I thought I had a decent education. How scary is it that I have never heard of this before?
“Various institutions are in the process of either removing Supreme Court justice John Marshall’s name from their own, or are considering doing so.
The reason for this is that a recent book by Paul Finkelman has revealed something that was previously pretty much ignored if not actively covered up by Marshall’s many previous biographers: The most important judge in American history owned hundreds of slaves. And, unlike some other founding figures, Marshall’s involvement in the slave trade wasn’t marginal or ambivalent. Marshall didn’t inherit any of his slaves: he bought and sold them enthusiastically, trading them like cattle, and breaking up families in the process.
I suspect it was left out of your good education because it wasn’t considered important. The slave trade was legal back then, had been going on for hundreds if not thousands of years and people then, frankly, didn’t have te advantges of your good education.
Marshall may or may not have been worse than others in terms of the depravity that owning slaves causes. But I think if truth were known, the depravity that power causes (and wealth equals power) can be smelled in the closets of many if not most of our revered leaders. Not naming names here because it’s easy to make up stories after the fact.
I don’t really don’t understand what you are saying here.
John Marshall did establish that the Supreme Court determined what was Constitutional. Ultimately giving us brown v board, and now giving us a pain in the neck. I don’t know much about Cold Harbor, but I’m fresh on Fredericksburg. I’d have deserted long before that. As for forgivable? That is not given us to decide. Anyway we forgive those who trespass against us for our sanity, not for theirs. I personally think that all times are bad, and people are as bad as they think they can get away with. I see some exceptions from time to time.
The witch trials at Salem were stopped, as I remember, by the governor who transferred the trials to another town and then quietly let them (the witches) go.
What I have been objecting to here, on a number of topics, is our readiness to roll in dirt and work up our hate glands to no other purpose than to keep our enemies…if they pay any attention to us at all…feeling like they need to defend themselves…driving them into the arms of the real Enemy.
It’s pretty cheap to hate someone who died two hundred years ago. Maybe we should spend our time trying to fix the problems we have today. (actually trying.)
Does not take much effort to take a man that I had previously admired for his work on the Court, and change it to total disrespect. Spare me “the times” schtick. Disgusting is disgusting.
This seems (to me) like the perennial basis for the Marx quote about history occurring first as tragedy, then as farce. Marshall as an early Chief Justice (not first, rather #4) who defined the role of the Supreme Court, given the very sketchy specifics in the Constitution. Most unfortunately, full of ‘proud southern traditions’ he was also an enthusiastic slaveholder, which modern society rightfully has a very hard time reconciling. (Jefferson also, early Democrat though he was, now largely the inspiration for the modern GOP, originally the party of Abe Lincoln, abolitionist.)
An early relative of mine, a Quaker who was exiled to Canada for treason – he seems to have been too ardent a pacifist – also seems to have had a slave accompanying his family in Canada. Quakers in PA were the principal proponents of abolitionism in America, forbidding the practice of slavery, but somehow in a sort of voluntary way that permitted exceptions. I don’t feel too good about this, but it was a loooong time ago.
imagine, if you will, that your early relative found himself in conversation with a slave during a time when black slavery was the law and the norm.
this would have been pretty unusual for the times, perhaps made easier for him because of his Quaker abolitionist background, testimony to both his intelligence and something else that made the slave willing to have a conversation with him..it was never a good idea for a slave to let on he might be more intelligent than he looked.
so imagine your ancestor said to the slave: i have an idea. I can buy you from your owner. But I am not a rich man and it is hard for a free black man to make a living in this country. So if I buy you and you agree to work for me for your keep until you have paid me in work what i paid for you in cash, while my “owning” you will protect you from those who would force you back into slavery, I think you will have a better life, and i will have the help of your work.
would you “not feel too good about this”?
and if you disrespect your ancestor for “owning a slave” do you also disrespect the Christianity that invented the idea of abolition?
[what most people “know” about Christianity is that some people calling themselves Christian hate gays, hate abortion, and hate Darwin. they also “know” that the Church in history was often led or represented by people who promoted some bad beliefs and actions.
But nowhere does Jesus advocate any of those bad beliefs and did not have anything at all to say about gays, evolution or abortion. On the contrary he warned his followers that people would come shouting Jesus this and Jesus that and would deceive “even the elect.”
but it is fashionable today to count yourself clever if you hate Christianity without knowing anything about it.
yet you seem clever enough to recognize when “proud boys” can infiltrate a protest and cause some trouble they can blame on Antifa.
anyway this is going on longer than i meant it to. do try to imagine that your ancestor might have been doing something better than dragging Kunta Kinte by a chain and whipping him to make him work harder.
i never heard of exile as a punishment for treason.
much as i think Jefferson was a sly politician, i don’t think he’d want to take credit for the modern GOP which is no more intrested in states rights than it is interested in human rights or the “freedom” they talk about. they are interested in seizing complete and permanent control of the country, democracy be damned. their politics looks more like Hitler than Jefferson.
and while Lincoln was the only successful abolitionist, he didn’t accomplish it by going around rubbing people’s noses in their racism. or pretending to be morally superior to…say Jefferson, who owned slaves.
Here’s a toast to the recently deceased scientist E.O. Wilson. His recent book “Half-Earth” is a plea to keep some of our planet viable for non human species. Here’s a website from his foundation with lots more detail.
It may be more doubtful that we can keep some of our planet viable for habitation by human species. Until the corals run out then crown of thorns starfish will have a good run. Over the long haul though, my money is on cockroaches. They are real survivors dating back over 300 million years to their origins in Pangaea.
We are the new kids on the block and possibly the first species on Earth to compete its own kind out of existence through habitat exhaustion.
I have always said that Sociobiology by E.O. Wilson is the most important I ever read except for the Bible. That’s where we come from — the evolution of behavior.
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
Try to imagine three apples side by side — now four — opps; now it’s two and two or three and one — can’t get four apples together in one picture. According to Morris’s book, baboons in South Africa can keep track of up to three farmers coming into the fields to kill them — above that they get confused. Evolution really built us into unique wonders, didn’t it? :-O
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
OTOH, if what you Drew from Morris was that all that separates human beings from baboons was accountants, physicists, and economists, then that is a reasonable takeaway given that baboons also invade and murder other primates as well as their own kind.
A tax break aimed at small businesses has become a popular way for Silicon Valley founders and investors to avoid taxes on their investment profits.
… The tax break is known as the Qualified Small Business Stock, or Q.S.B.S., exemption. It allows early investors in companies in many industries to avoid taxes on at least $10 million in profits.
The goal, when it was established in the early 1990s, was to coax people to put money into small companies. But over the next three decades, it would be contorted into the latest tax dodge in Silicon Valley, where new billionaires seem to sprout each week.
Thanks to the ingenuity of the tax-avoidance industry, investors in hot tech companies are exponentially enlarging the tax break. The trick is to give shares in those companies to friends or relatives. Even though these recipients didn’t put their money into the companies, they nonetheless inherit the tax break, and a further $10 million or more in profits becomes tax-free.
The savings for the richest American families — who would otherwise face a 23.8 percent capital gains tax — can quickly swell into the tens of millions.
The maneuver, which is legal, is known as “stacking,” because the tax breaks are piled on top of one another.
