Addendum Barrett (this points to an ultra vires argument I already mentioned):

"The Court leaves open the possibility that the Constitution forbids prosecuting the President for any official conduct, instructing the lower courts to address that question in the first instance. ... I would have answered it now. Though I agree that a President cannot be held criminally liable for conduct within his “conclusive and preclusive” authority and closely related acts,... the Constitution does not vest every exercise of executive power in the President’s sole discretion, " — Barrett

Although the decision itself is silent on it. Barret at least would allow prosecution of official acts if:

"applying it in the circumstances poses no “‘dange[r] of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.’” — Barrett

and then continues:

"For example, the indictment alleges that the President “asked the Arizona House Speaker to call the legislature into session to hold a hearing” about election fraud claims.The President has no authority over state legislatures or their leadership, so it is hard to see how prosecuting him for crimes committed when dealing with the Arizona House Speaker would unconstitutionally intrude on executive power." — Barrett

It seems Sotomayer is of the opinion that there's no immunity for former Presidents from criminal prosecution. The immunity is in place for current Presidents only as not to worry about prosecution when acting in an official capacity. That reason for immunity would be undermined if Presidents have to worry about criminal liability once they are former Presidents. Immunity covers, for instance, decisions to go to war or how to run it, etc. The act must be judged against the rules that apply at the time the decision is made, which is as then-current President and not as former President. I think that principle should be rigourous in its application.

Treating it differently is like having a bread, eating it and then pretending there never was a bread. It doesn't make sense to me.

Reading the ruling, I still think there's enough room to prosecute where "content, form and context" points to the President speaking in an unofficial capacity. And as the court clearly states:

"The President is not above the law. But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts. That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office."

And this is really no different from other countries. You need to establish an act by an official is either "ultra vires" or "unofficial".

I can't find issue with the ruling so far but will read Sotomayer's dissenting opinion as well before giving a final opinion but wanted to give you a first reaction.

Doesn't the democratic party have internal rules to force a candidate to step down?

Jesus. How callous and depraved. It directly targets civilians and disproportionality affects the weak. Horrible.

This has become more actual again now that Biden turns out to be a demented nutjob holding onto power for no apparent good reason, making sure the Democrats will lose. Now that Trump is pretty much a shoe in, what should the EU do and what can we expect with respect to, for instance, Ukraine?

@ssu @Tzeentch thoughts?

So, technically speaking, what would be options to replace Biden as a candidate? At what time and who can do it?

I advise you to read the report and make up your own mind. My take away, there was Russian interference, Trump welcomed it and there were a lot of connections between his team and Russian assets. Lack of evidence (in part due to obstruction) and the limitations of the investigation itself meant not everything could be fully investigated. It's not an open or shut case either way. And at least the obstruction were actual crimes that nobody was ever prosecuted for.

Also, wasn't the whole Russia-gate thing proven to be bullshit, just like 99.9% of everything that's written in the media? — Tzeentch

If you mean the Müller enquiry then no, it wasn't Bullshit.

it's only 4 years. Probably that is the main consideration to do fuck all. I've said it before and I'll say it again: US elections are for Democrats to lose or win. The GOP ought to be largely irrelevant due to its dwindling base resulting from demographic changes, but here we are with them goosestepping in line with the orange clown actually having a serious chance to win.

I have exactly zero trust in the average intelligence of people. They do not have a historical perspective so don't understand fascism.

That is true. That one is the beneficiary of a transaction doesn't mean he should be. At some point one must prove he is entitled to the benefits. As an uninvited third party, the tax collector cannot provide that proof, therefor he should not be the beneficiary of the transaction. — NOS4A2

Are you going to pretend you don't read my posts? I've already established that transactional agreement is no moral basis for a claim to the benefits of such transaction. So if you have no moral claim, it's not yet established the tax collector has no moral claim either.

You first need to prove that a transactional agreement also forms the moral basis for a claim to the benefits to that agreement. I say it doesn't exist because the transaction does not take into account moral outcomes and the economic system we live in incentives immoral outcomes as moral outcomes come at a premium.

Your only reply so far is "but I had an agreement". This does not engage in any shape or form the argument I've presented.

you don't have morality only a procedure.

