MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
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User ID: 896
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
8hr ago
I don't think group pardons like the Carter Vietnam draft dodger pardons or the Trump Jan 6th pardons reflect a broken process - in both cases they reflect a system working as advertised, followed by a retroactive decision by the person with the authority to do so that it should not have done.
In neither case would the President (or a high-level advisor) spending time looking at each individual draft dodger or Jan 6th rioter have improved the process.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
19hr ago
Correct.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
22hr ago
I suspect a family with kids with an income of $800k has a nanny, which would count as a full-time domestic servant under the rules used back in the day. In many cases the total hours of hired-in domestic services consumed by said family would be sufficient to support a full-time housekeeper if servants-as-a-service businesses were less widespread.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
23hr ago
And not viewable in the UK for legal reasons, which is itself an example of another possible bad future.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
For example, your investment banker friend says he works 9am to 1am every day. OK. Firstly, he’s not in at 9. You could walk through any bulge bracket investment banking floor at 9.05am and not even 20% of juniors would be in.
Or, during periods where "in at 9" is being enforced, turns up, has a quick chat with the VP checking up on juniors being in at 9, and then goes to the onsite gym until there is likely to be work to do.
Note that this is for IBD. The average front office junior in trading is working something more like 7-5 with little or no downtime.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
The "tech bros" who have become an acceptable target for MSM derision are the young men going into software engineering because it promises the most legible route into the upper-middle-class for a smart, hard-working young man from a middle-class background. The same kind of men went into finance in the 1980's and corporate middle management in the 1960's (a period mostly referred to by cultural commentators as "the Fifties"). Some of these guys get lucky and end up as founders, a lot of them end up as Seniors at FAANG grinding out an upper-middle class income in order to enjoy a quite ordinary middle-class lifestyle in a HCOL city.
There is nothing inverse about the snobbery people failing out of a class express against the people trying to rise into it. And given what has happened to media business models since the rise of the internet, pursuing a career as a journalist is one of the easiest ways to fail out of the upper-middle-class.
The Fifties corporate man (note that the ad agents of Mad Men did not work in corporate middle management - their clients did. The Mad Men are the trailblazers the yuppies would follow), the 80's yuppie, and the 00's techbro are all hated by the same kind of people for the same reason - they are chasing money and status at the expense of self-actualisation, and doing so in the way that was boring and conventional at the time.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
When did it become possible to get good French or Italian food in major US cities that were not NYC? My father (born 1952) grew up in an upper-middle class family in London and says he was never aware of a time when you couldn't get decent French food if you could afford it.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
Emirates regulars in my social circle say London-Dubai is fine in economy because most of the passengers you don't want to be around are connecting between places that are not London. London-Dubai-New Delhi is a different matter.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
Modern coffee culture appears in the west coast in the 1970's. Although espresso-based coffee drinks existed in the 1950's (Gaggia introduced the first commercial high-pressure espresso machine in 1947) your average rich American wouldn't have been able to find them without making a special trip to Little Italy.
Faster worldwide diffusion of good ideas is a big part of the progress we have made as a species since the 1950's.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
Why the difference between 2003 and today, why Iraq war had to be prepared by two years diplomatic and propaganda offensive, while now the orange man points with his mighty finger on map, says "bomb this" and everyone is fine with it?
I don't think everyone is fine with it - the usual anti-Trump forces both inside and outside the US are responding with outrage calibrated to the fact that this is a shitpost and not an actual announcement of a no-fly zone. But the marginal Trump supporter either ignored it or responded along the lines of "Obvious shitpost - lol TDS if you care about it"
Also Bush needed to the diplomatic prep for Iraq because he wanted the largest coalition he could get, notably including Tony Blair, whereas for Trump attacking Venezuela the whole point would be do to it unilaterally as a way of reminding your allies that you don't need them.
