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The Washington Post makes a fool out of themselves trying to make racial grievance story out of a white male country music artist doing a cover of a 35 year old rock hit:
“Although many are thrilled to see ‘Fast Car’ back in the spotlight and a new generation discovering Chapman’s work, it’s clouded by the fact that, as a Black queer woman, Chapman, 59, would have almost zero chance of that achievement herself in country music,”
Kind of ignores the fact that Chapman was very successful with that song when she put it out in 1988: “She was nominated for three Grammy Awards for the track, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year. And won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best New Artist.”
And her album sold 13 million copies, probably mostly vinyl and cassette. Why not have someone put a cover out in out post-cd world.
Not too mention that Chapman herself is on the country charts as the #1 songwriter right now, and is getting an estimated 500k in royalties from the cover. Its no secret that songwriters love for other artists to cover their songs, there is real money in royalties when someone makes a hit out of one of their songs. Ask Dolly Parton how she felt when Whitney Houston made a mega hit out of ‘I will always have You’ or Dylan when Hendrix covered ‘All Along the Watchtower’.
But I predict next the WaPo is going to turn on Chapman herself for her lyrics suggesting that getting a job and working is the key to a better life, even if its just as a checkout girl at 1988 minimum wages.
I been working at the convenience store Managed to save just a little bit of money Won’t have to drive too far Just across the border and into the city You and I can both get jobs Finally see what it means to be living
You still ain’t got a job So I work in a market as a checkout girl I know things will get better You’ll find work and I’ll get promoted We’ll move out of the shelter Buy a bigger house, live in the suburbs
https://www.outkick.com/washington-post-mad-people-white-man-luke-combs-cover-black-queer-tracy-chapmans-fast-car/
The fascists are hard at work trying to destroy that Small Town song.
Seems a silly story from 7 days ago, yeah. The cover is being complimented all over the place otherwise.
Minor annoyance – No links to the actual story in your link – only to a FoxNews editorial that itself had no link. I had to Google to find the story quoted I’m both pieces.
Hey, just a question. Not trying to be a dick or rock the boat here. I’m just genuinely curious.
Can I use the common abbreviation of ‘transgender’ that is mostly the same but ends with a ‘y’ that was common and not really all that offensive just a little while ago without being banned? Typing out the word ‘transgender’ all the time is annoying and sounds stupid and ‘trans’ sounds stupid as well and is imprecise because it can mean a ton of different things.
I’ll continue to refrain from it if it is indeed part of the rules since I want to be a good citizen here. But on a forum that is largely concerned with free speech do we really have to cater to the idiot social media zeitgeist that decrees random words forbidden and others mandatory?
I hope you aren’t thinking of using ‘tranwreck’, its not even easier to type. Although I suppose it would be ok if you are quoting someone and wanted to be precise.
Does that “ends with a ‘y’”?
No.
T.R.A.
Trans rights activist(s). Sounds like trey.
AA…Is ‘tranny’ the word you had in mind (that shall not be spoken), much like Audrey Hale’s manifesto?
Is crazy an acceptable alternative?
Yeah, I see a lot of other people here saying ruder things and not getting the axe. (not that they should if its just rude and not something truly disruptive like spam or threats) Just wanted to be sure.
“Tranny” will get you put into Farcebook jail — unless you just simply eliminate your account, which is what I did.
Tranny is a longstanding term for trans_vestites_. It was widely used as a slur for so long that you – as in you personally, given that you’re asking this question – shouldn’t use it unless you intend to offend people. People using it for transgender people are almost all being deliberately offensive. It isn’t quite n-bomb levels of likely-to-get-you-punched-in-the-face, but it’s pretty close.
I prefer “sexually deviant and mentally ill.”
What’s next — liposuction for anorexia?
So who makes these rules and why should we listen to them and not some other ‘authority’? Queer was originally used ‘pejoratively’ but its now celebrated and the other term isn’t. Why? Because some hivemind/influencers says so? If the hivemind said you should jump off a cliff would you?
Sixteen people charged in Michigan fake electors scheme. Most counts relate to forgery. Here is the affidavit in support:
https://www.michigan.gov/ag/-/media/Project/Websites/AG/releases/2023/July/Final-Affidavit-July-18-2023.pdf?rev=5e42061bf6604628a1b214bee1777755&hash=DAC4826FBD6FE538FF5AB7F64491A97B
I noticed, looking into it, that they all actually were elector candidates, which makes the situation VERY similar to the 1960 case. That helps them, anyway.
They signed certificates stating they were “duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the State of Michigan.” That was false.
