, Georgian, and Federal houses. What I discovered was that, contrary to my mental image of a colonial house, there is a rare variation with a centered gable. While these gables are usually small, and may not protrude from the central mass at all, it would be possible to bump this out and create a large enough area for a mud room. Unfortunately, since, per the book, this occurs in fewer than 5% of Colonial Revival houses and 10% of Georgian and Federal houses, it's hard to find pictures, and bump-outs of sufficient size are less common still. But I don't see why it couldn't be done. This House only bumps out slightly, but you could extend this by 5 feet or so and get a small mud room out of it. Some people build small mudrooms on their houses and they always look tacked-on, but with a central gable running all the way up it would be an integral part of the house, and from there you could just use a standard floor plan.
Beyond this, I don't see why there would be a problem with the stairs. Every house like this I've been in (and I can almost guarantee the layout of the first example) has the stairwell in the center of the house. Basically you'd walk in and there would be an entryway with a foyer leading down the center of the house to the kitchen in the back, with the stairwell running parallel on whichever side you want. To the right there's a family room, and to the left a living room and dining room. You can sacrifice some family room space for a half bath or hide one under the stairs. These houses almost always have four bedrooms.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
As an architecture fan I'd be interested if you could find any pictures of what you're describing, and if you're really generous letting me feel free to use those terms if I find them apt. Especially since I'm guessing the "Wright Style" has only the most superficial resemblance to anything actually designed by Wright.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
I think it's more that the tech industry feels that normal growth is unacceptable and that the massive growth of the 80s and 90s is what's to be expected. They can't come to grips with being a mature, boring industry that makes incremental advancements; there aren't any 25-year-old multimillionaires who made their fortune starting a construction machinery company out of their bedroom. So when the industry starts contracting, it can't be because their growth projections were overoptimistic, but because they're actually doing a lot better! Their products are so advanced that they don't need employees anymore, and your job is next, even if they don't know what that job is. I don't think it's a coincidence that LLM hype coincides with tech employment peaking.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
I'm talking about realistic configurations, not theoretical ones where you use office furniture in the living room and people always keep doors closed.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
which, being immovable, needlessly constrain the rearrangement of furniture
And yet you design floor plans that only allow for one reasonable arrangement of furniture, if that
Rov_Scam
5d ago
Since you've evidently blocked me for some reason, you won't see this, but your framing of the matter is rather boo-outgroup. Nonetheless, I don't think this is going to have much of an effect on anything. There's literally nothing this report could have contained that would have stopped critics of the party cold, so everyone sees what they want to see. Critics of the party were certain that it said bad things about Biden's senility and Kamala's incompetence and that they didn't want the report to get out because it would be too devastating. Instead it turns out that the report wasn't released because it was so poorly done the guy who wrote it got fired. It will make Ken Martin look bad to both people who know who Ken Martin is for about 2 days until Trump audibly farts on camera and the nation's attention moves elsewhere. By the time people start announcing their candidacies it will have about as much relevance as that time Amy Klobuchar allegedly threw a salad at an aide.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
The issue that led to the Jones awards being so high was his refusal to participate in the process in good faith. He ignored the suit rather than defend it and got a default judgment against him, and when the case went to trial for damages he played games with regard to discovery. If the jury thinks you aren't taking things seriously and are trying to hide assets, they're going to punish you for it, and there's nothing you can do about it, because the time to do something about it was before you got soaked.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
The county isn't paying these settlements out of the treasury; they have insurance for that. I don't know the exact dynamics between the carriers and the government regarding how much caution they can make them exercise, but if they keep engaging in similar behavior rates will go up. These settlements are rare though even in the worst municipalities, so I don't see it being that much of an issue.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
I think we just have different conceptions of what counts as escalation. The point of such a suit isn't to punish people for supporting Trump, but to make the United States whole. It's my opinion that this collusion has perpetrated a massive fraud on the United States, and that condoning this behavior will be more escalatory, because it acts as an implicit license for anyone to do it. So there are three options. The first is the one that I would consider the most escalatory, which is that the government would cede the legality of Trump's actions. Then, when they can't get an appropriation from congress, the president will just sue the government and instruct the attorney general to settle for however much money he's asking for. Then he can establish his own execitive agencies or NGOs to act as a shadow bureaucracy that distribute the benefits for purely political reasons. I don't think either one of us believe that this would be perfectly legal or constitutional for any administration to do, regardless of whether or not you can find some caselaw that specifically prohibits it. The second option is closer to what I think you would consider the deescalatory option which would be to let Trump off the hook, and then get congress to pass a law specifically prohibiting it.
