Jasmine Crockett Knows How To Handle Lying Hucksters And Will Be Missed Due To Supreme Court Encouraged Gerrymandering

 

Libertarianism Was Tried And Found To Be A Disaster, That's What's Known As The 18th And 19th Centuries

Thrasaline -   What if a toy take 'em i'th' heels now, and they run all away, and cry the Devil take the hindmost?*  Beaumont and Fletcher: Philaster; Or, Love Lies a Bleeding

AS A CRITIC of the kind of "classical liberalism" which takes its meaning from the 18th century "enlightenment"  instead of the earlier Scriptural meaning which was based in liberal provision for the destitute and poor and unfavored, the weak of mind, etc.  one of the things I most despise about it is the lie that people are to always be taken as "rational actors" or "rational agents" and that the law, the legal system and politics is to always pretend that they are and every choice they make is to be considered in terms of a formal contract.   

What that is is lawyer-lies to argue that those their wealthy clients entrap, rob, destroy through unillegalized theft and enslavement are merely giving those pretended to be rational agents what they want.   Well, in some cases that is arguably the case though in those cases when corporations and individuals use that most notably successful but not all that insightful areas of psychology, the PR industry, to tempt, lie, gull, entrap and fleece People who are vulnerable, lawyers, judges and, ultimately that most corrupt body of all US lawyers, "justices" pretend to not understand exactly what is going on.  They simply take the attitude "not my problem" a they act for the crooks and con men, those whose business is based on even the worst of conning, entrapping, robbing and destroying those on the basis that those vulnerable to those consciously used tactics are "rational agents" even though the entirety of human history proves that is a lie.   That was understood from time immemorial as the story of Eve being gulled by the snake and Adam, the dope, going along with it is the quintessential model of that.  

I have told you about the People in my family destroyed by alcoholism,  I suspect nearly every family has closer or more distant relations about whom that same story could be told.  I didn't tell you of my sister whose death was certainly hastened and made worse by her inhalation of second-hand smoke from her husband and, tragically, enough, her children.   And now I have another family member, an adoptive nephew,  who I found out yesterday has fallen victim to online gambling to ruinous, perhaps eventually, suicidal effect - we're worried about that.   I won't go into details except to say that I strongly suspect he's not going to pull out of it,  he's the kind who is vulnerable to such things.   I know this won't get back to him so I'll tell you that much. 

That was one of the things I disagreed with the late Barney Frank about more strongly than many other things we disagreed about, in looking for quotes from him in support of his notable and, I hold,  infamous support for that dangerous, non-productive, and known to be addictive industry, a quick Duck Duck search for that showed that gambling sites and magazines widely noted his passing as a champion of their industry.   I'll pass by most of what I read to give you some of this article that show what I mean in terms of such "classical liberalism."

Barney Frank, the former Congressman known for his push to legalize online poker, has passed away. His efforts sparked debate among advocates and detractors alike, revealing differing views on his impact and methods during his tenure.

A Divided Legacy

Frank's history in Congress is marked by his controversial lobbying efforts. Supporters hailed him as a pivotal figure in making online poker accessible, but critics accused him of being more of a con artist than a true crusader. "He took cash to lobby; he wasn't very effective," one commentator noted.

Despite this, his legacy in gambling legislation remains significant. The regulation of online poker and betting has progressively shaped the industry, moving it closer to legitimacy.

Note that sentence "He took cash to lobby; he wasn't very effective,"   I would like to know how much of that cash was in the form of campaign donations,  a direct consequence of the corruption that the ACLU and NYCU and other "civil liberties" groups had a hand in bringing when they supported the Supreme Court decision that made "money=speech" and destroying CLEAN ELECTION legislation in Buckley vs Valeo.  I recall Frank noting in his witty way that politicians were pretended to be the only group of human beings who were, the Court and "civil libertarians" pretended were to be expected to take large amounts of money without giving anything in return.  Only, unlike me, I don't recall Frank ever admitting that it was the Court and "civil libertarians" who were peddling that lie.   I don't, by the way, think it enhances Frank's moral reputation that he clearly saw that lie but went along with it when it came to the gambling industry.   Such are the moral compromises that come with such liberalism as opposed to the older form of it, such "classical liberalism" such "liberty."  