Yeah, but it isn’t any more false than what the electors did in 1960, is the thing.
How does that help anyone?
Remember the long jail terms the 1960 electors got? No, neither do I.
Whatever this 1960 deep cut you’re just now bringing up, it’s not going to have much to say about a state-level case over 60 years later.
Unless you’re looking for an excuse.
This was an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Don’t defend it.
Poor Brett. Since the conduct of the phony Michigan electors is completely indefensible, he’s reduced trying to change the subject to what abouting. And what abouting is the first sign that one has a bad case.
Here’s a suggestion: Why not simply recognize that Trump is a grifter who managed to hit the big time by getting himself elected president, and who simply continued his grifting once in office? With election to the presidency comes added scrutiny, but that added scrutiny doesn’t change the fact that he really was grifting, and in this case enlisted the help of others, who are now being prosecuted. And if he hadn’t actually be grifting, none of his troubles would have happened.
Oh, and even without being familiar with the 1960 case, I would bet a week’s pay that the two situations are completely different. Brett typically can’t even find on-point stuff to what about.
Was that by design, Brett? Meaning, when they (the alternate electors) agreed to become ‘electors’, did their legal representation who advised them have that 1960 case in mind. The circumstances are similar, yes.
I think probably they did have it in mind, yes.
I think probably they did have it in mind, yes.
Don’t make shit up.
It speaks quite badly of you that you are compelled to defend this behavior. You don’t seem very into our democracy when your side loses.
No, Brett, the situation in Hawaii in 1960 is not analogous. The results in Hawaii were genuinely in dispute, with a recount underway. The governor certified a slate of Republican electors. Senator Kennedy prevailed in the recount, and the new governor of Hawaii certified a freshly drafted slate of his electors. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/us/politics/fake-electors-explained-trump-jan-6.html
In Michigan there was no dispute as to which candidate won. The affidavit in support of complaint here recites at paragraph 19:
George Washington could not tell a lie.
Donald Trump cannot tell the truth.
Brett Bellmore cannot tell the difference.
Of course the situation is analogous. In Hawaii the Republican electors were certified, but the Democratic electors filed the paperwork just as though they had been elected instead. At a time when they clearly weren’t. Here, the reverse.
The offense in question isn’t contingent on later events, the fraud took place at the time the paperwork was filed.
How, pray tell, does that bear on the truth or falsity of what the Michigan bogus electors claimed? Cavilling “Somebody did something sixty years earlier in another state thousands of miles away” affords no defense.
I’ve been reading Balkinization for a very long time now, used to comment there until Balkin got tired of being contradicted in the comments, and closed them down to all but blog members. (Who don’t use them!)
Since 2016 they’ve been going off the rails, some of them. Here’s a good example:
An Open Letter to the Biden Administration on Popular Constitutionalism
“We urge President Biden to restrain MAGA justices immediately by announcing that if and when they issue rulings that are based on gravely mistaken interpretations of the Constitution that undermine our most fundamental commitments, the Administration will be guided by its own constitutional interpretations.”
He justifies it in large part on the assumption that it’s what Republicans would do anyway: “Notably, though, Republican presidents might well ignore federal courts regardless of what President Biden does. The GOP’s failure to hold President Trump accountable for inciting a violent coup is perhaps the clearest of many indications that party leaders and followers are no longer committed to democracy or the rule of law.”
So, Republicans didn’t join in Democrats’ attempts to impeach Trump, so it’s perfectly reasonable for Democrats to ignore court rulings.
The left is pushing as hard as they can, and then they’re going to be, shocked, just SHOCKED, when they push conservatives too far and spark a war.
And it will be the Democrats who are the Confederates, again.
I fear for the future of the republic.
I don’t. These people are evil demons and need some justice served to them.
“And it will be the Democrats who are the Confederates, again.”
Uh, the Confederates were the rebellious force in 1861-65. How on earth does that correspond to today’s Democrats?
The election of 1860 was between the Republicans and Democrats*
When the Democrats lost, a large chunk of them decided to leave the union and become Confederates instead.
The national divorce chuckleheads are on the right. So are those contemplating political violence if they lose the next election. So are those who love the Confederacy.
There will be no civil war 2 for plenty of structural reasons. Anyone talking about such things is just showing how out of it they are.
I believe the original post was about a number of legal scholars demanding if the SCOTUS issued a ruling the President didn’t like, then the (Democratic) President should just ignore it and do what he thought was right.
“We urge President Biden to restrain MAGA justices immediately by announcing that if and when they issue rulings that are based on gravely mistaken interpretations of the Constitution that undermine our most fundamental commitments, the Administration will be guided by its own constitutional interpretations.”
