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February 17, 2023 08:03 AM UTC

Friday Open Thread

  • 24 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“The less men think, the more they talk.”

–Montesquieu

Comments

24 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread

    1. I'm going to listen to exactly nothing that the AEI spouts.  How 'bout the GOP move a little to the left on cultural issues, like not-so-nazi, or maybe only a little bit fascist

  1. Supreme Court manipulating its schedule so Republican judges and force Republican policies on the Government Ian Milhiser at Vox.com.

    The Supreme Court’s behavior in the Arizona case is part of a much broader pattern

    If the Supreme Court’s decision to effectively extend the Title 42 program for even more months after it lawfully should have ended were an isolated incident, then it would be easier to accept that this decision was motivated by something other than politics. It is much harder to do so, however, because the Arizona case is part of a much broader pattern in which the Court appears to be manipulating its procedures and its scheduling in ways that extend the life of Republican policies, while swiftly quashing Democratic plans.

    In August of 2021, for example, an increasingly notorious Trump judge named Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered the Biden administration to reinstate a Trump-era border policy known as “Remain in Mexico,” which required many asylum seekers to stay on the Mexican side of the US southern border while they awaited a hearing. The Supreme Court eventually reversed Kacsmaryk, but it sat on the case for 10 months before doing so.

    Similarly, last July, a Trump judge named Drew Tipton effectively seized control of much of the Biden administration’s over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency that enforces immigration law within US borders. Tipton’s opinion is poorly reasoned and at odds with more than a century of Supreme Court precedents, and a majority of the justices appeared likely to reverse Tipton during oral arguments on the case in November.

    But the Court has also sat on this case for months, rejecting the Justice Department’s request to immediately restore the administration’s lawful authority over ICE in July. The Court may not rule on the case, known as United States v. Texas, until June — at which point Tipton will have unlawfully imposed his will on ICE for 11 months.

    The Court’s Republican majority did not behave like this when a Republican was in the White House. In Barr v. East Bay Sanctuary (2019), a lower court blocked a Trump administration policy that locked virtually all Central American migrants out of the asylum process. The Trump administration asked the justices to reinstate this policy in late August 2019, and the Court agreed to do so about two weeks later. Similarly, in Wolf v. Cook County (2020), the Court reinstated a Trump administration policy targeting low-income immigrants — and it did so just eight days after Trump’s lawyers asked the Court to do so.

    So the Court, which is dominated by Republican appointees, moved with extraordinary alacrity when a Republican president’s policy was in trouble. But when a Democratic administration exercised its lawful authority to abandon GOP policies, the Court slow-walked those cases — leaving dubiously reasoned lower court orders issued by Trump judges in place for months or longer.

    1. Texas lawsuit to shut down the US Government. Ian Milhiser.

      This lawsuit will be heard by a Trump Judge, so there's a very real risk that the judiciary will order a government shutdown.

      Quote Tweet:

      "Texas is trying to invalidate the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill Congress passed in December, as state Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the Biden Administration arguing the law wasn’t lawfully passed in the first place."

      1. Sooner or later some judge is gonna enter a serial vexatious litigator order against Paxton, requiring him to get advance judicial approval before commencing any actions in that court.

        Yeah yeah, I know. But I can dream. smiley

        1. How does Paxton still have an active law license?

          How old is that criminal case that’s been pending against him and how long can he get it delayed? 

          Even Rudy Giuliani got his ticket pulled if only temporarily.

  2. Dominion asks for Summary Judgement against Fox. See TPM or Marcy wheeler.

    “A demonic force.” Dominion decided that the evidence against Fox News is so overwhelming that they don’t need to go to trial because no reasonable jury would conclude that Fox was innocent.

    This article is a MUST READ. Also, read the first dozen pages of the actual Dominion brief.

    As you read through Dominion’s motion for summary judgement against Fox News — and trust me, you should read it! — keep in mind not just how it proves Fox to be nothing but a propaganda platform aiming to help the Republican Party, but also the evidence it makes available to Jack Smith as he considers charges against those who used false claims about voting fraud to gin up a coup attempt.

    Just as one example, Sean Hannity has played a role in every Trump legal scandal — serving as a back channel to Trump for Paul Manafort, participating in Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to gin up dirt on Hunter Biden as the first impeachment unfolded, and helping White House officials stave off the resignations of Trump’s White House Counsels in advance of January 6.

    1. "because no reasonable jury would conclude that Fox was innocent"

      Since this is a civil suit, not a criminal prosecution, guilt or innocence is immaterial. I think you meant to say was "no reasonable jury would conclude that Fox was not liable."

      You should know that summary judgment is rarely granted in cases where intent, motive, malice or fraud are in issue – all of which are present in this case.

      Besides, do you really want a judge to truncate a jury trial featuring the all-star cast of witnesses such as Tucker Carlson, Shawn Hannity, and Laura Ingraham? Questioning these three clowns as hostile witnesses is a trial lawyer's wet dream.

      1. IANAL, so there!

        If I understand, summary judgements from the defendant to shut down the legal process are more common, and it would be extraordinary for Dominion to get this. So it might be a play for a settlement.

        I agree with you that I'd like to see Fox suffer a humiliating defeat in a jury trial.