And later the article points to more of how that corruption is baked into our "liberal democracy."

A New Era for Online Poker

As the online poker landscape continues to evolve, discussions around regulation are expected to gain traction after Frank’s passing. There's speculation that additional states might push towards legalization to tap into potential tax revenue. Expect state legislators to rethink their positions as public interest increases.

I'm old enough to remember that it was the one state that my state borders,  New Hampshire, that used to be the only state that had a state lottery.    And that was to "support education" because, famously lacking both a state income and sales tax, all of the support for government fell onto things like the state liquor store monopoly and local property taxes.   As politicians started running exclusively on "cutting taxes"  - and never forget,  New Hampshire is probably the most Republican of the New England states - this is the kind of thing they have turned to.   And it certainly didn't remain just to fund "education."  But, then, these days my state is as much in the thick of that as any, with state approved casinos.  I'm told the one close to me, which we were told would bring in lots and lots of out of state gamblers has pretty much only Maine license plates in the parking lot. 

Crossover from History: The Shift in Civil Rights

Looking back, the civil rights movement offers an interesting parallel. Just as figures like Barney Frank sparked discussions on gambling, civil rights leaders illuminated the ethical ambiguities in politics. Both movements reveal tension between progressive changes and pushback from more traditional factions.

First, the use of "progressive changes" to describe a libertarian position on gambling is historically ironic and journalistically inept because gambling, along with such things as prostitution and drinking,  was one of the foremost targets of the progressive era's political attempt to regulate it, if not wipe it out.   That was a reaction, in all three cases, to the actual destructive consequences in real lives of all three.   The "tradition" in the United States, at least in so far as alcohol and gambling, had been hard libertarian.   I have, of course, generated some heat by pointing out there is nothing about the certain consequences of such things,  sexually transmitted diseases, sexual enslavement, alcoholism, the consequences that come with drinking even among those who aren't alcoholics, which can be considered to be a matter of a "right" to suffer them.   And even more so when those and similar issues are combined as they so often are in the prostitution and porn industries,  the incidence of addiction and suicide and murder in that bastion of "civil liberties" championship is really rather telling as to the actual character of that ideology. 

In American history, it was those who insisted on having a realistic view of such "liberties" such ""rights"" who were the ones who weren't in any way tied to tradition.   I've seen all three fairly closely, in those I've known,  I've know people who were part of the porn industry, one of the first men I knew who died of AIDS was a porn "model."  I have a grand-niece who became an addict and, as her own mother told it to me, "a blow-job prostitute living beneath a bush in the Fens, in Boston."  She was one of the luckier ones, though it did result in her contracting hepatitis C, she has, so far, successfully been treated for her opiate addiction and is under treatment and working a job.   She is, by the way, the only one in my very large family who has had a serious addiction problem who has succeeded in staying off of it for, now, more than a decade.  The alcoholics in my family, with possibly one exception,  have, uniformly, only stopped when they died from it.  I thank God with some regularity that none of them have killed anyone in a car accident.   We don't have a lot of experience with gambling addictions in my family,  the superstitious belief in luck isn't notably strong in the strain of Irish Catholicism we were brought up in.   At least not to the extent we'd bet money on it.  

And getting back to the role that such liberties-loving law-making is peddled, we were told all kinds of yarns in that regard,  one of them which I believe I remember Barney Frank repeating was that "it's better to legalize it and regulate it."  If he didn't say it someone else certainly did because I've heard it continually since I started paying attention to politics in my infancy.   Well, if there's one thing you can count on in the intrinsically corrupt,  "civil liberties" "corporate person-hood" "money=speech" dirty money politics that the "civil liberties" industry and the most corrupt of all the branches of the Federal government, the Supreme Court have brought us to, it is that any attempt at regulation will either not be allowed at all, or will fall, whether under Supreme Court ruling or by a more corrupt Congress and executive, as the industry involved seeks to get ever more favorable conditions for their money making.    You can bet on even the most dangerous and ruinous and addictive activity tied to profits being ever more able to do that without having to worry much about regulation.   THAT IS HOW TOTALLY CORRUPT OUR CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM IS.    

* You hardly ever hear the answer to that.

Dion-  Then the same Devil take the foremost too, and           sowce him for his breakfast.

