I read the thread and then clicked on another link that told me what I missed in the thread - one of the two lawyers responsible for this was himself a Capitol rioter.
Are they asking that Queen Elizabeth be restored to her rightful place as ruler of the colonies?
It's obviously a problem with the culture. They turn on the TV and see people spouting absolute nonsense and deliberate lies holding positions of power and flaunting wealth. They don't have role models who go to work everyday, raise their kids, volunteer for civic stuff, etc., so they don't even think about trying that.
I like the part where they say that by filing this lawsuit they have signed their own death warrant (that is, unless the judge has the courage to stand up against the tyrannical usurpers). Yes, there is no doubt that Biden's Secret Police will be hunting you down for suggesting that he is not the true Chosen One.
4: Well, those kind of people are boring. That's always been a problem.
But at least we can all agree that we all want one thing. Unity!
It's not even the first time they filed in the wrong state is it?
From the point of view of the reader, Aragorn's claim is legitimate, and Denethor is in the wrong when he says that Gondor has no king.
Denethor is obviously in the right though, because after several centuries of exile, a claim to kingship is ridiculous.
Lawsuit as sixth form Eng Lit essay is a new one for me.
I don't know anything about Judge Albright, but he should take a moment to wonder why, of all the judges in all the districts, the plaintiffs chose him for this frivolity.
I recently saw a Wars of the Roses enthusiast on TikTok speculate that the reason the crown hasn't allowed DNA testing of the two bodies thought to be the murdered princes (interred at Westminster on that assumption) is that if it's not them, it raises speculation that they lived and have other truer heirs out there today; plus bad publicity rehashing old crimes, and the crown being highly risk-averse. Even though Henry VII did a thorough job sweeping away all the Roses nonsense - there was a follow-up TikTok on how he combined legitimacy by conquest, by descent, and by marriage - circumstances can make a polity seize on ridiculously outdated claims.
14: Or should I call you Wormtongue.
Remanded to Entmoot for 150 years of deliberation.
The shade in 13 brightened my morning, Charley, thank you.
7: Nickname-related Middle-Earth nerdery aside, I was bemused to catch a bit of a CNN piece this weekend on what Trump voters want from Biden. Aside from the absurdity of continuing to flog that kind of piece, they went to Roberts County* Texas. 900 people (7th smallest county in Texas by population), county with largest Trump margin in both 2016 and 2020 (520 to 19), in the middle of nowhere Texas Panhandle.
What did the people want. Biden to unify the country. (Other than a few holdouts who won't accept Biden under any circumstance.)
*It has been the subject of a number of stories since 2016 because.
165. I'm pretty sure that they have dated the physical context of the hole the two kids were found in and it pretty securely predates the tower above it.
20: Interesting, thanks.
Now I'm wondering why Charles II would have properly interred them at all, as opposed to hushing it up and disappearing the bodies; he would have had far more motivation to be hypercautious about anything touching on legitimacy. Or was it meant as a show of security?
Or, did Shakespeare's popularity make them seem a much more romantic subject?
Interpreting bananapants more broadly and following on the owes of Ohio public health officials, I really think mainstream coverage of the Trump admin on Covid has emphasized "negligence" at the expense of actual malevolence which has led to many public health officials in the middle of a pandemic being subject to non-stop harassment. Just so far beyond the pale of human decency and a civil society.
Also see Election officials who did their fucking jobs (and managed to pull of fairly well run election in the middle of a fucking pandemic.).
[And if Judge Albright doesn't do the right thing, then Congress should put Waco in the Eastern District, where it belongs, and send Judge Albright back to Austin, where he belongs. I have no idea what sort of weird politics led to the district boundaries in Texas, but there's no purely benign explanation.]
What if it turns out that having armed assholes take potshots at medical officials isn't a very good way to make people want to go eat in a restaurant?
Separate bananapants topic- anyone want to have a thread about the bizarre recent stuff in the stock market? Basic explainer for GameStop, similar things happening with Blackberry and Bed Bath and Beyond.