Early investors in some of Silicon Valley’s marquee start-ups — including Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Zoom, Pinterest and DoorDash — have all replicated this tax exemption by giving shares to friends and family, according to people who worked or were briefed on the tax strategies. …
… Last week, the C.D.C. said that Omicron accounted for approximately 73 percent of variants circulating in the United States in the week ending Dec. 18. But in its revision, the agency said the variant accounted for about 23 percent of cases that week. …
In other words, Delta, which has dominated U.S. infections since summer, still reigned in the United States that week. That could mean that a significant number of current Covid hospitalizations were driven by infections from Delta, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, suggested on Twitter. Hospitalizations typically lag several weeks behind initial infections.
Experts said they were not surprised by the revisions, given that the C.D.C.’s estimates are rough guesses, with a wide range of possible values known as “confidence intervals.” Cases of Omicron can only be confirmed by genetic sequencing, which is performed on just a portion of samples across the country.
Early research suggests omicron may cause milder illnesses than earlier versions of the coronavirus. But the sheer number of people becoming infected — and therefore having to isolate or quarantine — threatens to crush the ability of hospitals, airlines and other businesses to stay open, experts say.
The redistricting commission for Michigan adopted new congressional districts on Tuesday, a move that will have a significant impact on next year’s midterm elections.
Democratic Reps. Andy Levin and Haley Stevens will both run in the same newly redrawn district. Other incumbents could also face one another, but some, including Rep. Debbie Dingell (D), plan to move districts to avoid such a battle. Dingell would otherwise potentially face Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D), The Detroit Free Press reported.
Members of Congress do not have to live in the district that they represent, though most do reside in their districts to avoid an opponent’s criticism in elections.
Michigan currently has seven Democratic and seven Republican representatives in its congressional delegation.
Eight of 13 randomly selected voters supported the new map, which places eight incumbents in the same districts and eliminates two majority Black districts, the Free Press added.
looks like breakthrough cases are a lot higher than i thought..
Massachusetts reports 9,228 new coronavirus cases, breakthrough infections spike last week – State health officials on Tuesday reported 9,228 new coronavirus cases, another rise in hospitalizations and a surge in breakthrough infections.The state Department of Public Health reported 20,247 breakthrough cases last week ahead of Christmas, a 45% spike from the previous week as the extraordinarily contagious omicron variant takes over.The 9,228 new daily cases on Tuesday is the second highest one-day total of the entire pandemic, only behind the Christmas Eve record high tally of 10,040 cases. More record-breaking case tallies are expected in the days ahead as the omicron surge rages.
….In the weekly breakthrough report, the state said there have been 3,539 hospitalizations among fully vaccinated people in Massachusetts, which represents 0.07% of those who got their shots. The 3,539 total patients is a one-week increase of 353 fully vaxxed patients. That’s significantly up from the previous weekly increase of 220 fully vaxxed patients.The state has reported 854 breakthrough deaths, or 0.02% of those who are fully vaxxed. That’s a one-week increase of 70 deaths — down from the previous weekly increase of 85 deaths.More than 5 million people in Massachusetts are now fully vaccinated, and more than 5.8 million people have gotten at least one shot. The state reported that 2,015,376 have gotten a booster dose.
Massachusetts officially surpassed 1 million cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, a sobering milestone that would have seemed unimaginable in March 2020 but now strikes many experts as conservative in its scope.
The staggering number was reached as the state and nation prepare for a greater surge in cases fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron and Delta variants, which began to sweep across the United States just as holiday travel season got underway.
The lightning spread of the virus this fall and winter pushed Massachusetts to a total of 1,002,266 confirmed cases, the state reported Tuesday. Nationwide, the seven-day average of new daily COVID-19 cases reached 253,245 on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported, surpassing the previous high of 248,209 cases on Jan. 12, in the midst of last winter’s punishing surge. …
Massachusetts officially surpassed 1 million cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, a sobering milestone that would have seemed unimaginable in March 2020 but now strikes many experts as conservative in its scope.
The staggering number was reached as the state and nation prepare for a greater surge in cases fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron and Delta variants, which began to sweep across the United States just as holiday travel season got underway. …
The lightning spread of the virus this fall and winter pushed Massachusetts to a total of 1,002,266 confirmed cases, the state reported Tuesday. Nationwide, the seven-day average of new daily COVID-19 cases reached 253,245 on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported, surpassing the previous high of 248,209 cases on Jan. 12, in the midst of last winter’s punishing surge. …
The data is from Cosmos, a HIPAA-defined dataset of more than 120 million patients from over 140 Epic organizations, including 250 hospitals across all 50 states and data on nearly 10 million admissions. More than 120,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations were examined.
Individuals were considered fully vaccinated if they had received the required dose(s) of a COVID-19 vaccine and were at least 14 days from the single-dose vaccine or the second dose in an mRNA series.
Six findings:
1. An overwhelming majority of COVID-19 hospitalizations were among unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people. From June to September 2021, 85 percent of virus hospitalizations were among those not fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
2. Age was highly correlated with breakthrough hospitalizations. The majority of COVID-19 breakthrough hospitalizations were of people 65 and older, while the majority of people not fully vaccinated and hospitalized with COVID-19 were adults ages 18 to 64. Only 10 percent of breakthrough hospitalizations were people under age 50.
3. Compared to the age distribution of fully vaccinated people in the U.S., people 65 and up make up a disproportionately large share of breakthrough hospitalizations. As of Sept. 30, 25 percent of fully vaccinated Americans were 65 and older. In comparison, in the Epic sample, 69 percent of fully vaccinated people hospitalized with breakthrough COVID-19 were 65 and older.
4. A greater share of people hospitalized with a breakthrough COVID-19 case also had at least one comorbidity compared to COVID-19 patients who weren’t fully vaccinated.
5. Breakthrough hospitalizations included fewer COVID-related respiratory complications or treatments, suggesting fully vaccinated patients hospitalized with breakthrough COVID-19 may have been more likely to be hospitalized for unrelated reasons.
6. Fully vaccinated adults hospitalized with COVID-19 had shorter average hospital stays than those who weren’t fully vaccinated within the same age group. Among patients over 65, the median COVID-19 hospital stay was 1.1 days shorter for those who were fully vaccinated (5.6 days) than for those not (6.7 days).
The Big Unconstitutional Lie I am outraged that a private citizen, with Trump’s influence, can run around the country and whip up idiots to a frenzy with TOTAL LIES about the proven, legally factual, “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of the actual election results.
Chief Justice John Roberts recently warned that ”[i]n our age . . . social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale,’ causing harm to our democracy. The internet has become our ‘public square,”
Now, over a year after the legal and official transfer of power on January 20, 2021, we must ask, “What is Donald Trump’s Intention Now?” A year after the election results have been certified by the individual state Secretaries of State & Governors, voted by the Electors, certified by Vice President Pence, the Senate and the House of Representatives, subjected to numerous state audits and third-party audits, at least 63 lawsuits filed and lost by Trump and others (including three Supreme Court reviews), and even a review by the former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr.
It should also be emphasized that in the same 2020 elections that Trump is contesting 35 Senators, 435 House Members and 11 Governors were elected throughout the U.S., none of whom are claiming the elections were corrupt or rigged.
With evidence and proof now compiled, “beyond a reasonable doubt” (the highest legal standard) that there was no widespread corruption or irregularities of the 2020 national election for President, it seems clear that Donald Trump is intent, obsessed even, with becoming an illegal President and disrupting the legal framework of the American democratic republic and our system of laws and government.