My gut feeling is that if Trump does indeed announce a real no-fly zone over Venezuela, and then sends US planes to Venezuela to shoot down civilian airliners violating said no-fly zone, his domestic political support will collapse rapidly. The absence of Trump-sympathetic voices saying "don't attack Venezuela" (compared to the number of Trump-sympathetic voices saying things like "release the Epstein files" or "be more careful with tariffs") is evidence that my gut feeling is wrong.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
· Edited 8hr ago
Ignoring the merits, which other people who know more about than me are debating in the rest of the thread, I think the key point is that this is probably a shitpost. When Trump announces a substantive policy change on social media, it is normally followed up with an official announcement on the White House website within 24 hours or so. In this case, probably an executive order to the National Archives or some other record-keeping office to identify and publish the list of Autopenned Biden admin acts that were considered invalid.
There seems to be a shitposting escalation in the last few days. This is one of the biggest "announcing something that would be a substantive policy if real but not actually doing it" shitposts to date, but the other one is even bigger - the announcement on Truth Social of a no-fly zone over Venezula. This would be, if serious, a literal declaration of war under international law. But it was not serious - US airlines already stopped flying in Venezuelan airspace a week ago after an FAA announcement that it was not safe, and Latin American airlines are still operating flights to and from Caracas as scheduled. I do not think Trump has purported to declare war (as opposed to threatening it) by shitpost yet.
The online TDS crowd are moving towards a consensus around "Trump's shitposting habit is getting worse due to a combination of age-related decline and stress-driven crackup". I think this is plausible, but wouldn't bet on it - assuming my political opponents are sane until proven otherwise is a useful intellectual discipline. The best explanation under this constraint is that the shitposts are trial balloons for various escalations. In that case it doesn't look good - the lack of outrage from fence-sitting Republicans (not MTG, but the people who might be the next MTG) makes a US attack on Venezuela more likely.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
3d ago
If he were white we'd just shrug and ultimately say he was nuts.
The NG in DC under Trump's orders is sufficiently right-coded that everyone except the left and the MSM would be assuming it was left-wing political violence until proven otherwise. Some of those people would claim that shooting a right-coded target is per se left-wing political violence regardless of the shooter's actual motives - there are still people on the Motte saying this about Thomas Crooks.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
4d ago
If the 'translators' shoot at police / guardsman does it matter if they're doing it for Islamic reasons and / or mental health reasons?
No - of course it doesn't. I don't even think it is always a distinction with a difference - given the total ineffectiveness of disorganised political violence I assume anyone engaging in it is batshit until proven otherwise.
I was wondering if your Afghan refugees (who are weakly selected) behave better than European Afghan refugees (who are not selected at all) - the point I was making is that you really need statistics to settle this question rather than dualling anecdotes.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
4d ago
Back when I first came across Edward de Bono and thought he might have something worthwhile to say, I remember a section in the introduction to Practical Thinking about a transition from cause-and-effect thinking (this car goes because it has an engine and a drive-train inside which I could, in principle, hack on) to black-box thinking (this car goes because I pushed the "go" button). He was writing in 1971 about a transition he claimed had taken place in the previous decade or so.
It's a fine line between black-box thinking and cargo-cult thinking, and I wonder how much of things like the weird spirituality is that the Boomers were the first generation to enjoy technology-driven affluence that they hadn't earned by helping build it.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
4d ago
Afghan immigrants in Europe are mostly refugees who used the people-trafficker network to arrive overland. It is conventional wisdom in Frontex that various hostile countries, including Russia and Belarus, are intentionally facilitating refugee transit in order to destabilise the EU.
That is a differently selected group than people flown out of Afghanistan because they convinced US authorities that they were collaborators at risk of Taliban reprisal, and expecting different outcomes as a result isn't foolish. I don't know enough about the behaviour of Afghan immigrants in the US to know to what extent you are getting better results than us. One guy turning out to be a disorganised Islamist killer is weak Bayesian evidence that you are not, of course.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
I think it predates the US. "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is" is used by Marshall in Marbury vs Madison as a rhetorical flourish because outside the novel context of a government limited by a written constitution it was uncontroversial. As applied to ordinary law, I don't think Coke or Blackstone would have disagreed.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
In the analogy we are using, it is the HR manager with the delegated authority to make that call unless and until overruled by a higher-up. The analogy fails here because the federal judiciary enjoys a level of respect that HR (or even corporate in-house legal) does not - a federal district judge is a lot higher up the food chain than a first-line HR manager even if they have fewer subordinates.