This thread wasn’t about that. I note your backpedaling from defending the ‘Dems will be the new Confederates in CW2’ thesis.
For all your many faults, you haven’t been into political violence. Good on ya.
That part – oh, just ignore the ruling you don’t like and do what you want instead – sort of historically rhymes with, ‘John Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it’. It has to be an irony of our history.
Yeah I’m not for nullification. Seems a bad plan.
But this thread is all in reply to Ed. And Ed is talking about violence.
There has already been a civil war. It lasted about three hours, and now the perps (though not the leaders) are in jail. Stop pretending that’s not what happened on Jan 6. It was a coup. It failed, pathetically, but it had to be defeated with force; hence, a very small, very one-sided civil war.
It was basically the civil war equivalent of the Anglo-Zanzibar war, except even more one-sided.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zanzibar_War
They’ve already lost the Supreme court and the House; All it would take is losing the White house and Senate in 2024, and they’d be in a position to be the Confederacy.
Notice that the beef with abortion is NOT that they’re not being permitted to have it be legal in the states they control. Dobbs didn’t outlaw it, the ruling just said that it was a matter for states to decide! It’s that they’re insisting that the federal government force it to be legal in the states they don’t control. (Similarly with transgender treatments for minors.)
The parallel to slavery leading into the Civil war is pretty obvious; The Confederacy wasn’t, after all, complaining that THEY couldn’t have slavery. They were complaining that it wasn’t legal in OTHER states. They could see a future coming where slavery was unpopular in enough states that we might have gotten the 13th amendment without a war.
Similarly, the left insists that they have to prevail nation-wide, because if states are allowed to opt out of things like sex change surgery for minors, or 3rd term elective abortion, they might just face a future where the nation decisively rejects them.
Of course, history rhymes, it doesn’t repeat, and the situation on the ground is much less orderly in terms of the possibilities for secession than it was in the 1860’s. Even the ‘reddest’ states have ‘blue’ cities, even the ‘bluest’ states have ‘red’ countrysides.
And with that, an aside: It’s really annoying how we were forced by the media to call Republican states “red” and Democratic states “blue”, just because they’d gotten tired of red/commie jokes.
Truly whenever one party wins the House, Senate, Presidency and has a friendly Court it is Civil War.
The right has a whole genre of novels about righteous political violence, and yet keep insisting it’s the other side that will make the first move and they are keeping their powder dry.
Been like this for decades. Y’all wish for it, but it’s never going to happen. Maybe stop wishing for political violence as a solution to your political problems. Some learned after Jan 06. Seems a lot didn’t,
“Truly whenever one party wins the House, Senate, Presidency and has a friendly Court it is Civil War.”
Sure, if you elide all the similarities, there aren’t any similarities. That’s kind of trivially obvious.
“The right has a whole genre of novels about righteous political violence, and yet keep insisting it’s the other side that will make the first move and they are keeping their powder dry.”
The left just sets cities on fire when they’re unhappy, and calls it “fiery but mostly peaceful protest”.
“Been like this for decades. Y’all wish for it, but it’s never going to happen. Maybe stop wishing for political violence as a solution to your political problems. Some learned after Jan 06. Seems a lot didn’t,”
I don’t wish for it, if we have a civil war again, this country will be ruined for generations, and will never be the same again. I do fear sometimes that it’s inevitable.
Part of what made January 6th so shocking is that it wasn’t the left rioting, it was the right. If Trump had won the EC, and the left had pulled off January 6th? People would hardly have blinked. Democrats pull crap like that all the time.
A pro-crime Democrat official has blood on their hands again.
https://thepostmillennial.com/portlands-suspected-serial-killer-is-a-convicted-felon-released-early-by-former-oregon-governor-police
And it’s increasingly obvious what the future of depolicing holds.
https://apnews.com/article/haiti-violence-gangs-human-rights-544e238e5ae808707f19d43e28f6f4ff
End crime. Jail everyone.
Stop being soft on crime. Execute them all.
I’m perversely curious: How did you get “jail everyone” from “don’t release convicted habitual felons early”?
Because stupidly false dichotomies are just how he rolls?
Or maybe he really has forgotten that we exercised a “try to enforce the laws consistently” approach as recently as a decade ago.
He was ridiculing you, Brett. I don’t know why he bothered, though, since you do such a good job of it yourself.
2020 hindsight for harsher criminal sentences to avoid a single anecdote is bad enough logic to yell at our government for not being harsh enough well beyond that policy.
There is no limit to it. Because it is just another anecdote.