The consequences for libertarianism eventually hurt everyone, you can't depend on your "rational agency" to escape that for yourself.   Don't be a sucker for that superstition. 

Update:  A lot of the current increase in addiction and its consequences is a direct result of the Supreme Courts "civil liberties" legislating from the bench.  I haven't looked to see if the ACLU or other "civil liberties" lawyer groups weighed in on the case.  That makes it a consequence of the Constitutional order and, worse the Marbury type of Supreme Court usurpation of law making (nullification being a part of law making) from the bench. 

In 2018, a Supreme Court ruling struck down a federal sports betting ban, and gambling skyrocketed in subsequent years. Today, about 22% of Americans—and 48% of men ages 18–49—report having at least one online sportsbook account, according to the Siena Research Institute. As of December 2025, 31 states, plus Washington, D.C., allow for some form of online sports betting.

“We’re referring to it as the largest and fastest explosion of gambling the country has ever seen,” says Cait Huble, MA, MBA, director of public affairs for the National Council on Problem Gambling. “We’re a decade behind other addictions in terms of public understanding, which is going to lead to a lot of real-world harm.”

Gambling disorder falls in the same diagnostic category as drug and alcohol use disorders. One in five people with a gambling disorder attempt or complete suicide, an even higher risk than with other substance use disorders. Gambling tends to occur alongside other behavioral health conditions, such as problem alcohol, tobacco, and drug use, adds Christopher Welsh, MD, medical director of the Maryland Center of Excellence on Problem Gambling. Plus, mobile sports betting skews heavily toward younger male users, a population already facing higher rates of suicide and loneliness. 

Identifying someone with disordered gambling can be tricky, and many people don’t know how or when to seek help, says University of Nebraska-Lincoln drug and alcohol educator Jon Gayer, PhD. 

“You know when someone’s drunk,” he says. “You don’t know when someone’s stepped away and placed a $100 bet on the phone and then come back to dinner.”

But those behaviors can quickly devolve into problematic outcomes, says Elizabeth Thielen, LPC, a gambling counselor in Illinois. She’s listened to numerous accounts of students gambling away financial aid awards or blowing off their classes. Underage students will log on under a parent’s account or ask an older classmate to funnel bets through their app. 

“They’re losing sleep, their attendance is slipping, and they’re being harassed and threatened if they owe money,” she says. 

More About The Crisis That Depending On "AI" Slop As The Truth Is Bringing

 

That one example I gave yesterday is one drop in an ocean of false responses and inaccuracy presented as authoritative reliability.   Even if you believe the hype of a 9% inaccuracy rate, and I have no reason to believe it, the entire thing has disastrous results, not only for the individual who buys it BUT FOR THE ENTIRE ENTERPRISE OF PROVIDING ACCURATE INFORMATION.   It is killing off the suppliers of accurate research, news gathering and information in general 

This Is Why The Republican Fascists Have Targeted Graham Planter And Why He's Caught On I Maine Politics

 Taking it right to Susan Collins' voting record and her disgraceful deflection when that's put in her face.  Blaming those who chose to serve instead of her many votes to support Republican-fascist wars of profit no matter how wrong, criminal and ruinous they were. 

None of the previous Democrats who ran against her, some of them good politicians, would have been indelicate enough to say it this plainly.    It's why many of the more genteel Democrats are nervous about him but most of us here are glad to hear it.   

This Is Why The Wall Street Journal And Corporate Democrats Are Attacking Graham Platner

 

Watching The Latest Billionaire Rocket Phallic-Symbol Crash

 leads me to wonder if the destruction of the NASA rocket program, resulting in dependence on Elon and, he hopes,  Bezos, was a product of Nixon's really, really, really stupid idea of the space shuttle, the design of which was altered by such things as the self-interest of Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch and industry based in Utah.  I seem to remember one of the chief designers quit when such pressures got them to change the design from being made with titanium to aluminum, which is why they needed those ceramic tiles that caused the deaths and disasters and delays and cost overruns.   I recall reading that such Senatorial involvement with things led to that decision. 

After being kind of a space geek up until the end of the Apollo years,  I can't say I've kept up much with it.  So I don't really know the territory.   It's the kind of thing you might think I'd depend on "AI" to help me research in a fraction of the time it would take me to do it the more reliable and old fashioned way, but, no.   