By holding rallies around the country he continues to incite large numbers of the general voting public to take whatever actions necessary to have him proclaimed the illegal President of the United States. Just as he desired to be the illegal President on January 6, 2021, his desires have not changed. Despite the evidence and proof, Trump is insistent on instilling doubt in the validity of the 2020 Presidential election to undermine public confidence in its results.
While the Courts are extremely cautious in limiting freedom of speech (as they should be), they have over the years carved out narrow exceptions where it makes sense to limit freedom of speech. Considering the unique nature of Donald Trump and his presence on the American political scene, I would suggest a new, specific exception to freedom of speech and suggest a legal rationale for that exception.
I would draw a similarity to the exception made for perjury. In the freedom of speech Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Alvarez, No. 11–210. Argued February 22, 2012—Decided June 28, 2012, Justice Kennedy in the majority opinion discusses perjury as a First Amendment issue and indicates, “As for perjury statutes, perjured statements lack First Amendment protection not simply because they are false, but because perjury undermines the function and province of the law and threatens the integrity of judgments.” He cites United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U. S. 87, 97 (1993), “To uphold the integrity of our trial system . . . the constitutionality of perjury statutes is unquestioned”.
The Justices indicate that perjury statutes are at the foundation of our system of laws and thus take on extreme importance in relation to the concept of free speech. It is essential that witnesses under oath tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth or be appropriately punished for not doing so. Otherwise our legal and judicial system of laws and government would collapse.
Likewise one could argue that the act of voting and the results of that voting is the centerpiece of American democracy and government. False statements about the conduct and results of the nation’s elections, made doggedly by an influential individual with reckless disregard of the truth, are likely to interfere with the public confidence in the electoral system and could undermine the function of government and threaten the integrity of elections. Therefore such statements should not enjoy First Amendment protection.
There should be a specific statute that prohibits the transmission, distribution and utterance of such false statements which are contrary to the finalized and legally approved results of the national electoral process of the United States.
As a patriotic American, I share your evident contempt for Donald Trump and his ongoing efforts to suborn sedition. Same goes for Steve Bannon.
But as a lifelong ACLU member, I’m also a vigorous defender of the 1st Amendment, and I don’t see how your reasoning gets around it. The answer to Trump, Bannon et al. is to shine the antiseptic light of truth on their dishonesty. We won’t win by making martyrs out of them. They can’t be shamed.
Sadly, the mainstream media today is motivated by profit, not accuracy, so they end up handing the microphones to Trump and Bannon because they’re clickbait. Not a day goes by that CNN doesn’t have at least two links to a Trump story of some sort. I don’t click on them, so I don’t feed the click count. We must demand better of our media, and we need to support the media that report honestly, not both-sides-ism.
at the risk of agreeing with Joel (it confuses him)..
I never thought of perjury as protected free speech. i can’t even imagine the framers intending that.
however, while I often think fondly of the Sedition part of the Alien and Sedition act, the problem is once you start down that road, how do you stop.
on the other hand, Lincoln found a way to stop secession (seditions big brother)
we..democrats… seem to be pretty ineffectual, but it’s just possible our leaders are smarter than we think and are weaving something more subtle and less dangerous.
anyway, I’m glad Joel sees the wisdom of not making martyrs of them, even though it drives him crazy when I say the same thing.
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
OTOH, that does not make me entirely in agreement when it comes to martyrdom. However, realistically there is no way liberals actually have the stomach to do it on a scale that would work effectively. That is what Hitler had going on the Trump tribe lacks. Hitler knew that once the killing starts then he would need to kill millions to put his house in order. Back in the day, white men had no problem dispatching the people of my Cherokee ancestors to the point that they would pose no future threat, but white men have gotten soft since then.
The U.S. record for daily coronavirus cases has been broken, as two highly contagious variants — Delta and Omicron — have converged to disrupt holiday travel and gatherings, deplete hospital staffs and plunge the United States into another long winter.
The U.S. record for daily coronavirus cases has been broken, as two highly contagious variants — Delta and Omicron — have converged to disrupt holiday travel and gatherings, deplete hospital staffs and plunge the United States into another long winter.
the Covid tracking site i watch, which tends to run a little higher than CDC or NY Times, shows 465,670 new US cases today and a seven day case count 76% above the prior week, despite obvious underreporting on the Christmas weekend…global new case totals are 46% higher week over week with cases in a number of countries now doubling twice a week…however, global deaths attributed to Covid are still down 13% week over week and have shown no sign of accelerating…
new US cases totaled 572,029 on Thursday, so we’ve now added well over a million cases in just two days (not counting those who tested positive at home…)
new cases in New York alone have been running more than 5 times higher than the new case average for the whole country over the entire month of July…
the US and UK combined have accounted for more than 42% of all new cases worldwide over the past week…
The U.S. record for daily coronavirus cases has been broken, as two highly contagious variants — Delta and Omicron — have converged to disrupt holiday travel and gatherings, deplete hospital staffs and plunge the United States into another long winter.
As a third year of the pandemic loomed, the seven-day average of U.S. cases topped 267,000 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times database. The milestone was marked after a year that has whipsawed Americans from a relaxation of rules in the spring to a Delta-driven summer wave to another surge that accelerated with astonishing speed as Omicron emerged after Thanksgiving. …
… Omicron has a considerably easier time than Delta infecting vaccinated people. The coming cascade of patients threatens to overwhelm hospitals just as health care workers themselves are increasingly infected.
A sizable number of patients remain infected with the deadlier Delta variant. On Tuesday, the C.D.C. reported that Omicron cases made up a significantly lower percentage of the overall U.S. caseload than was expected, at roughly 59 percent. And for the week ending Dec. 18, the agency revised down its estimate of 73 percent to about 23 percent, meaning Delta remained dominant until this week.
Omicron is undoubtedly becoming the dominant variant, and that could be good news: A new laboratory study carried out by South African scientists showed that people who had recovered from an infection with the variant might be able to fend off later infections from Delta.
Records are also being broken in Europe, but so far, the leaders of Britain, France, Spain and some other countries have resisted imposing harsh new restrictions amid calls from some who argue that it is time to accept that the virus is endemic and that countries should move away from lockdowns. These nations, confronted with Covid fatigue, are betting for now that high vaccine and booster coverage, along with earlier restrictions still in place, will be enough to keep the coronavirus manageable. …
If 2020 was the year that made Zoom a verb and imbued the phrase “online dating” with new meaning, 2021 was its annoying younger sibling. Things were not quite as novel and scary as the darkest early days of the pandemic and initial state and local lockdowns, but the year found new and creative ways to be bad.
Shutdowns weren’t nearly as widespread, but continued waves of coronavirus infection caused factories to shutter and people to retrench from economic life. This was a year in which the Duke of Hastings replaced the Tiger King as a national obsession, vaccine cards became a passport to semi-normal life, and the internet lost its hive mind over America’s cream cheese shortage.
Social trends like those can tell us a lot about the economy we’re living in. To wrap up 2021, we ran down what some of the big cultural moments and movements taught us about the labor market, economic growth and the outlook for 2022. …
Sadly, it wasn’t just the schmear that ran out this year. Many, many things came up short in 2021. For a while, people tried to blame the fact that they couldn’t get hold of a couch or a used car on a ship stuck in the Suez Canal, but society eventually came around to the reality that we’ve all been buying so much stuff that we have collectively broken the supply chain.