I have an etiquette question. Is it on poor taste to post something to the alumni Facebook group when a former school mate gets arrested for participating in a coup?
(It's super cool the way we worked hard and gave money and phone banked and all that to eke out a Senate majority and we're being rewarded by McConnell and the Republicans filibustering the organizing resolution, retaining for now their committee chairs (!), and Manchin and Sinema are just a-ok with the way this is working out.)
28: It's obligatory! Emily Post said so!
I really think mainstream coverage of the Trump admin on Covid has emphasized "negligence" at the expense of actual malevolence
But do the media do this out of negligence or malevolence? I don't care! Negligence and malevolence are closely enough related that for most purposes, the distinction is meaningless.
Every one of us needs to call every Dem Senator and remind them that we worked, donated, stood in line to vote, to give them the fucking gavel, and we expect them to govern. That $14B in a single cycle is *unsustainable*, and they need to ACT with urgency, so that we don't have to do this next time. People risked their lives to put these people in a position to act. And that includes Georgia voters, b/c without them, Sinema's position on the filibuster would be irrelevant.
I called Sinema, Masto, Feinstein already (I live in CA). I'm gonna call Manchin, Schumer a few others tomorrow. These Senators only get votes in one state: but they ask for campaign contributions all over the country, and they need to know that we expect them to DO THEIR JOBS. And stalwart Dem Senators need to be both commended and *urged* to tell their wayward colleagues to fucking DO THEIR JOBS.
Enough with Emily Post. Time for rudeness and anger.
Every one of us needs to call every Dem Senator and remind them that we worked, donated, stood in line to vote, to give them the fucking gavel, and we expect them to govern. That $14B in a single cycle is *unsustainable*, and they need to ACT with urgency, so that we don't have to do this next time. People risked their lives to put these people in a position to act. And that includes Georgia voters, b/c without them, Sinema's position on the filibuster would be irrelevant.
I called Sinema, Masto, Feinstein already (I live in CA). I'm gonna call Manchin, Schumer a few others tomorrow. These Senators only get votes in one state: but they ask for campaign contributions all over the country, and they need to know that we expect them to DO THEIR JOBS. And stalwart Dem Senators need to be both commended and *urged* to tell their wayward colleagues to fucking DO THEIR JOBS.
Enough with Emily Post. Time for rudeness and anger.
Since there's a number of lawyers here: what are your thoughts on the Dominion lawsuits? Apologies if these have been expressed in a thread previously. I was gleeful on Twitter today about their suit against Guiliani--take all his money--and a lawyer I trust who does some work in defamation expressed interest in how they'd mount their case and wondered if it would be successful. To be clear, he seemed to think it would be, in a sane world, but not exactly the "lol slam dunk" level that one gets from Twitter (of course nothing is, but you know what I mean.)
The Office of the Former President?
IANAL, but it seems like they have a case.
I feel like there should be more urgency about the direct payments. I just checked Duck Duck Go and it looks like they are thinking this will pass in the next few months. I'm seeing people upset that they haven't gotten it already. And while I was taking the $1400 number for granted, campaign literature in Georgia showed $2,000 checks. Shouldn't Democrats in Congress pass a simple bill giving $2,000, and let the Republicans try to bargain them down in the Senate. Biden said something about doing this day 1.
Charlie- Any chance they are thinking of moving up the timetable on this?
Dominion's legal case is strong, but they will never collect a penny. Rudy will declare bankruptcy somewhere along the way, possibly after a verdict is entered, more likely years before trial. Also possible that Dominion will go into bankruptcy before Rudy does, since no one wants a "controversial" voting machine.
Dominion's goal isn't to collect from Rudy, it's to save its business. I don't think it will work. Dominion sells voting machines to government agencies, usually local. It's a competitive market. County election boards (almost always bipartisan) aren't going to choose the voting machine company that 10% of the population believes is controlled by the deceased Hugo Chavez, and that everyone knows tried to sue Fox News, OANN, and Rudy into bankruptcy. The fear will be local lawsuits, and maybe local insurrections, the next time the candidates of the Fox News voters lose an election.