Anyone know of any such reliable research into why we are depending on Elon and Bezos to such disastrous and ruinous and dangerous effect?   Those billionaires and their fixation with their own junk!  

In glancing over the earlier post

on a larger screen to see what needed editing,  I saw something that, to my shame, I hadn't noted before.

Notice how he put it, Oliver Ellsworth,  CHIEF "justice," notable lawyer, jurist, framer and diplomat when he was talking of human beings IN TERMS OF THEM BEING ENSLAVED AND WORKED TO DEATH IN SUCH NUMBERS. 

As slaves also multiply so fast in Virginia & & Maryland that it is cheaper to raise than import them,

"cheaper to raise than import them,"  like you'd say about radishes or lettuces.  Literally human lives as commodities,  the trade in which is to be a matter of economic advantage for the aristocrats, both financier and slave-holder-driver.   Human beings as herd animals and objects for use and trade.  

whilst in the sickly rice swamps foreign supplies are necessary, 

"FOREIGN SUPPLIES" are necessary where so many of them die from being worked to death in the "sickly rice swamps," the death rate exceeding the birth rate. 

if we go no farther than is urged, we shall be unjust towards S. Carolina & Georgia.  Let us not intermeddle. 

"Unjust towards S. Carolina and Georgia"   UNJUST!  TOWARDS THE SLAVE-HOLDERS IN THE TWO STATES!  IF THEY DON'T ALLOW THEM TO IMPORT HUMAN BEINGS KIDNAPPED AND HUMAN TRAFFICKED, THE WHITE ARISTOCRATIC ELITE OF GEORGIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA, THE RICE BARONS ON THEIR WAY TO BEING AMONG THE RICHEST HUMAN BEINGS ON THE PLANET DUE TO THEIR SLAVING.  

That is the kind of thinking that went into the founding, the framing the writing and adoption of the Constitution of the United States.  

"Let us not intermeddle," in the same way the Roberts Court's New Taney Six doesn't want too "intermeddle" as the descendants of the slavers in the slave states prevent Black People, the descandants of the slaves who were treated that property from the possibility of getting their due representation in the Congress.   No doubt on their way to giving a green ligtht to the full range of Black voter suppression that was the practice of the antebellum period and the Supreme Court sanctioned Jim Crow,  now being revived in John (Roberts) Crow.    Every one of the New Taney Six, Roberts, Alito, Thomas Goresuch, Kavanaugh and Coney-Barrett should have their names and reputations tied to Taney's and his Dred Scott majority every single time they're mentioned, individually and collectively. 

"AI" Seems To Have Poor Reading Comprehension and Research Skills

 I GOOGLED "what did James Madison say about slave revolts"  and in glancing at the "AI" which I would rather not come up as it is an abominable use of resources and often just reguritates bad research from most often-clicked on sites and saw something that looked both familiar and a little dodgy. :

Kind Treatment as a Deterrent: Rather than just relying on force, Madison suggested to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that the "danger of insurrections from foreign influence" should actually act as a "motive to kind treatment of the slaves". He believed avoiding excessive cruelty would reduce the likelihood of mass rebellions.

If the "AI" had the research skills of an intelligent high school Sophomore, he'd have looked for the primary document   and read that. though it had been included in Madison's notes on the deliberation of the drafting of the Constitution,  it wasn't something he said but was was part of what should be considered an infamous statement by Oliver Ellsworth (the drafter of much of Article 3 of the Constitution, the Judiciary Act, which gives us some the now more regrettable aspects of the judiciary,  and the second Chief "justice" of the Supreme Court) in support of the importation of slaves because so many of them were worked to death in the rice swamps of South Carolina and Georgia.   Essentially endorsing an act that would gain infamy when it was such as the Krupps and Farbens and others who worked slaves to death for their profit during WWII.  It should be common knowledge that such thinking and intent as that went into the framing of the Constitution.*

Mr. ELSWORTH. As he had never owned a slave could not judge of the effects of slavery on character: He said however that if it was to be considered in a moral light we ought to go farther and free those already in the Country. -As slaves also multiply so fast in Virginia & & Maryland that it is cheaper to raise than import them, whilst in the sickly rice swamps foreign supplies are necessary, if we go no farther than is urged, we shall be unjust towards S. Carolina & Georgia. Let us not intermeddle. As population increases poor laborers will be so plenty as to render slaves useless. Slavery in time will not be a speck in our Country. Provision is already made in Connecticut for abolishing it. And the abolition has already taken place in Massachusetts. As to the danger of insurrections from foreign influence, that will become a motive to kind treatment of the slaves.