That you are the beneficiary of a transaction doesn't mean you should be.

You are reading a lot of Bullshit into what I said and building a straw man the size of Mount Everest.

For example, the illustration that moral standards are managed as costs in transactions is not an argument for regulation but an argument against leaving moral outcomes to markets.

Transactional agreement does not lead to moral outcomes, in fact, it leads to the opposite. For you to claim a right to pre-tax income is a moral claim but it's not supported because there was a transactional agreement. So this is insufficient for your claim. (edit) your claim that taxation is theft. If you cannot put a moral claim on pre-tax income, there's no theft in a moral sense (only in the legal sense).

I'm all for deregulation actually. Starting with all the fictitious legal persons the law allows like corporations. It will immediately lead to much more moral outcomes due to better balance between market actors across all levels of the value chain.

When you offer me something in return for my labor, and we both agree, and the transaction is satisfied, that’s a moral transaction. — NOS4A2

Wrong. Agreement is irrelevant. We could agree because you threatened my wife, or because we're family and I'm partial, or simply because I like you and not the next guy. These are merely economic transactions, not moral ones. You need to be deeply steeped in a capitalist society to equate economic transactions with moral ones, so the mistake is understandable but it's a rather simplistic and unexamined position. That's where almost everything goes wrong with most of your thinking.

Moral claims are about who deserves what but market transactions are not concerned with moral outcomes at all. We can be fairly certain that whatever economic outcome we have, it is in fact an immoral one because rarely do people get what they deserve. That's a logical consequence for morality not having a market value and to the extent governments enforce certain (moral) standards, they are always introduced as a cost from an economic perspective, whereas a moral act benefits a society. Which really is just another example that the economic system not only does not aim at moral outcomes but actually encourages the opposite.

The Bangladeshi is paid too little for the pants he sows, his neighbour is affected by the toxic dyes that are unregulated there and you pay an exorbitant amount for the same pants considering the low quality (which fall apart after about a year), while being brainwashed to think the quality is acceptable and you need new pants next year (no wait, every other season) to stay fashionable. This conduct killed local tailors who couldn't compete fairly and in the end everybody is worse off. But hey, everybody "agreed" to the underlying transactions; so it's all fine and dandy and you can rest easy that as long as the market runs free, everybody gets what they deserve.

And this is today. Back when we had unregulated markets, it was down right horrible. But maybe read a bit about the industrial revolution and, later on, robber barons, etc.

You're repeating questions I've answered several times in this very thread. Maybe start paying attention. I'll ignore this post as a result because I'm not in the mood to ieper myself.

Taxation is legitimate as well. Proxy powers over children as well. Both are legal concepts, both are laws.

Wages and contracts are legal concepts, protected and enforced by states. They are not moral concepts. Your claim to your wages are protected under law, while morally you are most likely not supposed to be the beneficiary of most economic transactions. This is because economic transactions are not moral transactions, and only moral claims can considered to exist intrinsically. There is therefore no moral claim to wages under a contract, let alone to pre-tax wages. The whole taxation is theft, is a conceptual mess devoid of morality or historical knowledge.

That's called being a citizen. The same way children are children and not slaves, even when they are "slaves to the whims" of their parents. Especially the first few years. It's really quite pathetic you're equivocating paying taxes to being a slave when we all know what a slave really looks like. You aren't it. You're just a pathetic selfish whiner.

A Jewish homeland. That's all it is. If Israel is to be a democracy and a Jewish one it must maintain a certain demographic composition. Israel cannot "drop" Zionism because zionism is what affirms its existence -- Jewish self-determination. — BitconnectCarlos

We know. I know. And you don't know that this is simply unacceptable in a modern world with respect for human rights because it's inherently discriminatory especially when such land is established through occupation and theft. Now if they had simply been contend with the 1948 or even the 1967 borders, there might've been something to salvage as peace and have a majority Jewish Israel. Instead occupation and illegal settlements made this impossible. Which is entirely Israel's own fault.

I don't condone violence against Jews, except as part of the Israeli occupation, as you know. But no, my sensitivity does not extend to the illegal actions and war crimes of Israel. So you can keep getting back to all the horrible attacks on Jews but I'm not committing them so don't have anything to do with it and don't need to apologise or make any statement about it because it's irrelevant with respect to Israel. You simply love to equate and smudge the differences between Jews, Israeli Jews, Zionists and Israel as a country. I only have an an issue with the last two, as I've repeated ad nauseum.