Government stimulus checks and savings amassed over long months at home have been fueling strong consumer spending, and the virus has shifted spending patterns away from services like restaurant meals and plane tickets and toward goods. Container ships, ports and factories couldn’t keep up with the unusual boom, especially as new virus waves spurred occasional shutdowns.
Product shortages have raised prices, helping to push inflation up to the fastest pace in nearly 40 years. The big question is whether high inflation will continue in 2022. As the Omicron variant threatens to throw more kinks into global supply lines, economic policymakers worry that it will persist.
An Anti-Work Era?
About 1.5 million “idlers” and counting have joined a community on the site Reddit dedicated to “those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life.” If you were looking for a perfect expression of pandemic populist angst, that might be it: It’s replete with stories of bad bosses, workday abuses and both planned and spontaneous quits. …
In response to Joel and coberly, Not sure if you had an opportunity to follow the link and read the article, in particular the detail and depth of Trump’s malice and reckless disregard for truth at the Iowa rally, just 3 months ago. It is certainly not my intention to open up the whole Freedom of Speech argument which is extremely complex and is certainly in need of fresh arguments in light of technology, social media and the political environment. I am looking at a very narrow carve out like the several that have already been carved out by previous SCOTUS opinions. My carve out would be narrowly focused on Electoral College Results. Without getting into a lot of detail, my suggestion would be something like this: Electoral College Results for 2020 are finally recorded in the National Archives on Jan. 6, 2022. Thereafter, lying with malice or reckless disregard for truth about results should be criminal & subject to fines and prison time. As SCOTUS has said in a perjury carve out in Alvarez, there is no 1st Amendment protection for a witness under oath because seeking truth is fundamental to our legal system. Likewise, there should be no protection for lying about legally finalized election results which are fundamental to the integrity of our electoral system and democracy itself. Trump should be free to lie to his heart’s content but not about “Nationally Archived Election Results.”
The problem is that his supporters will be very influential in the mid-terms, and he’ll get a lot of votes as the GOP nominee in 2024. The GOP is very wily and they seem to think they are cornered, with their survival at stake. They want him re-elected.
He’s not what’s good for the country, but he is (they think) what’s best for them.
I have been told that my comments will be deleted because I disagree with people and hurt their feelings. This is just my attempt at good manners to let you know I read your reply (?) to mine.
Lying under oath is perjury and a crime. Lying to the people about public affairs is politics and protected free speech. I share your desire to stop the lying, but I am afraid it is a slippery slope to government censorship which is something the bad guys would do…will do. We need to think of something better.
To answer your question, no I didn’t click the link to read the account of Trump’s mendacity in Iowa.
When it comes to the 1st Amendment, I’m pretty close to an absolutist. I despise Trump and everything he stands for, but I also hate the KKK and the American Nazi Party, and I defend their right to pollute the public space with their lies.
The carve-out solution you propose, as emotionally satisfying as it may seem, could one day be weaponized against the voices of tolerance in this country. If governmental tolerance of Trump’s lies is the price we pay for preserving the free speech rights of those I agree with, it’s a price we can afford.
FWIW, I think Steve Bannon and his fellow anarchists are more of a threat to our democracy than Trump. When a Bannon Jr. comes along who is younger, not as ugly and is more articulate, I tremble for our country. What Trumpism has proven is just how vulnerable we remain to demagoguery.
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
So far the best that you have done has gotten Joel and Coberly in agreement. That sir, is a brilliant piece of work in and of itself.
In any case, I want to take your side for a moment as it offers me the opportunity to present a more conditioned and less moral and ethical case rather focusing on the existential reality. So, then I must turn to the old proverb used against my ancestral American people, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Another way of putting this is “Never start a fight that you cannot win or are unprepared to finish.” Another analogy is the US is not Vietnam or Afghanistan. Whatever fight that we start here, we cannot later just pack up our bags and leave behind for the locals to sort out because in this case WE are the locals.
So, if we are prepared to go extra innings on this then I say “Bag ’em and tag ’em,” but otherwise then “Just keep your powder dry.”
I posted an Epilog. So I guess I fired another shot. Too early to tell if I hit anything. I do know that no Indians were killed in this inelegant moot court and I’m fresh out of powder.
Was thinking about EpiPen and its controversy. Some points related and unrelated:
The West Virginia University M.B.A. controversy concerns the granting of a “Master of Business Administration” Executive Master of Business Administration degree;”> (EMBA) by “West Virginia University” to “Mylan” pharmaceutical company executive “Heather Bresch” in 2007.
An independent panel later concluded that the university changed its records, and granted the degree despite incomplete graduation requirements. West Virginia University’s president Michael Garrison, its provost Gerald Lang, and its business school dean R. Stephen Sears, resigned as a result of the investigation, and the university’s general counsel and the president’s communications officer relinquished those roles. West Virginia
– HEATHER BRESCH, the former president and CEO of the drugmaker Mylan, worked directly with the CEO of Pfizer to keep prices of the company’s EpiPen product artificially high, according to new documents released as part of an ongoing lawsuit.
The documents also show Bresch approving a scheme to force customers, captured by the company’s monopoly, to purchase two EpiPens at once, regardless of medical need. The EpiPen is an auto-injectable device that injects epinephrine into the body and can be the difference between life or death for a person suffering a severe allergic reaction. The Intercept.
Just to be clear on the EpiPen issue. This is ~$25 worth of parts and an old Merck formula bought by Pfizer and supplied to Mylan who assembled the EpiPen. Profits from the $600 / package of two were split between Mylan and Pfizer.
Joe, his wife, and his daughter appear to be enmeshed in businesses across West Virginia and the East coast. The Intercept article is from September 2021.
Electoral College Results for 2020 are finally deposited in the National Archives on January 6, 2022. Thereafter, lying with malice or reckless disregard for truth about the results should be considered criminal & subject to fines and penalties. Penalties should be extreme for Public Officials & Public Figures who must bear responsibility for peddling known lies that undermine the integrity and confidence of the American electoral system and the democracy itself.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has addressed the First Amendment Freedom of Speech issue as it relates to lying, misinformation and disinformation relating to voting issues. They have said:
“Supreme Court jurisprudence has long established that certain categories of low-value speech are outside the realm of First Amendment protection. Obscenity, defamation, incitement, and fraud have historically been considered by the Court as unworthy of First Amendment protection. Deceptive election speech regarding voting is fraudulent and therefore unprotected. . . The distinguishing element between false statements which are protected and those which are unprotected is the existence of a malicious intent [citing US v. Alvarez (2012)]. The Court has steadfastly held that when an individual communicates a false statement of fact about a matter of public concern, the speaker can be held to account only upon a showing of intent; this avoids the risk of punishing innocent mistakes [citing New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964)]. . . To hold a person accountable under the model law [proposed by the Lawyers’ Committee], the complainant must show that the defendant made a false representation of a material fact knowing that the representation was false and demonstrate that the defendant made the representation with the intent to mislead the audience [citingIllinois ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Assocs., 538 U.S. 600 (2003)].