Oddly, the "AI" links to the White House Historical Society website in a rather revealing article about how James and Dolly Madison treated the slaves held by them,  it's not pretty reading though it's presented in probably as pretty a way as they dared to present it during the last decade.   But in my quick reading of it I didn't find any reference to the passage quoted. 

*  Another reference given by "AI" in that search went to an NPR article dealing with the fact that the Second Amendment, far from being anything to do with freedom in the face of an oppressive government, was actually written for the benefit and safety of slave-holders in slave states who were afraid of slave rebellions.  

It was in response to the concerns coming out of the Virginia ratification convention for the Constitution, led by Patrick Henry and George Mason, that a militia that was controlled solely by the federal government would not be there to protect the slave owners from an enslaved uprising. And ... James Madison crafted that language in order to mollify the concerns coming out of Virginia and the anti-Federalists, that they would still have full control over their state militias — and those militias were used in order to quell slave revolts. ... The Second Amendment really provided the cover, the assurances that Patrick Henry and George Mason needed, that the militias would not be controlled by the federal government, but that they would be controlled by the states and at the beck and call of the states to be able to put down these uprisings.

The drafting of the "Bill of Rights" included such "rights" as the right of slave-holders to suppress those held in slavery from attempting to do what the founders and framers had done,  or rather the free Black men and landless white and recent immigrant men who formed the backbone of the Revolutionary Army had done for the slave-holders and aristocrats,  fight for THEIR rights. 

Maybe in the month leading up to the massive lie of the 250th, I should do more on the founding and framing.  When you look at it with an eye to the fact that most of the framers and founders were deeply morally corrupt - as all slave-holders and financiers are - you can see why we are living with such corruption now. 

Saturday Night Stand-In For A Radio Play - Clifford Simak - Mr. Meek Plays Polo

 It's a novella, not a play but it's what I got to listening to as I was looking for something to re-start the SNRD series I've let lapse since Trump II started.   I always enjoy Simak's settings which you can imagine finding in some run-down section of a small town,  the kind of place that doesn't have the slightest idea of fashion or sophistication. 

Mr. Meek Plays Polo 

"Trump weighs 238 pounds"

 YEAH, MEASURED THIS WAY

 

"and when it was discovered that I'm Jewish they changed their line and now my crime is I'm indoctrinating students. . . "

If you're expecting George Clooney and his partner to write a play about this,  I would suggest holding your breath might be dangerous for your health.

I DIDN'T CLICK ON THIS video yesterday when it started showing up on the sidebar while I was listening to the news.  Once I did I have to ask why the ADL and other groups aren't required to register as agents of a foreign country,  Israel, which is the largest recipient of US aid.  I wonder what argument could be made that groups that worked in tandum with the Israeli government are under a legal requirement to register as agents of a foreign government.   In looking at that for this post, I was surprised to find you don't have to get direct money from a foreign government to be a foreign agent. 

What they are doing is exactly the same thing that Red Channels did, what other private groups did in drawing up blacklists starting in the late 1940s and targeting, among others, university and other teachers.   What is clearly going on now is  Americans are being put on a new blacklist and we are going through the current equivalent to the 1940s-60s red scare.  WITH CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS OF THE HUAC VARIETY.    If you think that term is too much,  you can listen to the reading of this three year old article documenting that it is exactly what we are going through from The Nation.*

Professor Robinson is a sociology professor of global studies, with special expertise in Latin America. This interview largely focuses on his troubles in 2009 when two Jewish students took offense at critical material about Israel in his curriculum and reported him to local pro-Israel groups. Soon the full force of the national/international Israel lobby became involved and sought to get him fired, even including the head of the Anti-Defamation League (Abe Foxman) making a cross-country trip to convene with highest level university officials to get Robinson removed from its faculty. 

Initially, Robinson was accused of being an antisemite until it was discovered that he was, in fact, Jewish.