You can stuff your anti-semitism where the sun don't shine. A new generation grew up with a world that was moving towards stability and respect for human rights. In that world a Zionist Israel has no place because it implies discrimination. If Israel drops Zionism and respects the rights of Palestinians, there's simply no issue. This is not "everybody" else's fault, it's fucking racists and Jew supremacy of its current leadership that you keep pretending is perfectly fine. It's exactly the same idiotic racism as the far right shows in the EU except replace "Caucasian" with "Jew". That people take issue with it, is not anti-semitism, it's simply the right thing to do.

I'm happy when I pay attention and make the effort to be happy. Most of the time that means striving to be a better man. For instance, it means not being snappy when I'm tired and then I get all the warmth and attention from the kids to last me a life time.

The report added that "the very fact that we are unable to endorse (or not) FEWS NET’s analysis is driven by the lack of essential up-to-date data on human well-being in Northern Gaza, and Gaza at large. Thus, the FRC strongly requests all parties to enable humanitarian access in general, and specifically to provide a window of opportunity to conduct field surveys in Northern Gaza to have more solid evidence of the food consumption, nutrition, and mortality situation."

None of the laws you've cited indicate that Israel discriminates de jure between Jews and non-Jews. — BitconnectCarlos

Then you don't understand what discrimination is and you have much bigger problems. These laws would be struck down in the EU.

But if e.g. 90% of the people are in favor of anti-blasphemy laws would you say that it's "democratic" to nullify their will? Or do you just know their true will? — BitconnectCarlos

Then you no longer have democracy. You cannot have democracy without people being informed and you cannot inform people if you're not allowed to speak. Especially if what we're talking about are unprovable theories about what the world ought to be like.

Edit: it's also extremely worrisome this is your go-to example. Makes you appear as if you grew up in the dark ages.

BTW Greece does favor those with Greek ancestry for citizenship. — BitconnectCarlos

And subsequently doesn't discriminate between it's citizens unlike Israel.

You don't seem to take notice of the inherent contradictions within this idea. What if the majority wants e.g. blaspheming Muhammad to carry a penalty? — BitconnectCarlos

Freedom of speech trumps dumb fairy tales.

Is a state to promote a certain way of life at all? Or no -- should it stay completely neutral? If a state has a religious character that may be due to democracy; the people may have wanted it. I don't see democracy and a state promoting a certain way of life/ancestral traditions as inherently anti-democratic.

If Israel were to fall it would just become a Muslim state. To impose secularism on a religious population seems undemocratic. — BitconnectCarlos

There's too much to fully unpack for me here considering my own time. Quite frankly I'm flabbergasted at the lack of knowledge what makes a democracy a democracy. It's not just majority rule; it's also respect of fundamental civil rights and the rule of law. I get that a religious person would love for the world to adjust to their version of fairy tales but it won't. The safest political arrangement for any religious person has proven to be a pluralistic, secular democracy. In fact, empirical evidence seems to point to religious diversity making democracies better and the closer a religious is fused to a State the less free it becomes.

And no, there's nothing wrong with a state religion, as long as it doesn't discriminate between its own citizens based on religion. And there are plenty of countries that manage this just fine; among them England, Denmark and Greece.

Love is a queer thing — Moliere

Only if you're gay...

Can be generalized some while remaining relevant: — jorndoe

Sure.

Albanese is apparently a controversial figure. According to UN Watch ... — jorndoe

Not sure how this relates to what I said. Reading the UN Watch she's used tactics to get what she wanted. I think they were stupid because intended to manipulate instead of convince.

Do you believe in the preservation or destruction of the Jewish state? If you're an anti-zionist then you ultimately aim at it's destruction. I thought I remembered you saying that you were in support of 1967 borders, but perhaps that was just step one of dismantling Israel. — BitconnectCarlos

I believe that a state favouring one religion above others is inherently discriminatory and should progress into an actual democracy instead of the Apartheid state it is now. The idea of a "jewish" state that favours Jews as Jews is obviously wrong to anyone with a modicum of knowledge about human and civil rights. It presupposes discrimination and the result is it is enshrined in its laws.