If you have stats about when it’s worthwhile to keep people in jail, out with it. If you’re just going to Willie Horton again and again you’re not really into anything other than partisan wankery.
William “Willie” Horton was an actual person who actually committed horrible crimes while on *furlough* from a life sentence for murder.
It was a legitimate issue, although it wasn’t Michael Dukakis’ fault Horton was furloughed. True, Dukakis *was* a fan of the furlough program until abuses like the Horton situation persuaded him to change his mind, but it was others who created the program and furloughed the murderer.
The media could have said “it was a horrible program, that’s why Dukakis abolished it, why are they bringing it up now”? But the line they went with was “the only reason to object to Horton’s crimes and the furlough program is that you’re a racisty racist.”
(This thing from Wikipedia is interesting: “the Lawrence [Mass.] Eagle-Tribune had run 175 stories about the furlough program and won a Pulitzer Prize.” Maybe the Pulitzer prize people are racists, too.)
“Harsher” sentences? How about “leaving the sentence the way it was”? He got released early, did you not pick up on that?
To be fair, I misread the timeline, and thought these murders were committed before his nominal release date.
But this guy has been a career criminal, and Oregon kept writing down the charges against him. It was pretty clear that he was going to recede yet again.
“There is no limit to it. Because it is just another anecdote.
If you have stats about when it’s worthwhile to keep people in jail, out with it.”
Some things are so obvious, as obvious as the nose on your face, that it doesn’t require a statistical study to justify or validate. Now is a particularly interesting time. How is “no cash bail” and “bail reform” working out for cities?
I guess it bears repeating pointing out that criminals who are in jail are not out there committing crimes, too.
I’m perversely curious: How did you get “jail everyone” from “don’t release convicted habitual felons early”?
By being Sarcastr0
“Calhoun was released from prison in 2021, twelve months early”
Sounds like having him serve out his term would simply have postponed the serial killings by a year.
“California Governor Signs Bill Setting Deadline for Parties to Notify Secretary of State of Nominees”
As the article notes, this kind of deadline tends to be ignored for major parties while applied strictly to minor parties.
https://ballot-access.org/2023/07/19/california-governor-signs-bill-setting-deadline-for-parties-to-notify-secretary-of-state-of-nominees/
In all the coverage of Meta’s new Instagram-linked Threads messaging app, I have not seen stories that mention that Instagram had a Threads messaging app before, and killed it.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/17/22787783/instagram-threads-shutting-down-meta-messaging
https://www.cnet.com/tech/instagram-to-shut-down-standalone-threads-app-at-end-of-year/
We’ve had an all-volunteer military for 50 years now — it sagged under Nobama and there was talk of the draft returning in 2017 — but Trump happened. If BiteMe is re-elected, watch for the draft to return after the 2026 elections because 2026 is when the children not born in 2008 won’t be turning 18.
My uncle used to say that he voted for a Democrat once — FDR in 1940 — and all it got him “was four years in the G*d Damn Army.”
The target letter received by Donald Trump reportedly refers to three federal statutes: conspiracy to defraud the United States, tampering with a witness, victim or an informant, and deprivation of rights under color of law. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-target-letter-federal-laws-special-counsel-jack-smith/ Application of the first two to Trump is straightforward, but the third is puzzling.
Conspiracy to defraud the United States is prohibited by 18 U.S.C. § 371. The title of 18 U.S.C. § 1512 is “Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant,” while the body of the statute is broader, prohibiting attempt to corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede any official proceeding at subsection (c)(2) and conspiracy to commit any offense under the statute at subsection (k).
The text of 18 U.S.C. § 242 states:
Conviction under this act requires an intent to deprive a person of a right which has been made specific either by the express terms of the Constitution or laws of the United States or by decisions interpreting them. Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 104 (1945). I wonder what right(s) the prosecutors have in mind here.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as the persons having the greatest number of votes as President and Vice-President, respectively, had the right under the Twelfth Amendment and 3 U.S.C. § 15 to be elected to office. Donald Trump specifically intended to deprive them of that right. Perhaps that is the prosecution theory.
Who cares, it’s all theater.
Well, I care. I liked both Cats and Phantom of the Opera, (Saw them both in the Pantages theater in Detroit.)
Doubt I’d have liked Hamilton, though.
Even if it’s all theater, the details matter.
“Attempt to kidnap,” looks interesting, especially with regard to Pence, but also with regard to all the members of Congress—assuming the prosecution has evidence to link Trump to that purpose. If so, that would make it a higher-stakes trial than most folks have been expecting. Injuries and deaths resulted.
