netstack
Texas is freedom land
No bio...
User ID: 647
netstack
Texas is freedom land
4d ago
V-E…V-J…no, wait. It is V-E, as applied to the Soviet Union. Guess I learned something today.
It’s hard to search for previous Victory day protests. All that I get are Palestine happenings.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
4d ago
That seems a lot more complicated than it needs to be. People make dumb decisions all the time. Have you ever seen one of those family court shows?
I don’t think it’s backed up by the fertility data, either, but I don’t have time to check all the income tables right now.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
4d ago
I agree that the reordering reflects badly on both the FBI and the prosecution. I agree that it should reduce their credibility, and that we should be skeptical of anything they say, checking it against actual evidence. Fortunately, we have actual evidence reviewed by a third party—the scans which revealed this inconsistency.
The change between those scans (taken in late ‘22) and today does not affect the substance of the case. A change before those scans could, but I haven’t seen anyone with actual skin in the game make that allegation.
Who have you seen propose this “chronological order” defense? Perhaps Trump’s counsel? Because I don’t think they’re disputing the authenticity of the special master scans.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
Civil suits have been really popular, lately. Texas SB 8 for abortions. I think Florida’s HB 1557 does something similar for teaching about gender? Surely I’m missing some others.
In theory, these are blank checks for transferring money, just like the ADA. In practice, there’s only so many people getting abortions. Why shouldn’t disability suits be the same?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
Eh, I’ve heard it before. He hires the best people, right?
What’s the deal with Virginia? Last I heard, the fights over schooling worked out okay for Republicans. Same for trans issues in general. What else is salient in the state, such that the polling leans so blue? @WhiningCoil
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
How to square this with something like @gattsuru’s recent post (and follow-up)? He starts from the assumption that Republicans are, in fact, no longer interested in compromise, attributing it to decades of policy ratchets and plausibly-deniable enforcement. And he provides receipts. If he’s correct, then Congressional stonewalling is a rational response to the failure of previous compromises.
Second, some discussion about whether Trump credibly advanced a different issue: the deep state. That was how I learned about the attempt to create a Schedule F of policy-driven government employees. It was a battle entirely waged within the executive branch. Trump promulgated an XO; Biden rolled it back. Various agencies fumbled to add more regulations which would slow or stop a future return. Never was Congress consulted, of course.
It seems obvious that Congress, by refusing to act, hands more power to the Executive and Judicial branches. But it also seems obvious that Executive power is too fragile to survive an opposing presidency. And there’s a long list of reasons why the Judiciary is not a satisfactory policymaker.
I suspect that relying on Trump’s branding is a strategic blunder. No, it’s relying on one man in general. The Democrats leaned on Obama after 2008, and supposedly it completely eroded their back bench. Now we’re watching the GOP double down on an uncomfortably similar mistake.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
I agree that using the photo as such is editorial narrative-peddling of the basest sort.
It’s like…you’ve seen those photos of heroin bricks and gold-plated guns from drug busts. They’re pure propaganda, right? The police want to look strong and successful, so they have incentives both to create such photos and to spread them around. Departments will tend towards policies that let them do it, like stacking all the product in one spot. But does that make the drug bust illegitimate?
I guess I’d expect a magically apolitical FBI to generate very similar photos. Maybe department policy includes a stack of cover sheets. (In my experience, the government loves those things, even in unclassified situations like training.) Or maybe they made the decision in the moment, either to make their sort easier, or to get that snappy photo.
If that’s true, then we’re back to priors. I believe the FBI is somewhat politically aware, and I assume some of its leadership holds a grudge against the FPOTUS. I don’t believe that was the driving factor. Then again, I wasn’t expecting them to pull the trigger at all.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
I think that’s plausible, but not because of the revelations here.
Check out page 8. The government concedes that they were inconsistent because the order within boxes changed. Nothing else. They insist that the only other change to contents is the placeholder cards.
But nothing in the indictment, the sealing, the warrant depended on order! It was all about number of documents suspected to remain. Nothing I’ve seen in here casts doubt on that unless we assume that the boxes were made up wholesale. I’m not willing to bite that bullet.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
The government insists that it wasn’t wrong about what they were. Or even which box they were in. Only that it was an error to say they were “in the original, intact form as seized,” because the order is not the same. Page 8.
Nor do you have a good reason to believe the documents were planted. Only that Trump was informed of some (other?) boxes left in Virginia. His administration has never denied that the boxes belonged to him, has it?