I would say Israel does pursue the ideal of non-discrimination. Israel has numerous laws that combat discrimination like any western nation. Israel's basic laws include a provision on equalityfor all citizens not just Jews. — BitconnectCarlos

And yet a host of discriminatory laws were passed because the basic laws do not operate as an actual constitution. It's the only "western" state that enshrines discrimination on the basis of faith and confers or rejects rights based on the distintion. The supreme court confirmed in 1989 that converting to another religion means you lose those priviliges. I've shared those laws repeatedly (at least 3 times in this thread). Here's a few of them:

• The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law. The law denies the right to acquire Israeli residency or citizenship status to Palestinians from the occupied territories, even if they are married to citizens of Israel.
• The Absentees’ Property Law (APL) was enacted in 1950, ostensibly to address the management of property left by the roughly 750,000 Palestinian refugees driven out of Israel during the 1948 war. In reality, the law provided not for management of these properties, but for their permanent expropriation.
• Admissions Committees Law. Admission committees operate in approximately 700 agricultural and community towns inside Israel. Their purpose is to filter out Palestinian citizens of Israel who apply for residency in these towns on the basis of their “social unsuitability”.
• The Land Acquisition for Public Purposes Ordinance – Amendment No. 10 (2010) allows Israel’s Finance Minister to confiscate land for “public purposes”. The state has used this law extensively, in conjunction with other laws like the Land Acquisition Law (1953) and the Absentees’ Property Law (1950), to confiscate Palestinian-owned land in Israel.
• The Jewish National Fund Law of 1953 bestows powers on governmental authorities designed to empower the Jewish National Fund and endows it with financial advantages including tax relief, and in the purchasing of land. Over time, the JNF has come to own 13% of all land in Israel. JNF is a Zionist organization established in 1901 to collect funds for the purpose of purchasing land for the exclusive benefit of the Jewish people.
• Israel’s Jewish Nation State Law (2018). a) It declares the exercise of national self-determination to be a right enjoyed by Jewish citizens only. b) It makes Hebrew the only official state language (prior to the Nation State Law, both Hebrew and Arabic were official state languages). c) It commits to expanding Jewish settlement as “a national value”. In practice, it prioritizes settlements for Jews at the expense of others within Israel and the occupied territories.

I could go on but you get the idea. And this is just in Israel. Obviously, the discrimination is worse in the occupied territories under the guise of "security". Including arbitrary detentions, demolitions, evictions etc. See (for the 4th time!): https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7771

So according to you then violence against legitimate targets, e.g. government forces, is sanctioned until 1967 borders are returned to? Or until Israel is dismantled? A commitment to 1967 borders would still make you a zionist as it would leave the Jewish state intact. — BitconnectCarlos

From a purely legal point of view, only the 1948 borders would be legally justified although I think a land partition imposed on people without them having a say in the negotiations was morally unjust itself. The 1967 borders have been signalled by both the PLO as well as Hamas as being a starting point for negotiations for peace. If that represents Palestinian majority thinking that it is acceptable then that's what Israel should aim at. Instead, the zionists want it all. The end result this way is that it will have nothing. Empires come and go and so will the support of the USA and Europe. At some point Israel will be forced to negotiate from a position of weakness if it continues along this path and what it will be left with will be a matter of how magnanimous the other side will be. In the long run, the zionist path Israel is on is self-destructive and it's entirely within its power to avoid it.

But do you not realize the West is also institutionally racist and oppressive? Oppression and institutional racism are everywhere. They are charges that can be applied anywhere and every country is guilty of it. — BitconnectCarlos

I don't hate Israel. I'm anti- zionist. As to comparing Israel to other western countries. How many of those countries are currently committing genocide? And there's a difference, a rather large one in fact, between Apartheid where the discrimination is enshrined in law and reinforced by the Israeli supreme Court and racism that's an emergent property of societies but at least pursues the ideal of non-discrimination.

Why do you consider intentional violence against civilians "resistance?" — BitconnectCarlos

Never said that. I said that Palestinians have a right to violently resist their occupation but not all violence is permitted.