If Dominion is smart, it will change its brand name shortly after it files all of the lawsuits,conveniently leaving the old name on the lawsuits tht get all the news coverage.
I wonder if my cousin Bobby is getting paid.
38: That's a really interesting answer. Do you have an opinion on Giuliani's ability to prove Dominion is a "public figure" that must prove actual malice? And would that even matter?
In addition to bankruptcy, Giuliani can also find refuge in death. The fucker is 76 years old, litigation like this can take a looong time, and he doesn't look like a robust 76.
Princes in the tower is so boring. Let's be Edgar Aetheling truthers.
40 A limited unintentional public figure maybe? I don't have the sense that the law is at all settled on this point. I also think that a jury could find reckless disregard on the part of Mr. Guiliani. In fact, I think there might be a photograph of Mr. Guiliani in some legal dictionaries illustrating reckless disregard.
(One of the very first cases I ever worked on was a defamation claim brought by apple growers based on the 60 Minutes segment on alar. Product disparagement rather than defamation, strictly speaking, but the same general principles mostly applied.)
38: Probably a public figure, being a government contractor involved in highly newsworthy business. But Rudy's lies clearly meet the "actual malice" standard, flase stastements made in complete disregard of their falsity, with the foreseeable consequence of injuring Domiion.
38: Probably a public figure, being a government contractor involved in highly newsworthy business. But Rudy's lies clearly meet the "actual malice" standard, flase stastements made in complete disregard of their falsity, with the foreseeable consequence of injuring Domiion.
It sure seems like clear malice to me.
I thought the whole point was to leave the things that could get you sued for the anonymous fucks on boards to say so nobody with money could be sued. But I guess that I was thinking too clearly.
Can they still get damages from the media companies that read out the "we're liars" thing?
Anyway, Denethor abdicated before he died, intending to kill himself and his only heir, which I think removes all claims of his house on the stewardship.
Not that I think I can know for sure, but, McConnell sure dropped his current obstruction quickly after Manchin was quoted as personally promising he wouldn't eliminate the filibuster, huh.
Which is not deadly for some economic relief (reconciliation), but sure fucking is for voting reform. Maybe Democrats can rig up some drama where GOP are forced to show their bad faith enough for even Manchin to get it?
I think Republican bad faith combined with a certain amount of pork ought to be able to do it.
Except Manchin probably wants to keep the filibuster so it will block the Green New Deal. That's going to be a problem.
Of course, if Biden declares a climate emergency, maybe the environmental stuff could bypass the Senate blockade process. That would free things up with respect to Manchin being able to accept a lot of pork.
But with a 50 50 Senate, Manchin can block anything (including a Green New Deal) just by voting against. Can he block it in future Congresses too? He might think the filibuster would do that, but if the Democratic majority is large enough to ignore him and those like him on a GND approval by majority, then it's large enough to ignore him on getting rid of the filibuster. But best to kill it now. Put through bills that his constituents would really want and billboard it in WV. Add in a billion dollar buy of epipens for a federal stockpile program so his daughter lobbies him. Heck, throw in sweeteners for the GOP WV Senator too.
What does Manchin want to block besides anything involving coal? And what does it take to buy off Kyrsten Sinema?
It's 50/50 now, but no one knows what life has in store for the Senate. If, for example, Sen Tester was run over by a bus, his replacement would be a Republican, and that would be that. It's been explained to me, I guess, that if Sen Warren was the one, that her seat would be filled by a special election. In which case it would be 50-49 R while we wait for the result.
I think Sinema and Manchin have chosen wrong here, but it's not the end of the world. McConnell could sit on 300 House bills because he had the gavel. Can he filibuster 300 bills? Most likely not, and if the leadership plays this well, it might not take very many filibusters to change the dynamic. McConnell's stalling on the rules has no consequences anywhere, because only a few fools are paying attention at this point. But when actual bills that would help actual people are under consideration, well, we'll see.