As emphasized by Justice Alito in his dissent in the Alvarez case, “. . . there are broad areas in which any attempt by the state to penalize purportedly false speech would present a grave and unacceptable danger of suppressing truthful speech. . .it is perilous to permit the state to be the arbiter of truth.” To avoid the chilling effect on Freedom of Speech we must be extremely careful and assure that the government is not the sole arbiter of truth. To regulate the Big Lie and not offend the First Amendment case law, we must be able to define and articulate the real, hard truth and as well, disclose the arbiter of that truth.
1. The Truth: Logging results in the National Archives defines the final, hard truth. This act defines the end of the Electoral College process which is defined in the Constitution and law and is subjected to a year long public inspection opportunity following the January 6th Joint Session of Congress to officially and finally count the electoral votes. The process involves many individuals and is performed on a strict timeline that is set in law. No individual, agency or political entity controls the process.
2. The Arbiter: Likewise, the final, hard truth is not defined by any state or federal government, individual, agency or political entity. Instead, the final electoral vote count is established by an elaborate and complex United States electoral system and process that consists of the electoral population; multiple state agencies and officials; many private and legal counters, inspectors, reviewers and observers; and the Electoral College process (above) and further reviews by state government and private entity audits and public inspections and legal investigations and reviews of the results of over approximately a year and three-months time period. Collectively, this elaborate process and the many individuals and entities involved are the final arbiters of the hard truth of electoral voting results that is uncontestable and logged within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as part of the permanent record of the United States of America.
As indicated above, the reason we must be insistent on regulating Donald Trump’s Big Lie or other similar lies now or in the future, is to maintain and preserve the integrity and confidence of the American electoral system and the democracy itself.
“Without electoral integrity, leaders and officials lack accountability to the public, confidence in the election results is weak, and the government lacks necessary legitimacy. Electoral integrity allows for peaceful resolution of conflict, open dialogue, debate, and information sharing among leaders and the public. Integrity depends on public confidence in electoral and political processes. It is not enough to reform institutions; citizens need to be convinced that changes are real and deserve their confidence. To ensure that elections have integrity, other factors outside of the electoral institutions themselves need to be taken into account and strengthened. Election officials, judges and courts must have independence that is respected by politicians.” ACE Electoral Knowledge Network “Mis- and disinformation can undermine public confidence in the electoral process, as well as in our democracy. Elections are administered by state and local officials who implement numerous safeguards to protect the security of your vote pursuant to various state and federal laws and processes. This resource is designed to debunk common misinformation and disinformation narratives and themes that relate broadly to the security of election infrastructure and related processes. It is not intended to address jurisdiction-specific claims. Instead, this resource addresses election security rumors by describing common and generally applicable protective processes, security measures, and legal requirements designed to protect against or detect large-scale security issues related to election infrastructure and processes.” The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
We have election laws and an electoral process in the United States that results in the official and final selection of our President and Vice President. When the results are legally and finally approved it should be illegal to say they are not real. This would be a Big Seditious Unconstitutional Lie.
#VotingRightsIsSolution
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
I would feel better about it going forwards were the higher courts not packed by previous Republicans, but if we can then we should and then let the cards fall where they may. Winning is important, a matter far more sacrosanct than constitutional law, which has from the beginning, even when the Framers still lived, been subject to interpretation. Losing sucks.
I thought I had a decent education. How scary is it that I have never heard of this before?
“Various institutions are in the process of either removing Supreme Court justice John Marshall’s name from their own, or are considering doing so.
The reason for this is that a recent book by Paul Finkelman has revealed something that was previously pretty much ignored if not actively covered up by Marshall’s many previous biographers: The most important judge in American history owned hundreds of slaves. And, unlike some other founding figures, Marshall’s involvement in the slave trade wasn’t marginal or ambivalent. Marshall didn’t inherit any of his slaves: he bought and sold them
enthusiastically, trading them like cattle, and breaking up families in the process.
https://www.lawyersgunsmone…“
EMichael
I suspect it was left out of your good education because it wasn’t considered important. The slave trade was legal back then, had been going on for hundreds if not thousands of years and people then, frankly, didn’t have te advantges of your good education.
Marshall may or may not have been worse than others in terms of the depravity that owning slaves causes. But I think if truth were known, the depravity that power causes (and wealth equals power) can be smelled in the closets of many if not most of our revered leaders. Not naming names here because it’s easy to make up stories after the fact.
Did Marshall do anything important for you?
coberly
Other than being another ancestor, John did nothing for us today other than the decisions he made on SCOTUS.
If it is of any consequence, reporting directly to Reynolds as part of the Iron Brigade, we died at Cold Harbor.
We fled Salem after protesting the witch trials.
Forgivable for what Marshall did? Not at all. He was a man of his times.
Run
I don’t really don’t understand what you are saying here.
John Marshall did establish that the Supreme Court determined what was Constitutional. Ultimately giving us brown v board, and now giving us a pain in the neck. I don’t know much about Cold Harbor, but I’m fresh on Fredericksburg. I’d have deserted long before that. As for forgivable? That is not given us to decide. Anyway we forgive those who trespass against us for our sanity, not for theirs. I personally think that all times are bad, and people are as bad as they think they can get away with. I see some exceptions from time to time.
The witch trials at Salem were stopped, as I remember, by the governor who transferred the trials to another town and then quietly let them (the witches) go.
What I have been objecting to here, on a number of topics, is our readiness to roll in dirt and work up our hate glands to no other purpose than to keep our enemies…if they pay any attention to us at all…feeling like they need to defend themselves…driving them into the arms of the real Enemy.
It’s pretty cheap to hate someone who died two hundred years ago. Maybe we should spend our time trying to fix the problems we have today. (actually trying.)
I can do both.
Does not take much effort to take a man that I had previously admired for his work on the Court, and change it to total disrespect. Spare me “the times” schtick. Disgusting is disgusting.
EM
“does not take much effort”
like i said, pretty cheap.
you are entitled to your total disrespect, much good it will do you or anyone else.
This seems (to me) like the perennial basis for the Marx quote about history occurring first as tragedy, then as farce. Marshall as an early Chief Justice (not first, rather #4) who defined the role of the Supreme Court, given the very sketchy specifics in the Constitution. Most unfortunately, full of ‘proud southern traditions’ he was also an enthusiastic slaveholder, which modern society rightfully has a very hard time reconciling. (Jefferson also, early Democrat though he was, now largely the inspiration for the modern GOP, originally the party of Abe Lincoln, abolitionist.)
An early relative of mine, a Quaker who was exiled to Canada for treason – he seems to have been too ardent a pacifist – also seems to have had a slave accompanying his family in Canada. Quakers in PA were the principal proponents of abolitionism in America, forbidding the practice of slavery, but somehow in a sort of voluntary way that permitted exceptions. I don’t feel too good about this, but it was a loooong time ago.
Dobbs
imagine, if you will, that your early relative found himself in conversation with a slave during a time when black slavery was the law and the norm.
this would have been pretty unusual for the times, perhaps made easier for him because of his Quaker abolitionist background, testimony to both his intelligence and something else that made the slave willing to have a conversation with him..it was never a good idea for a slave to let on he might be more intelligent than he looked.
so imagine your ancestor said to the slave: i have an idea. I can buy you from your owner. But I am not a rich man and it is hard for a free black man to make a living in this country. So if I buy you and you agree to work for me for your keep until you have paid me in work what i paid for you in cash, while my “owning” you will protect you from those who would force you back into slavery, I think you will have a better life, and i will have the help of your work.
would you “not feel too good about this”?
and if you disrespect your ancestor for “owning a slave” do you also disrespect the Christianity that invented the idea of abolition?