        More quotes from the brief via Heather Cox-Richardson:

        The quotes in the filing are eye-popping:

        On November 10, 2020, Trump advisor Steven Bannon wrote to FNC personality Maria Bartiromo: “71 million voters will never accept Biden. This process is to destroy his presidency before it even starts; IF it even starts….  We either close on Trumps [sic] victory or del[e]gitimize Biden…. THE PLAN.”

        FNC’s internal fact checks on November 13 and November 20 called accusations of irregularities in the voting “Incorrect” and said there was “not evidence of widespread fraud.”

        On November 15, Laura Ingraham wrote to Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity: “Sidney Power is a bit nuts. Sorry, but she is.” 

        On November 16, Carlson wrote to his producer, Alex Pfeiffer, “Sidney Powell is lying.” 

        On November 19, FNC chair Rupert Murdoch wrote: “Really crazy stuff.” 

        Hannity later testified: “[T]hat whole narrative that Sidney was pushing. I did not believe it for one second.” 

        Fox Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt later testified, “[N]o reasonable person would have thought that,” when asked if it was true that Dominion rigged the election.

        The filing claims that FNC peddled a false narrative of election fraud to its viewers because its pro-Trump audience had jumped ship after the network had been the first to call Arizona for Biden, and its ratings were plummeting as Trump loyalists jumped to Newsmax. “I’ve never seen a reaction like this, to any media company,” Carlson wrote to Suzanne Scott, chief executive officer of Fox News, on November 9. “Kills me to watch it.” On November 12, Hannity told Carlson and Ingraham, “In one week and one debate they destroyed a brand that took 25 years to build and the damage is incalculable.” 

        They went to “war footing” to “protect the brand.” For example, when FNC reporter Jacqui Heinrich accurately fact checked a Trump tweet, correcting him by saying that “top election infrastructure officials” said that “[t]here is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” Carlson told Hannity: “Please get her fired. Seriously…. What the f*ck? I’m actually shocked…. It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.” 

        Heinrich deleted her tweet.  

        The filing says that not a single witness from FNC testified they believed any of the allegations they were making about Dominion. An FNC spokesperson today said, “Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.”

  3. Yaaay Social Security!!! Yaaay Trickle up economics!!! Yaaay Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren!!!

    I like the part about expanding SS benefits by $200 more per month.

    Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced their bill this week to extend the program’s solvency “effectively until the end of this century,” as Warren put it to TPM.

    The bill would expand benefits by $2,400 a year, and would be offset by raising the payroll tax cap. Currently, only income up to $160,000 is taxed; the senators’ bill would tax income over $250,000.

    1. As appealing as an increase in the FICA cap seems, I believe it would run into problems regarding its status as a non-tax.  FICA is not a tax, it is a Contribution to an Insurance  program (FICA).  Social Security already has a problem in that benefits do not increase proportionally to an increase in payments; i.e., after a certain salary Social Security benefits flatten out up to the current cap.  That is why I recommend using an S Corp when possible, which allows minimizing the salary that’s paid to owners/shareholders.  Minimizing salary  does not greatly affect the ultimate Social Security benefits one receives.   (I pity the fool who doesn’t own an S Corp.)  Eliminating the cap without a corresponding increase in benefits would transform FICA into a tax versus an insurance contribution, IMHO.

       

      1. The other nice thing about corporate law is that you can protect yourself against creditors. Run up big debts, cash out, declare bankruptcy.

        It's all legal… but only if you are a corporation. Like you, I pity the pathetic normal work-a-day stiff. As a mere human being without a corporation such protection is not available.

         

        1. It's what I call the Ownership Class.  Besides the FICA game, consider the PPP loans and Employee Retention Credits that were sprayed out in 2020 and 2021.  Although necessary for businesses that sustained real losses due to Covid (e.g., restaurants, etc.) the threshold for qualifying for those were ridiculously low such that nearly every business qualified.  To the tune of about 70% of wages paid and more. 

          Now, there is a Pass-Through Entity Tax (PTET) boondoggle that is another giveaway to the Ownership Class.  Without getting into the weeds, it essentially allows partners in partnerships to reduce their tax burden by about 4.5% of total net income.  (It's a little bit less for S Corps.)

          I could go on and on about the benefits granted the Ownership Class.  I have briefly brought it up to Senator Bennet and Representative Crow, but I realize this is not a winning political issue.  So, life goes on…..

          1. You do realize that a lot of us middle class folks who have our own businesses benefit from that pass-through tax break?

            You refer to the ownership class. You mean the people who work, accumulate assets and pay taxes so that we can have all sorts of free stuff for the less fortunate, non-ownership class (i.e., Medicaid, SNAP program, government cheese for trailer park trash living in the Florida panhandle who grow up to become MAGA-Republican Congresswomen), don't you?

             

            1. Oh, give me a break. 

              You are trying to make a distinction of “the people who work, accumulate assets and pay taxes” blah, blah as somehow different from those who own the business from those who work for the business??  You can’t see they do the same thing??

              And, that those who own the business are somehow entitled to incredibly generous tax breaks not afforded those who work for the business?? 

              Give me a break.

              (I apologize if I missed the sarcasm in your post because you’re really sounding like your nemesis QBert.)

  4. Thoughts and prayers to Mississippi this afternoon …..

    6 Killed In Mississippi Mass Shooting (msn.com)

    I'm reminded of something Tate Reeves, that cracker of a governor they have in Mississippi, said during the one of spikes in COVID-19 deaths. "When you believe in eternal life, the thought of dying shouldn't frighten you."

    The same can be said about ammosexuals running amok. 

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