In this interview, professor Robinson discusses the story of his struggle for academic freedom and how he nearly lost his faculty position because of critical material about Israel he presented to his class; widespread censorship and self-censorship about the Israel-Palestine conflict in the academic world; the declared “New Antisemitism” that is merely criticism of Israel and its policies; Israel’s activism in supporting despotic regimes in Latin America; the “dirty and underhanded” efforts by the Anti-Defamation League to control discourse about Israel; “eerie parallels” between the Nazi control of the Warsaw ghetto and Israeli control of Gaza (Robinson makes these comparisons 15 years ago); pro-Israel propaganda organizations on campus; the “tragedy” of widespread Jewish association and identification with the state of Israel; among other issues.

About seven years after this interview, in 2017, Robinson co-edited a book called “We Will Not Be Silenced: The Academic Repression of Israel's Critics.” Judging by information about this volume today on the internet, it seems – not surprisingly – to have to been largely ignored and never received much attention or media reviews.

*  Here is some of what you can read at The Nation without having a subscription:

It was a scene reminiscent of the Red Scare days, of grainy black-and-white television images of political witch hunts by the old House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). But rather than hunting for disloyal communist sympathizers, committee members at early December’s hearing before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce were instead hunting for university presidents disloyal to Israel. “Are you now, or have you ever been, an anti-Zionist?” quipped New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg. “You can see the trap.”

What is missing from Congress are hearings into the decades of illegal anti-Palestinian espionage, covert action, and blacklisting of Americans within the United States by the Israeli government and its domestic collaborators—actions far more serious and damaging than campus semantics. As noted in my earlier articles for The Nation, they range from dispatching a secret agent to interfere in a presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump; to launching a covert operation within the US targeting academics and others who support a boycott of Israel; to conducting a massive operation to spy on and “crush” pro-Palestinian students throughout the country; to establishing a secret Israeli-run troll farm across the US to harass anyone critical of Israel; to hiring Americans to secretly spy on American students and report back to Israeli intelligence. And then there is Canary Mission, a massive blacklisting and doxxing operation directed from Israel that targets students and professors critical of Israeli policies, and then launches slanderous charges against them—charges designed to embarrass and humiliate them and damage their future employability. All secretly funded by wealthy Jewish Americans and Jewish American foundations.

Following the October 7 Hamas attack and the launch of Israel’s war in Gaza, members of Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee (HPSC) sponsored a letter addressing the conflict. “Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum,” it said. “For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to ‘open the gates of hell,’ and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced.” The letter was cosigned by 33 other student organizations and published in The Harvard Crimson, the campus newspaper. Almost immediately, Canary Mission created online profiles for members of the Crimson’s editorial board (though a few likely already had one from when the Crimson endorsed divestment), along with profiles of the leaders of the HPSC and other campus clubs that cosigned the letter. The goal of the blacklist was to dox those named, encourage their harassment, and limit their future employment prospects.

I Can't Believe That Vance's Owner

Peter Thiel will give him his permission to resign as VP.   Not with him getting this close to being in the position that Elon Musk was, having his puppet as president of the US with the dictatorial impunity that the Roberts Court gave Trump.  Thiel will never be this close to that much power, ever again, and he's a psycopath with Musk sized dreams of world domination. 

I don't think Vance would willingly give up his obviously excellent chance to be president once Trump croaks, which it's looking every day more likely he will before much more time has passed.   

Whether or not Vance will run in 2028 is a more open question, it would depend on him grasping back some of he loss of support that has happened under the corruption and disasters that Trump II has brought to the Republican-fascists.   

Me?  I'm hoping Trump doesn't die.   In my fantasy of fantasies he would survive the year,  that a Democratic Congress with a super-majority of Democrats in the Senate,  completing the impeachments that should have succeeded during Trump I and removing him from office in the utter shame and criminality that would serve the world, justice and American democracy the best.   Then they could deal with Vance, who would probably pardon Trump, though he might be smart enough to understand that that was likely what cost Gerald Ford election to the presidency in 1976.  

My greatest wish would be for Democrats in the house to replace their leader before that happens with someone who might be a better leader and a better third in line for the presidency.   I'm not impressed with Jeffries,  he's too much of a lawyer, too cautious, too establishment, too timid.   I would be a lot more confident in Joe Neguse having that position. 