Like any other litigant, the government is required to obey the orders of a court with jurisdiction unless and until they are stayed or overturned. And this is a case where jurisdiction is clear - it is a district judge exercising jurisdiction over his own courtroom. This doesn't mean he is right - that is a question for the appeals court.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
It is a vexing problem. But rendering something arguably deadwood appears better than just creating out of whole cloth a power that doesn’t exist.
Not doesn't exist - shouldn't exist according to the theory of the structure of the Constitution preferred by right-wing jurists. The power does exist according to the Constitutional text and (limited) precedent interpreting it, and was used by Congress according to the statutory text.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
· Edited 5d ago
It also has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the attorney that submitted his case to the grand jury for indictment was properly appointed.
Or even on whether or not he is guilty on the charge he was indicted for, which is for lying to Congress about a leak. My understanding is that most of the alleged wrongdoing by Comey happened back in 2017 and the Trump administration had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for a charge where the statute of limitations had not expired. And that one was a squeaker - it looks like the administration doesn't get a do-over because the statue of limitations has already expired. I don't know the US position but in England not getting do-overs on minor procedural issues is a well-known risk of litigating close to the SoL deadline and judges are unsympathetic regardless of the political valence of the case.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
The former - the "1950's dating" and "1950's wife" stereotypes are about the young adulthood of the Silent Generation (or late GI Generation) - although I agree that the modern version of it is about the Silent Generation as seen by their Boomer kids. It was the Silent-specific nature of Gail Sheehy's description of women's mid-life crises in Passages that prompted Strauss and Howe to develop their generational model.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
Apart from homicides where you get near-complete reporting, I would say surveys are more reliable than police reports. They are definitely more useful in making comparisons across time periods and social groups because the unreliability is less correlated with the variables of interest.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
Doesn't affect the argument, but Big Four is for accountants (and accountant-adjacent management consultants). The equivalent for law is Biglaw, or if you want to be specific to the top tier in prestige and not just size, White-Shoe in the US and Magic Circle (or Silver Circle for the next tier down) in the UK.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
That is a shockingly bad post by Calabresi. The Constitution explicitly allows Congress to delegate the appointment of inferior officers to the Courts. Calabresi's response is that they can't have meant it because the Constitution sets up a unitary executive, and the clause allowing Congress to delegate appointment of inferior officers to the Courts can only apply to Court clerks and suchlike. [I am not a historian and don't know the reason for the clause, but my guess is that the framers expected the local district judge to be the highest federal official in the sticks, and therefore best-placed to make local interim appointments before a message could get to Washington]
But the only reason why you might think the Constitution sets up a unitary executive is the text of the Constitution and, critically, the Appointments Clause. You can't just say "if I ignore this sub-clause, the vibes of the rest of the text imply X. Because X, this sub-clause should be ignored."
I'm not sure appeals to original intent help here - the framers would have been horrified at the idea of a corps of full-time professional civilian Federal prosecutors, because they didn't want the Federal government to be creating enough civilian criminal law to support one. You should look at the words they wrote, not the vibes here. And the words are clear.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
Dems basically controlled the house from FDR until Gingrich
It was a very different Democratic party though - it cheerfully included Dixiecrats, even if they voted with the Republicans on hot-button left-right issues. Part of the 1994 Gingrich landslide is about thermostatic backlash against Clinton (and Hilarycare in particular). Part of it is about generational turnover in Congress replacing older conservative Dixiecrats with younger conservative Republicans, meaning Congressional conservatives are all in the same party and can therefore now elect leadership that reflects their views. The generational turnover was particularly strong in 1994 because most of Congress had been caught up in a chickenshit cheque-kiting scandal of the type that really annoys a lot of voters.
You can't build new urban places either - the City that Builds in 2025 is Austin, TX. The dynamic isn't urbanists vs suburbanites, it's builders vs blockers. And it is, unusually, Red State (builder) vs Blue State (blocker) political culture, not Red Tribe vs Blue Tribe. Republicans in Blue States are some of the worst blockers. As far as I can see, Blue Tribers in Austin are making sure the new building happens in a Blue way, not trying to block it.
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