[what most people “know” about Christianity is that some people calling themselves Christian hate gays, hate abortion, and hate Darwin. they also “know” that the Church in history was often led or represented by people who promoted some bad beliefs and actions.
But nowhere does Jesus advocate any of those bad beliefs and did not have anything at all to say about gays, evolution or abortion. On the contrary he warned his followers that people would come shouting Jesus this and Jesus that and would deceive “even the elect.”
but it is fashionable today to count yourself clever if you hate Christianity without knowing anything about it.
yet you seem clever enough to recognize when “proud boys” can infiltrate a protest and cause some trouble they can blame on Antifa.
anyway this is going on longer than i meant it to. do try to imagine that your ancestor might have been doing something better than dragging Kunta Kinte by a chain and whipping him to make him work harder.
i never heard of exile as a punishment for treason.
Dobbs
much as i think Jefferson was a sly politician, i don’t think he’d want to take credit for the modern GOP which is no more intrested in states rights than it is interested in human rights or the “freedom” they talk about. they are interested in seizing complete and permanent control of the country, democracy be damned. their politics looks more like Hitler than Jefferson.
and while Lincoln was the only successful abolitionist, he didn’t accomplish it by going around rubbing people’s noses in their racism. or pretending to be morally superior to…say Jefferson, who owned slaves.
Here’s a toast to the recently deceased scientist E.O. Wilson. His recent book “Half-Earth” is a plea to keep some of our planet viable for non human species. Here’s a website from his foundation with lots more detail.
Half-Earth Project – E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation
Jim,
It may be more doubtful that we can keep some of our planet viable for habitation by human species. Until the corals run out then crown of thorns starfish will have a good run. Over the long haul though, my money is on cockroaches. They are real survivors dating back over 300 million years to their origins in Pangaea.
We are the new kids on the block and possibly the first species on Earth to compete its own kind out of existence through habitat exhaustion.
Now this is something worth worrying about (as opposed to long dead famous person not sharing our values).
I have always said that Sociobiology by E.O. Wilson is the most important I ever read except for the Bible. That’s where we come from — the evolution of behavior.
Dennis,
Naked Ape by Desmond Morris weren’t too shabby on evolution of human behavior. It was good enough to piss off almost everyone. I loved it.
Ron,
Try to imagine three apples side by side — now four — opps; now it’s two and two or three and one — can’t get four apples together in one picture. According to Morris’s book, baboons in South Africa can keep track of up to three farmers coming into the fields to kill them — above that they get confused. Evolution really built us into unique wonders, didn’t it? :-O
Dennis,
If I recall correctly after 50 years, then Naked Ape ended on the note that our evolutionary success as killers would be the death of us yet.
Dennis,
OTOH, if what you Drew from Morris was that all that separates human beings from baboons was accountants, physicists, and economists, then that is a reasonable takeaway given that baboons also invade and murder other primates as well as their own kind.
Be careful what you aim at.
The Peanut Butter Secret
yeah, and this too [more worth worrying about than Marshall but not than destruction of the earth except that…]
…the people who write out tax laws are the same people who are destroying the earth for the same reasons.
how much money would you be willing to spend, or otherwise do without, to save the earth?
CDC significantly lowers its estimate of Omicron’s prevalence nationwide.
depends on whose confidence you are talking about.
as you probably know, thousands of holiday flights were canceled because airline workers were sick or quarantining…
so..
US officials recommend shorter COVID isolation, quarantine – ABC News — U.S. health officials on Monday cut isolation restrictions for asymptomatic Americans who catch the coronavirus from 10 to five days, and similarly shortened the time that close contacts need to quarantine.
[…]
Early research suggests omicron may cause milder illnesses than earlier versions of the coronavirus. But the sheer number of people becoming infected — and therefore having to isolate or quarantine — threatens to crush the ability of hospitals, airlines and other businesses to stay open, experts say.
looks like Michigan will be turning red, and white, come ’22:
looks like breakthrough cases are a lot higher than i thought..
….In the weekly breakthrough report, the state said there have been 3,539 hospitalizations among fully vaccinated people in Massachusetts, which represents 0.07% of those who got their shots. The 3,539 total patients is a one-week increase of 353 fully vaxxed patients. That’s significantly up from the previous weekly increase of 220 fully vaxxed patients.The state has reported 854 breakthrough deaths, or 0.02% of those who are fully vaxxed. That’s a one-week increase of 70 deaths — down from the previous weekly increase of 85 deaths.More than 5 million people in Massachusetts are now fully vaccinated, and more than 5.8 million people have gotten at least one shot. The state reported that 2,015,376 have gotten a booster dose.
‘Is COVID-19 ever going to go away?’: Mass. surpassed 1 million cases … and counting
‘Is COVID-19 ever going to go away?’: Mass. surpassed 1 million cases … and counting
Boston Globe – December 28
Is COVID-19 ever going away?
Massachusetts officially surpassed 1 million cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, a sobering milestone that would have seemed unimaginable in March 2020 but now strikes many experts as conservative in its scope.
The staggering number was reached as the state and nation prepare for a greater surge in cases fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron and Delta variants, which began to sweep across the United States just as holiday travel season got underway. …
The lightning spread of the virus this fall and winter pushed Massachusetts to a total of 1,002,266 confirmed cases, the state reported Tuesday. Nationwide, the seven-day average of new daily COVID-19 cases reached 253,245 on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported, surpassing the previous high of 248,209 cases on Jan. 12, in the midst of last winter’s punishing surge. …
US sets record high for coronavirus infections
these would presumably be Delta breakthroughs:
What data on 120,000 COVID hospitalizations shows about breakthrough cases – From June to September 2021, fully vaccinated people with breakthrough COVID-19 accounted for 15 percent of all U.S. COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to data from Peterson’s and Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health System Tracker.
The data is from Cosmos, a HIPAA-defined dataset of more than 120 million patients from over 140 Epic organizations, including 250 hospitals across all 50 states and data on nearly 10 million admissions. More than 120,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations were examined.
Individuals were considered fully vaccinated if they had received the required dose(s) of a COVID-19 vaccine and were at least 14 days from the single-dose vaccine or the second dose in an mRNA series.
Six findings:
The Big Unconstitutional Lie
I am outraged that a private citizen, with Trump’s influence, can run around the country and whip up idiots to a frenzy with TOTAL LIES about the proven, legally factual, “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of the actual election results.
Chief Justice John Roberts recently warned that ”[i]n our age . . . social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale,’ causing harm to our democracy. The internet has become our ‘public square,”
I have just posted an article, “The Big Unconstitutional Lie.”
Now, over a year after the legal and official transfer of power on January 20, 2021, we must ask, “What is Donald Trump’s Intention Now?” A year after the election results have been certified by the individual state Secretaries of State & Governors, voted by the Electors, certified by Vice President Pence, the Senate and the House of Representatives, subjected to numerous state audits and third-party audits, at least 63 lawsuits filed and lost by Trump and others (including three Supreme Court reviews), and even a review by the former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr.
It should also be emphasized that in the same 2020 elections that Trump is contesting 35 Senators, 435 House Members and 11 Governors were elected throughout the U.S., none of whom are claiming the elections were corrupt or rigged.