Oh look, 29 already turned out to be wrong. What a shocking development.
Time for a new check-in thread I think
48: One way Dominion might get a "we're liars" statement is by promising not to sue. Another scenario is that a media company knows it's about to be sued and wants to mitigate damages. I'd guess the first one in this case.
One defense for the media companies is, "The president's lawyer was saying this! How were we supposed to know it's crazy-talk?" Though the first sentence there seems to answer the second. I'd guess that's why the actual suit is directed at Giuliani.
OT: Maybe the file isn't too big. Maybe the problem is using a Yahoo email account for your work.
58: "Manchin and Sinema are just a-ok with the way this is working out."
This has been proven wrong? Wouldn't that be nice.
But it's not.
It's it unprofessional to say "O.K. Boomer" when asked to split up a document that is less than 1 MB?
Are the Republicans filibustering the organizing resolution?
God bless Joe Manchin! God bless Kyrsten Sinema! I'm a single-issue voter, and they're on the right side of that issue: Who will be Senate majority leader? We'll see the degree to which they can be brought around on the other stuff.
I think I have settled on which bit of political punditry will piss me off the most in the next couple of years: the conflation of "Democrats" with "Sinema and Manchin." Here's Eztra Klein showing off his NYT-mandated lobotomy by writing a column about Manchin and Sinema, but calling them the Democratic Party. He finally mentions Manchin in paragraph 28, and doesn't mention Sinema at all.
The headline is even stupider than the article: "Democrats, Here's How to Lose in 2022. And Deserve It."
65: I did not claim that would be the state in perpetuity.
McConnell made his point and got cards on the table.
Let's all panic the first full week.
67: Alternatively: Schumer (or, if you prefer, the Democratic Party) called McConnell's bluff and he folded with absolutely nothing to show for it.
I don't care about anything as long as Uncle Joe gives me a big stack of those sweet Harriets.
I do actually wonder why McConnell folded. I had no idea you could filibuster the organization of a new Senate. Superficially, at least, McConnell is bowing to a Senate norm, but I find that explanation ... unsatisfying. I guess he probably found out he couldn't maintain a filibuster.
What's the deal with Sinema? I mean Manchin is a genuinely weird exceptional case, but in AZ the other senator is also a Democrat and is more popular than Sinema, so she seems to be behaving this way out of some genuine conviction which is baffling.
It's almost certainly a lost cause, but the Green new Deal is absolutely in the best economic interests of West Virginia as a whole. It has a significant wind energy sector (and of course health care is easily the largest economic sector). The jobs in coal and oil and the like will be there for years at about the same slowly* diminishing level with or without something like a Green New Deal. We're basing the politics of a massive worldwide crisis around the feels of fucking wagon manufacturers.
The media is atrocious about this almost always framing it as Green vs. jobs. Look at hos they voice questions in debates.
*The big drops came over the last three-quarters of the 20th-century.
Of course in large part that is due to there being large amounts of entrenched (and very concentrated) capital in the existing extractive industries. If there had been Big Wagon Wheel ca. 1900 who knows what happens...
But new fortunes await the rapacious in Green as well. You have to address climate change with the oligarchy you have not the one you would like.
I see that Sinema is basically the same age as me, you know, in case I wasn't feeling inadequate or anything.
75: My "old" moment for the month was seeing a speaker at the inauguration who is two years younger than my son (the poet, obv). OTOH, I got to march in a bicentennial Fourth of July parade and Sinema didn't (born 7/12/76, according to Wikipedia), so I've got that going for me.
75: I'd vote for you over Sinema, Spike.
Thanks! I guess we'll both have to move to Arizona.
I thought the current term was Movie Theatre.
58: https://twitter.com/SenatorDurbin/status/1356686127370039298?s=20
So, I mean, that's a thing.