I have assumed all along that, if the feds actually had any evidence to link Trump to the riot in any legally relevant sense, we’d have heard of it long ago.
If they actually have such evidence, and were just getting their ducks in a row, that does make a big difference. That’s the sort of thing that would ruin Trump politically.
The braintenders and opinion-makers are hard at work ginning up hatred over MTG showing Hunters sex pictures.
Do you think the Democrats are getting so angry because it was straight porn and not shown to 6 year olds?
No, they’re angry because they want to hire that kind of “paralegal” but know the FBI and IRS would come down on them like a ton of bricks if they did a fifth of what Hunter Biden did — and because they have to shut up, grin, and act like that blatant double standard is normal. They take out that frustration on the people who aren’t politically required to lie about this.
Move the FBI to Alabama? Sounds like a good idea.
Realistically, is there a good reason not to do this? The FBI already has a massive presence in Huntsville AL. They need a new headquarters. Salaries will be lower in AL, as will construction costs and land costs. And it will help to depoliticize the FBI.
The FBI needs a new headquarters. Alabama is a better place for that, than anywhere in the DC metro area.
I think we should do what Hoover talked Truman into dong with the OSS — abolish it, shut it down, and start over.
The OSS had been so penetrated by Soviet Intelligence that a whole new organization (CIA) was needed. So too here…
SHUT IT DOWN!
Agreed: At this point the FBI is too corrupt for moving them to make any difference. Ideally the agency ought to be wound down, with a much smaller federal police agency created from scratch, nobody associated with the FBI permitted to work there. The current agency has gone past the tipping point of corruption, it’s irredeemable.
As fun as that would be, it’s unlikely to be enacted.
Moving the FBI HQ on the other hand, is a reasonable option that may have some mild benefits over time.
Solution without a problem. Those saying the FBI is political are all extreme right wing partisans with their evidence being they don’t like how Trump is facing consequences for doing tons of crimey stuff.
Problem. FBI needs a new headquarters.
Solution: Put it in Alabama.
Or just get a place near where you are, save on transition costs, take advantage of existing infrastructure.
Don’t blow smoke up my ass – this is spite and we all know it.
Sub-problem: Maryland and Virginia can’t agree on which state is more worthy of it.
Related sub-problem: The racists in the Biden administration significantly increased the weighting of “equity” (equal outcome, not equal treatment) in that evaluation.
Related sub-sub-problem: While putting FBI HQ in PG County would put it closer to crime, the HQ people aren’t front line crime fighters, and it’s mostly crime that states should be prosecuting.
Sarcastr0, if you really believe what you say here, then you are delusional, or just haven’t been paying attention; maybe not broad enough a spectrum of news sources? Aren’t you aware of the hearings going on now? The whistle blowers? The whole Steele dossier thing? Wow. The FBI has been a corrupt agency since its inception, and has been very effectively politicized and weaponized by the Democratic party and administrations. It should be shut down.
The assumption here is that the FBI would then be staffed by people from Alabama with their values. What I have seen, limited though it is, is that Federal Departments in other states often are filled with people from out of state. In one NC facility I noticed that all the people I met at the facility where from out of state and the locals I met where in the hospitality industry, hotels and restaurants. Would this be the same with the FBI move to AL? Those out of state people would bring their values.
How can you be convicted of having raped someone 30 years ago when the purported victim can’t even specify what day it happened on?!?
“Me Too has become as bad as “Tailgunner Joe”….
The answer to that is simple, you hand the plaintiff the case on a platter. How to do that? Don’t show up at the trial and send the message to the jury you don’t care. Shoot off your mouth on the case, rather than get your lawyers advice on what to say. In your deposition say that you are a star and that stars can get away with sexual abuse.
This is a law blog and I would ask the lawyers reading this would you advise your clients to act this way in a case?
Donald Trump’s lawyers are asking Judge Loose Cannon to schedule the Florida trial after next year’s presidential election. According to the New York Times:
That “abatement” theory makes no sense. Trump’s criminal conduct is certain to be a major topic of discussion in the presidential election campaign. If it has any effect at all, it is more likely to exacerbate any difficulty seating impartial jurors.
Qualified jurors need not be totally ignorant of the facts and issues involved.
Murphy v. Florida, 421 U.S. 794, 799-800 (1975), quoting Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 723 (1961).
It is important to distinguish between mere familiarity with the accused or his past and an actual predisposition against him as to guilt or the absence of guilt. “To ignore these real differences in the potential for prejudice would not advance the cause of fundamental fairness, but only make impossible the timely prosecution of persons who are well known in the community, whether they be notorious or merely prominent.” Murphy, at 800 n.4.