With evidence and proof now compiled, “beyond a reasonable doubt” (the highest legal standard) that there was no widespread corruption or irregularities of the 2020 national election for President, it seems clear that Donald Trump is intent, obsessed even, with becoming an illegal President and disrupting the legal framework of the American democratic republic and our system of laws and government.
By holding rallies around the country he continues to incite large numbers of the general voting public to take whatever actions necessary to have him proclaimed the illegal President of the United States. Just as he desired to be the illegal President on January 6, 2021, his desires have not changed. Despite the evidence and proof, Trump is insistent on instilling doubt in the validity of the 2020 Presidential election to undermine public confidence in its results.
While the Courts are extremely cautious in limiting freedom of speech (as they should be), they have over the years carved out narrow exceptions where it makes sense to limit freedom of speech. Considering the unique nature of Donald Trump and his presence on the American political scene, I would suggest a new, specific exception to freedom of speech and suggest a legal rationale for that exception.
I would draw a similarity to the exception made for perjury. In the freedom of speech Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Alvarez, No. 11–210. Argued February 22, 2012—Decided June 28, 2012, Justice Kennedy in the majority opinion discusses perjury as a First Amendment issue and indicates, “As for perjury statutes, perjured statements lack First Amendment protection not simply because they are false, but because perjury undermines the function and province of the law and threatens the integrity of judgments.” He cites United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U. S. 87, 97 (1993), “To uphold the integrity of our trial system . . . the constitutionality of perjury statutes is unquestioned”.
The Justices indicate that perjury statutes are at the foundation of our system of laws and thus take on extreme importance in relation to the concept of free speech. It is essential that witnesses under oath tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth or be appropriately punished for not doing so. Otherwise our legal and judicial system of laws and government would collapse.
Likewise one could argue that the act of voting and the results of that voting is the centerpiece of American democracy and government. False statements about the conduct and results of the nation’s elections, made doggedly by an influential individual with reckless disregard of the truth, are likely to interfere with the public confidence in the electoral system and could undermine the function of government and threaten the integrity of elections. Therefore such statements should not enjoy First Amendment protection.
There should be a specific statute that prohibits the transmission, distribution and utterance of such false statements which are contrary to the finalized and legally approved results of the national electoral process of the United States.
JP
Two different posts in trash by you. Not sure how they got there. I approved both so as not to have then in spam. Did you have a preference?
I agree with your point. Enough is enough coming from a man who is a pronounced liar, thief, embezzler, coward, etc. And this is someone’s hero?
Seems to be a weird, flaky sort of app behind this board.
Posters only know by the unpredictability of what makes it past the screening, err, ‘moderating’.
@J.P.,
As a patriotic American, I share your evident contempt for Donald Trump and his ongoing efforts to suborn sedition. Same goes for Steve Bannon.
But as a lifelong ACLU member, I’m also a vigorous defender of the 1st Amendment, and I don’t see how your reasoning gets around it. The answer to Trump, Bannon et al. is to shine the antiseptic light of truth on their dishonesty. We won’t win by making martyrs out of them. They can’t be shamed.
Sadly, the mainstream media today is motivated by profit, not accuracy, so they end up handing the microphones to Trump and Bannon because they’re clickbait. Not a day goes by that CNN doesn’t have at least two links to a Trump story of some sort. I don’t click on them, so I don’t feed the click count. We must demand better of our media, and we need to support the media that report honestly, not both-sides-ism.
at the risk of agreeing with Joel (it confuses him)..
I never thought of perjury as protected free speech. i can’t even imagine the framers intending that.
however, while I often think fondly of the Sedition part of the Alien and Sedition act, the problem is once you start down that road, how do you stop.
on the other hand, Lincoln found a way to stop secession (seditions big brother)
we..democrats… seem to be pretty ineffectual, but it’s just possible our leaders are smarter than we think and are weaving something more subtle and less dangerous.
anyway, I’m glad Joel sees the wisdom of not making martyrs of them, even though it drives him crazy when I say the same thing.
Coberly,
Well said and gave me a smile.
OTOH, that does not make me entirely in agreement when it comes to martyrdom. However, realistically there is no way liberals actually have the stomach to do it on a scale that would work effectively. That is what Hitler had going on the Trump tribe lacks. Hitler knew that once the killing starts then he would need to kill millions to put his house in order. Back in the day, white men had no problem dispatching the people of my Cherokee ancestors to the point that they would pose no future threat, but white men have gotten soft since then.
US record for daily cases is broken as an Omicron ‘tidal wave’ grows
The U.S. record for daily cases is broken as an Omicron ‘tidal wave’ grows
NY Times – December 29
US record for daily cases is broken
the Covid tracking site i watch, which tends to run a little higher than CDC or NY Times, shows 465,670 new US cases today and a seven day case count 76% above the prior week, despite obvious underreporting on the Christmas weekend…global new case totals are 46% higher week over week with cases in a number of countries now doubling twice a week…however, global deaths attributed to Covid are still down 13% week over week and have shown no sign of accelerating…
new US cases totaled 572,029 on Thursday, so we’ve now added well over a million cases in just two days (not counting those who tested positive at home…)
new cases in New York alone have been running more than 5 times higher than the new case average for the whole country over the entire month of July…
the US and UK combined have accounted for more than 42% of all new cases worldwide over the past week…
The U.S. record for daily coronavirus cases has been broken, as two highly contagious variants — Delta and Omicron — have converged to disrupt holiday travel and gatherings, deplete hospital staffs and plunge the United States into another long winter.
As a third year of the pandemic loomed, the seven-day average of U.S. cases topped 267,000 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times database. The milestone was marked after a year that has whipsawed Americans from a relaxation of rules in the spring to a Delta-driven summer wave to another surge that accelerated with astonishing speed as Omicron emerged after Thanksgiving. …
… Omicron has a considerably easier time than Delta infecting vaccinated people. The coming cascade of patients threatens to overwhelm hospitals just as health care workers themselves are increasingly infected.
A sizable number of patients remain infected with the deadlier Delta variant. On Tuesday, the C.D.C. reported that Omicron cases made up a significantly lower percentage of the overall U.S. caseload than was expected, at roughly 59 percent. And for the week ending Dec. 18, the agency revised down its estimate of 73 percent to about 23 percent, meaning Delta remained dominant until this week.
Omicron is undoubtedly becoming the dominant variant, and that could be good news: A new laboratory study carried out by South African scientists showed that people who had recovered from an infection with the variant might be able to fend off later infections from Delta.
Records are also being broken in Europe, but so far, the leaders of Britain, France, Spain and some other countries have resisted imposing harsh new restrictions amid calls from some who argue that it is time to accept that the virus is endemic and that countries should move away from lockdowns. These nations, confronted with Covid fatigue, are betting for now that high vaccine and booster coverage, along with earlier restrictions still in place, will be enough to keep the coronavirus manageable. …
(various links in the text above will not post)
the “even though” in the above )by dobbs @ 11148)
“countries are resisting restrictions “even though” calls ..to move away from lockdowns…”
[quotes (“..”) here are to paraphrase, not legally binding word for word.]
apparently people are tired of wearing masks but not tired of dying.
tired of avoiding crowds, but not tired of killing family and co-workers,
aapparently we are willing to mandate vaccination, but not to mandate masks or reasonable distancing or workplace protections.
America, land of the brave and viciously stupid.