Yes, it's unfortunately in the job description and I can't offload it unto someone else. :cry:

That's just a variation on the tu quoque fallacy. Even if other people were worse, it doesn't make this acceptable. However, the figures are also false, entirely based on one article from John Spencer, who apparently can't count.

For starters, the 80%-90% casualty rate in modern warfare is bullshit. Not even the sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad had such figures, which are clear examples of urban warfare at a time with much lower accuracy. Leningrad was closer to 1:1 and even qualified as a war crime due to the intentional targetting of infrastructure, restrictions in fuel leading to cold and, finally, famine. The conflicts that reached the 80-90% were established genocides, to wit: Cambodia, Rwanda, Second Congo War, Darfur and Northern Uganda (still disputed I suppose).

The figures on the ongoing war crime in Gaza reported by the UN, due to uncertainty of data, range from 2:1 to 9:1. So from a badly fought urban war to a clear corrolary to other genocidal conflicts.

Like father like son? A roadmap to genocide:

Gilad in 2012: ‘We need to flatten entire neighbourhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too. There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing.’

And certainly nobody else is into dehumanization:

Yoav Gallant: ‘We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly’

Or guilt by association:

President Isaac Herzog: ‘It is an entire nation out there that is responsible’

As Adam Shatz put it:

the belief that the best way of honouring the memory of those who died in Auschwitz is to condone the mass killing of Palestinians so that Israeli Jews can feel safe again is one of the great moral perversions of our time.

Looks like you need a nerdy girl. They’re probably the best ones anyway, in the scheme of things. — Mikie

Only partially right. She needs to be Christina, because christian girls have never been taught what not to do in bed.

Nature has an excellent process for this; it's called attraction. It's worked for millions of years. If you're attracted to him/her, go for it. If not, ignore. From personal experience, people overthink the whole process. It doesn't require deep analysis. Some people will throw themselves at you and we're all only human and might have sex or one-night stands. Nothing wrong with that but don't confuse sex and lust with attraction. They're not the same. The second can lead to love, the first won't.

Also, "soul mates" is an overromantisation. Like any relationship, communication is key as well as recognising other people's moods as well as your own to avoid feeding negative feedback loops. How a discussion about doing the dishes will lead to divorce is because people just keep adding oil to the fire.

I stand corrected. Thanks.

I see you added things after I posted. Normally you indicate that by adding "edit" to be clear and fair to your interlocutors. Prosecuting criminals isn't cutting down the law. And yes, you're dumb if you ignore facts that stand in the way of your idiotic both sideism.

It is established many J6 protesters weren't rioters but insurrectionists and were there to keep Trump in power. That's not a riot. Proud Boys wanted to murder the vice president. Boogaloo wanted to do as much damage to the government as possible. The Oath Keepers are anti- government, some convicted to 18 years for sedition. And you're here pretending prosecutors, judges and juries did so for shits and giggles.

Your attempt to equate them is the real hypocrisy here and is dumb as fuck. It doesn't require an intelligent discussion because your premises are so far removed from reality there's no discussion to be had until you acknowledge some basic facts first.

a leftist talking point would be: capitalism is bad and should be replaced with socialism. Pointing out facts isn't. You're so dumb you think everything is part of the culture war. What riot happened on his inauguration? None. Your expectations are ahistoric and unfounded.

That hysterical rhetoric is childish. Nobody overthrew the government. — fishfry

I said attempt. And no, it's not hysterical. But nice try at downplaying. Does it make you sleep better?

Again, only dumb Americans don't take J6 seriously. Everybody outside saw it for what it was. A bunch of thugs trying to keep their God Emperor Trump on the throne as they have admitted to and informants in the Boogaloo, Proud Boys and other militant groups, that were there, reported on. But yeah, keep your head in the same and pretend this was the same as a riot and watch it happen again next time Trump loses.

A riot is not an attempt to overthrow a government. The fact you're trying to equate them underlines the rot Wayfarer is pointing to. Bringing up Babbitt in response to the shameful treatment of cops doing their jobs, as if that excuses such a response, underlines the same rot.

Take it from somebody looking at American Bullshit from the outside; it's been rotting since Reagan.

Wet thumb and index finger and rub them together with the garbage bag opening between them. It will open in a jiffy.