Scott Bessent Could Be The Living Gay Man Who I Loathe The Most If Lindsey Graham Weren't Alive

BEFORE WATCHING THAT ARROGANT, CONCEITED LIAR AND FOOL let me point out that along with Viktor Orban and Steve Mnuchin,  Bessent was a George Soros protogee.   To show you how reliable that billionaire's judgement about "civil society" is. 

I will add hypocrite, the FAGA asshole is a gay man married to a gay man with adopted children in a Republican-fascist state which, if Trump and the Republicans had their way, would be a marriage and adoption as illegal as Clarence Thomas' marriage were if his Constitutional theories had held.   

I posted this because I hope that picture of he grinning asshole holding up the funny money with Trump's puss on it becomes his unofficial and perpetual portrait. 

To Put It As Free Speechy As Possible

THAT MFer WHO ARGUED BUCKLEY V VALEO the ruling that made American elections safe for the kind of dirty money that forced Nixon to resign fifty two years ago,  Joel Gora, is a member of the fascist Federalist Society and, so far as I can discern, the Cato Institute and has regularly lectured on free speechyness for those whore houses for oligachy.    His career as a "civil liberties lawyer" stinks of promoting dirty politics on behalf of those who can pay very, very well and supporting some of the filthiest of filth, what the Federalist fascists have produced in their promotion of the likes of the Roberts Courts New-Taney six. 

I've mentioned before that Ephraim London who, likewise, made his reputation on such "civil liberties" was the asshole who the liar and fabulist (not to mention the gal who tried to cheat Martin Luther King jr. out of a legacy left to him) Lillian Hellmann, hired when she brought suit against Mary McCarthy for telling the truth that she was a fucking liar.   The hag didn't expect to win, she wanted to drag it out long enough to ruin McCarthy for telling the truth about her.   That asshole lawyer also represented her when she was trying to steal the money Dorothy Parker left to MLK jr. in her will - Parker was sharp but she fell for Hellman's act. 

Alan Dershowitz,  well,  I'll go into details if you're unfamiliar with that total asshole.  But you can look him up.  His "civil liberties" reputation was largely if not entirely a matter of arguing cases favoring porn.  His more recent activities have included trying to get academics blackballed because he didn't like what they freely AND WITH GREAT CARE TO DOCUMENT wrote and said.   Like so many a "civil libertarian" he likes to threaten to sue to try to intimidate but seldom, if ever, carries through.  

I could go on naming names and giving particulars on the famous "civil libertarians" and their relationship with "free speech" and promoting filth in our political lives and law. 

This has been a response.

Update:  I take back "blackballed."  What I should have said in regard to the Dersh is "blacklisted." 

The Incontinent Trump Needs To Be Removed

IF THIS IS REAL,  hell, even if it's not what it appears to be, I'm posting it because I remember what the mainstream press did to Joe Biden.   Hey, NYT,  George Clooney, where are you?   Or should I say "Où es-tu?

UPDATE:  OK, the direct post of the Youtube of Trump walking behind the column as he shits his pants seems to have been removed in some fashion.   As of this update the link above works.  

More Speech Which You Don't Like On "More Speech" - Hate Mail

IN MY EXPERIENCE there have been no louder objectors to me telling the truth about "free speech"  absolutism than the "free speech" champions.   I am almost always told I should shut up, either explicitly or implicitly.   And most of them are reliably in the "more speech" club.   As I said the other day,  the right to tell the truth is about the only absolute form of "free speech" which doesn't carry dangers, except, arguably, in the most fraught of circumstances when telling the truth can get someone killed.  The Supreme Court invented "right to lie" is probably about in direct inverse in the percentages of good as opposed to bad applications of it, hardly ever being good even if at times arguably innocuous.  

"More speech" was, famously, an invention of that hero of progressives, the Supreme Court associate "justice" Louis Brandeis, or so I have always been told.   The case was the famous 1927 Whitney v California in which, ironically, Brandeis issued a concurring opinion with the majority who upheld the conviction of a wealthy Marxist by the state of California who was accused of wanting to start one of those totally futile, often spoiler "third parties" which have in almost every case where they've had an effect, helped the enemies of workers, minorities and equality.    