Coberly,
It took a lot of work and a great deal of investment to get the US to the point that it would be the land of the brave and viciously stupid.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Underground-History-of-American-Education%3A-A-of-Gatto/e6befc13e5caa41fdf981bc9bb9c1da8fd4bc23d
What Social Trends Told Us About the American Economy in 2021
NY Times – December 29
“shutdowns weren’t nearly as widespread, but continuous waves of coronavirus…”
Connect the dots.
In response to Joel and coberly, Not sure if you had an opportunity to follow the link and read the article, in particular the detail and depth of Trump’s malice and reckless disregard for truth at the Iowa rally, just 3 months ago. It is certainly not my intention to open up the whole Freedom of Speech argument which is extremely complex and is certainly in need of fresh arguments in light of technology, social media and the political environment. I am looking at a very narrow carve out like the several that have already been carved out by previous SCOTUS opinions. My carve out would be narrowly focused on Electoral College Results. Without getting into a lot of detail, my suggestion would be something like this: Electoral College Results for 2020 are finally recorded in the National Archives on Jan. 6, 2022. Thereafter, lying with malice or reckless disregard for truth about results should be criminal & subject to fines and prison time. As SCOTUS has said in a perjury carve out in Alvarez, there is no 1st Amendment protection for a witness under oath because seeking truth is fundamental to our legal system. Likewise, there should be no protection for lying about legally finalized election results which are fundamental to the integrity of our electoral system and democracy itself. Trump should be free to lie to his heart’s content but not about “Nationally Archived Election Results.”
Trump is a monster. All (most?) here get that.
The problem is that his supporters will be very influential in the mid-terms, and he’ll get a lot of votes as the GOP nominee in 2024. The GOP is very wily and they seem to think they are cornered, with their survival at stake. They want him re-elected.
He’s not what’s good for the country, but he is (they think) what’s best for them.
J.P. McJefferson,
I have been told that my comments will be deleted because I disagree with people and hurt their feelings. This is just my attempt at good manners to let you know I read your reply (?) to mine.
Lying under oath is perjury and a crime. Lying to the people about public affairs is politics and protected free speech. I share your desire to stop the lying, but I am afraid it is a slippery slope to government censorship which is something the bad guys would do…will do. We need to think of something better.
@J.P.,
To answer your question, no I didn’t click the link to read the account of Trump’s mendacity in Iowa.
When it comes to the 1st Amendment, I’m pretty close to an absolutist. I despise Trump and everything he stands for, but I also hate the KKK and the American Nazi Party, and I defend their right to pollute the public space with their lies.
The carve-out solution you propose, as emotionally satisfying as it may seem, could one day be weaponized against the voices of tolerance in this country. If governmental tolerance of Trump’s lies is the price we pay for preserving the free speech rights of those I agree with, it’s a price we can afford.
FWIW, I think Steve Bannon and his fellow anarchists are more of a threat to our democracy than Trump. When a Bannon Jr. comes along who is younger, not as ugly and is more articulate, I tremble for our country. What Trumpism has proven is just how vulnerable we remain to demagoguery.
@J.P. McJ,
So far the best that you have done has gotten Joel and Coberly in agreement. That sir, is a brilliant piece of work in and of itself.
In any case, I want to take your side for a moment as it offers me the opportunity to present a more conditioned and less moral and ethical case rather focusing on the existential reality. So, then I must turn to the old proverb used against my ancestral American people, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Another way of putting this is “Never start a fight that you cannot win or are unprepared to finish.” Another analogy is the US is not Vietnam or Afghanistan. Whatever fight that we start here, we cannot later just pack up our bags and leave behind for the locals to sort out because in this case WE are the locals.
So, if we are prepared to go extra innings on this then I say “Bag ’em and tag ’em,” but otherwise then “Just keep your powder dry.”
I posted an Epilog. So I guess I fired another shot. Too early to tell if I hit anything. I do know that no Indians were killed in this inelegant moot court and I’m fresh out of powder.
Was thinking about EpiPen and its controversy. Some points related and unrelated:
The West Virginia University M.B.A. controversy concerns the granting of a “Master of Business Administration” Executive Master of Business Administration degree;”> (EMBA) by “West Virginia University” to “Mylan” pharmaceutical company executive “Heather Bresch” in 2007.
An independent panel later concluded that the university changed its records, and granted the degree despite incomplete graduation requirements. West Virginia University’s president Michael Garrison, its provost Gerald Lang, and its business school dean R. Stephen Sears, resigned as a result of the investigation, and the university’s general counsel and the president’s communications officer relinquished those roles. West Virginia
– HEATHER BRESCH, the former president and CEO of the drugmaker Mylan, worked directly with the CEO of Pfizer to keep prices of the company’s EpiPen product artificially high, according to new documents released as part of an ongoing lawsuit.
The documents also show Bresch approving a scheme to force customers, captured by the company’s monopoly, to purchase two EpiPens at once, regardless of medical need. The EpiPen is an auto-injectable device that injects epinephrine into the body and can be the difference between life or death for a person suffering a severe allergic reaction. The Intercept.
Just to be clear on the EpiPen issue. This is ~$25 worth of parts and an old Merck formula bought by Pfizer and supplied to Mylan who assembled the EpiPen. Profits from the $600 / package of two were split between Mylan and Pfizer.
– Meanwhile, Gayle Manchin, Bresch’s mother, lobbied states to require schools to stock epinephrine as the head of the National Association of State Boards of Education. Gayle Manchin was recently confirmed to serve as co-chair of the federal Appalachian Regional Commission, a government agency tasked with promoting economic development across the region’s 13 states. The Intercept
Joe, his wife, and his daughter appear to be enmeshed in businesses across West Virginia and the East coast. The Intercept article is from September 2021.
EPILOG
Electoral College Results for 2020 are finally deposited in the National Archives on January 6, 2022. Thereafter, lying with malice or reckless disregard for truth about the results should be considered criminal & subject to fines and penalties. Penalties should be extreme for Public Officials & Public Figures who must bear responsibility for peddling known lies that undermine the integrity and confidence of the American electoral system and the democracy itself.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has addressed the First Amendment Freedom of Speech issue as it relates to lying, misinformation and disinformation relating to voting issues. They have said:
As emphasized by Justice Alito in his dissent in the Alvarez case, “. . . there are broad areas in which any attempt by the state to penalize purportedly false speech would present a grave and unacceptable danger of suppressing truthful speech. . .it is perilous to permit the state to be the arbiter of truth.” To avoid the chilling effect on Freedom of Speech we must be extremely careful and assure that the government is not the sole arbiter of truth. To regulate the Big Lie and not offend the First Amendment case law, we must be able to define and articulate the real, hard truth and as well, disclose the arbiter of that truth.
As indicated above, the reason we must be insistent on regulating Donald Trump’s Big Lie or other similar lies now or in the future, is to maintain and preserve the integrity and confidence of the American electoral system and the democracy itself.
We have election laws and an electoral process in the United States that results in the official and final selection of our President and Vice President. When the results are legally and finally approved it should be illegal to say they are not real. This would be a Big Seditious Unconstitutional Lie.
#VotingRightsIsSolution
@J.P. McJ,
Well done.
I would feel better about it going forwards were the higher courts not packed by previous Republicans, but if we can then we should and then let the cards fall where they may. Winning is important, a matter far more sacrosanct than constitutional law, which has from the beginning, even when the Framers still lived, been subject to interpretation. Losing sucks.