And what’s all this bullshit about mislabeling? A banker’s box in your house is inappropriate for any level of classification.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
cover sheets
Hot damn. If the FBI managed to screw up the investigation of what should be obvious misconduct, I’m going to be so disappointed. Let’s see what exactly they did…
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/03/mar-a-lago-trump-classified-documents-00156124
Looks like they added placeholders and cover sheets when they initially sorted the fifteen boxes. And then possibly failed to remove them? Assuming every cover sheet was left in the count, and there are really only half as many documents as stated in the warrant, that could mean Trump’s 15 boxes held fewer than 100! Witch hunt!
This is stupid. It’s also not the cause of the delay, which stems from the complaint that those searched boxes are now out of order. How much did they change? No idea. How did they notice the change? Because the contents were exhaustively documented after the seizure.
It’s not a great look for the prosecution. But it also has no bearing on the facts of the case. If Trump’s team could point to any version of the boxes as favorable, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I don’t mind a delay of the trial, but I’m not going to treat this as exculpatory.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
Might be the first time I’m hearing news stories described as longer. We had to keep our Floyd containment bare links thread for months!
I’m skeptical that article delivery has changed much, at least in the mainstream publishers. The struggle to hold on to newspaper models continues, I guess.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
Credit where credit is due. That’s much more of a direct attack than I ever expected.
Why hadn’t I heard about this before?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
6d ago
netstack
Texas is freedom land
6d ago
Maybe I hang around here too much, but my assumption was that prestige media was comfortable with or enthusiastic about the idea.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
6d ago
I’m not being dishonest. I’m specifically not abusing the word “literal” or adding scare quotes to characterize policies I don’t like.
I believe Trump was measurably ineffective at his stated policy goals, and that his 2020 regulations don’t tip the balance. While he is obviously more likely to curb Title IX than a Democrat, that’s a low bar. I’ll stand by my statement: pundits who expect Trump to usher in “fresh prince” liberalism are going to be disappointed.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7d ago
Growing up, my family was a good bit more suburban and less rural. Gardening for fun more than sustenance. Sewing to mend the odd item rather than maintain everything. Dad had a somewhat more technical job, and if we were ever desperate for money, they were able to hide it.
With that in mind, like you, I can't think of my mother as idle. Cooking for a family of six is the obvious time-sink. Cleaning, too, even once we were old enough to be useful. She managed most of the groceries, but also all of the clothes, furniture, Christmas presents, road trips, and other intermittent expenses. Not to mention the actual bills. Somehow she also juggled four kids' worth of extracurriculars and social groups while (apparently) managing to bond with her peers.
It's not like Dad was checked out. He loved us and took on his fair share. But the minutiae of raising kids was always Mom's full-time job.
Go back a generation, and both my parents had extremely rural upbringings. I can't imagine their day was any less full.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7d ago
I wonder if they've managed to find a better source than "an email."
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7d ago
I don’t understand why people expect that of Trump. When has he ever struck back at the civil service? “Putting away woke” (?) sounds like it’ll end with the same results as “draining the swamp.”
Most progress on this front has been made by the B- and C-list of conservatives. DeSantis, Abbott…I think Rufo is more credible as a reformer, and he’s not even pursuing office. Would Trump be making these particular mouth sounds if they hadn’t been pushing related issues in the midterms?
In my opinion, the most likely path for making idpol unfashionable is a foreign-policy presidency. Doesn’t really matter who. We’re not getting a “fresh prince” decade by cranking up the domestic outrage.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7d ago
MIT no longer requires diversity statements for faculty hires.
Allegedly. The only sources I’ve seen covering this are not exactly paragons of journalism, citing emails rather than anything public. MIT’s own website still describes the practice in glowing terms. I am curious whether the general population of MIT staff—the ones maintaining their websites—is in favor of this change, or if any of them were consulted.
Assuming this is credible, let’s make some predictions.
- social media backlash: guaranteed.
- news backlash, a la NYT: high. This is red meat for opinion columns, as evidenced by the fact that conservative outlets are already crowing about it. But maybe I’ve misjudged, and no one in the mainstream actually cares?
- policy reverted: low. I predict a whole lot of nothing. The people who most care about this are less likely to have leverage over MIT. If it does get rolled back, I predict it’ll be downstream of administrative drama within the school.
- policy spreads to other elite universities: medium? I have no idea which way the wind is blowing. Outlets are trumpeting their preferred conclusion. But I suspect this is going to be localized.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7d ago
I’m not sure I’ve read you correctly, but if you’re suggesting women want to implement those things, you need to bring receipts.
So 1 out of 6. And Garfield’s assassin was dealing with an actively fragmented Republican Party with multiple credible candidates. I don’t know what Tim Scott’s deal is, but he looks to be a completely generic Southern Republican. What’s he supposed to bring to the table?
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