The problem with this approach is that it suggests that Trump's above the law. Consider the following example: Suppose I come up with a novel fraudulent scheme, the result of which is that you lose a significant sum of money. You approach the district attorney, who tells you that based on the general principles of fraud what I did was probably illegal, and he has good arguments, but since there's nothing on-point regarding this specific scheme, he's not going to prosecute. He recommends that you write your congressman. This is especially bad in Trump's case because you're effectively saying that a government that will claw back an extra $50 bucks they overpaid Uncle Milt in his SS check will let 1.8 billion in theft slide because Donald Trump is a political figure and they don't want to escalate. The third option is that you litigate under the theory that what Trump did was illegal and you're simply restoring the status quo. Trump is certainly wealthy enough to cover the legal defenses of everyone involved, but we all know the chances of that happening.
BTW, I apologize for not answering your question the previous times you ask it, but if I get busy and don't look at it a while I'll forget what I was talking about and it will take an inordinate amount of time to retrace my steps. To answer your question, no, there is no precedent saying that, and there is actually precedent saying the opposite. But part of the point I am trying to make about the law, that non-litigators don't always understand, is that there are requirements and then there are requirements. Legally speaking, no, the case will not be dismissed. But just because a case survives dismissal doesn't mean that it's good enough to take to a jury, and for a fraud case such as this you will realistically need to show a victim. The cases that say you don't need a victim are ones where the defendants were so obviously involved in a fraudulent scheme that there was no question that they were trying to mislead people. The SPLC fraud allegations are so remote that it's harder to make that argument. To give you an example from what I do, I represent defendants. Theoretically, I don't have to prove anything, just show that the plaintiff didn't prove his case. But realistically I am not going to win if I don't present evidence. Even if a witness doesn't say something in his deposition, I'm going to ask about it anyway, because counsel will take the stance that since he didn't specifically deny it he's going to assume it's true, and I'm more worried about convincing counsel than convincing a jury.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
Any schmuck can vote for uncontroversial things.
Any schmuck can vote for them, sure. But actually trying to accomplish uncontroversial things takes work, and the people you describe as fighters seem to have an allergy to doing anything that doesn't get their name in the newspaper. It takes actual work to prepare draft legislation and work with other lawmakers to get it passed. It takes actual work to drive out to a constituent's house to look at a road that he says is collapsing, and then drive to the PennDOT office and get up someone's ass about getting it fixed. Instead you want someone who will go down to Charleroi and tell all the fentanyl addicts that they're the Real Americans and that you want all the dirty jigs with the chutzpah to show up to their jobs every day, pay taxes, and open up businesses in a town without a lot going on out of there for good, even though, as State Senator, your power to actually effect such an outcome is close to zero.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
Yeah but Scott engaged in a healthy amount of Medicaid fraud too. A white guy who manages to run what looks like a legitimate hospital network is always going to get the benefit of the doubt over a black immigrant whose entire operation can be portrayed as fraudulent.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
There were no ballot measures. This is Pennsylvania and when we do get ballot measures, they're usually pretty boring. (Do you support the ability of the Bubb County Joint Authority to reduce the hearing notice period from 30 days to 20 days provided the notice is advertised in both print and digital media?)
Rov_Scam
6d ago
As I said earlier, you're putting too much credence in the idea that the presence or absence of a case that fits some exact criteria is going to be some kind of showstopper for one side or the other. The entire issue is incredibly complicated and I'm not claiming that this is a slam dunk, just that there's a credible enough argument that this isn't going to get dismissed outright and that anyone who accepts money from this organization needs to be on alert that litigation is likely and they may end up getting tied up in it and eventually forced to pay the money back. What we have here is a settlement that seems to violate various basic ethical canons and raises significant constitutional questions, and the policy implications of this going forward could be wide ranging. So while I'm not necessarily saying the people who receive the money won't eventually win, you can certainly expect that a future administration will protect its interests, and their arguments won't be unreasonable.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
We don't have any numbers from yesterday yet, but one of the underreported stories about this primary cycle is how low Republican turnout has been. This isn't always a great metric, since it's dependent on whether there are any competitive races, but the numbers from Texas are illustrative. About 7% more Democrats voted in the Senate primary than Republicans, despite both parties having competitive elections. The last time Democrat turnout was higher in a Texas primary was 2020, but the Republicans weren't running any competitive statewide elections that year, while Democrats had Senate and President. I don't want to read too much into this, since local elections can skew the statewide totals, but there seems to be a lack of enthusiasm among Republican voters as compared to Democrats. One thing I've noticed in the races in my neck of the woods is that the Republicans have all been trying to out-MAGA each other.
Illustrative of this is a PA Senate race for a district in the southwestern corner of the state. Camera Bartolotta has been representing the district since 2014, and she's always come across as a moderate who was good at constituent service. In 2024 she responded to Trump's comments about Hatians in Charleroi by saying that she was disheartened because they were constituents and taxpayers. This was enough to get her a vote of no confidence from the Washington County Republican Committee, which vote was later voided by the state committee as the rules prohibit them from disparaging a sitting officeholder. Al Buchtan seized on this by mounting a primary challenge based on her alleged disloyalty to Trump. Bartolotta decided to head this off at the pass by running a series of early attack ads questioning Buchtan's credentials and his own loyalty to Trump. Buchtan didn't start running ads until later in the race, but yesterday was the first time in a while that you could watch television in the Pittsburgh area without seeing multiple commercials per ad break.
Bartolotta ended up winning, but that's not the real story. What I find more interesting is that in a district that favors Republicans by a 3 to 2 margin, a race this hard-fought didn't drive turnout at all. I can't offer any previous elections for turnout comparisons, since this is the first primary challenge Bartolotta faced, but one only needs to compare the Republican votes to the Democratic votes. A total of 17,000 and change voted in the GOP primary; 15,00 and change voted in the Democratic primary. That they managed fewer that 15% more votes despite a 25 point registration advantage would be enough of a story, but the Democratic candidate was running unopposed. This isn't due to other races, either; Democrats had one other competitive primary compared to three for the Republicans. A greater percentage of Democrats turned out to participate in a box-checking exercise than Republicans showed up to vote in at least two elections that actually mattered.
I don't want to read too much into this, but one explanation is that more moderate GOP voters simply aren't showing up to primaries. And it makes sense that they wouldn't, because these primaries offer the voter nothing. You have races where the candidates argue over who will be more loyal to Trump, and you have outliers like the Massey race where a contrarian offers a referendum on Trump. To nearly half of Republican voters in her district, the fact that Bartolotta had an impeccable record of ruthless effectiveness in doing uncontroversial things that benefited the district was irrelevant in the light of the comments she made defending her constituents. So who is left voting in these primaries? The dyed-in-the wool Trump supporters who would still consider him to be one of the greatest human beings who ever lived and for whom adherence to MAGA principles (as defined by him) are paramount above all else. The question may not be whether he has an iron grip on the Republican Party so much as whether he has one over what's left of it.
Luckily he didn't get diversion for the strangulation. See my below post.
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