The money paragraph is this one.

Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom.  Such, in my opinion, is the command of the Constitution. It is therefore always open to Americans to challenge a law abridging free speech and assembly by showing that there was no emergency justifying it..

There are a number of hypocrisies in that paragraph,   Which should have been obvious to Brandeis due to his own, life history.   Here from the "Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University:

Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856–1941) was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish parents who had immigrated from Bohemia after 1848. At age 18, Louis Brandeis enrolled in Harvard Law School, graduating first in his class in 1877. 

Louis Brandeis was born into the pre-Civil War South, in a slave state.  He certainly was old enough to remember the Civil War.   He grew up and lived his entire life in a country in which lynching was an epidemic if not a pandemic.  THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A LYNCHING IN THE UNITED STATES WHICH WAS NOT A PRODUCT OF FREE SPEECH,  hate speech, lies,  exactly the kind of thing I favor removing from our mass media and discourse.   By the time Brandeis wrote that paragraph,  there had been thousands of lynchings, especially of Black People, men and Women and Children, though of many white People, especially those of local ethnic minorities.  

By the way, you should read the article from the "Free Speech Center" because it shows that Brandeis was hardly consistent in his "free speech" shtick. 

You may point out something that I never, ever hear mentioned by the "more speech" Chatty Cathys, that Brandes in giving them that truncated slogan conditioned it on there being "If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, .  . . "  Even in that most famous ruling, he conditioned it, he didn't present it in absolutist terms.   

Of course, in real life, there so often isn't time to apply that "process of education" to avert such evil BECAUSE THE "PROCESS OF EDUCATION" HAS ALREADY PREDISPOSED THE LYNCH MOB TO COMMIT MURDER.    Any such "education speech" has already been flooded with "more education speech" educating and indoctrinating in racism, hatred, predisposition to believe lies, etc.  And the results are deadly for those in whom THAT "more speech" has resulted in their death.  

That is something that the superbly educated and informed lawyer of good will, Louis Brandeis certainly was aware of because even in the year before he issued that ruling there were 30 documented lynchings in the United States,  a period when the KKK was resurgent and, with the consequence of the speech which had led to that resurgence,  speech magnified and spread with all of the organs of "free press" and the innovations of public relations was not defeated by an effective and timely - even over the period of years - "process of education."  

And it is far worse than that because if there is one thing that is obvious about those he certainly meant by "those who won our independence by revolution" in the context of a Supreme Court case, he didn't mean the free Black Men, the many landless, Poor White Men and others who actually fought in the Revolutionary War, he meant the aristocrats and slave-holders who wrote the Constitution who had had some role in fomenting the Revolution.  It is clear from both the actions of the Continental Congress who administered the affairs of the revolutionary movement and those who, independence being won, wrote the Constitution largely in reaction to the Revolutionary soldiers who found they had been cheated and exploited and revolted against the several states, that they certainly didn't favor the free speech of Black People, Native Americans, any Poor Whites who had serious objections to things.   That certainly includes the likes of James Madison, the so-called father of the Bill of Rights who certainly had no intention of his creation enhancing the "more speech" of his or his classes' slaves.   The ones whose descendants were so often lynched as a consequence of abundant "free speech." 

That last list, with additions of many other groups,  are exactly the same groups who today suffer the consequences of the "more speech" that more money buys in the free press who are owned by oligarchs and which, unsurprisingly, use their more and more and more and more speech than any poor or even middle-class individual or cash-starved non-profit group which doesn't serve the oligarchy can ever have. 

The years in which that "more speech" has been the rallying cry of the "civil liberties" pros and amateurs have been exactly the years that have seen the destruction of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and myriads of other hard-won progress against that tide of American Constitutional decision making, resulting in Republican-fascist administrations and congresses who have appointed the white supremacist Roberts Court - that slogan has failed the test of time and history. 

The problem with the slogan of "more speech" is that, especially after the First Amendment rulings of the Supreme Court starting with Sullivan v NYT,  and most of all in the line of rulings after Buckly v Valeo,  the "more speech" is countered by more ad more and more . . . speech bought with billions and millions and exploiting the worst weaknesses of human beings in exactly the way that makes con men successful,  sleazy advertising profitable and which fuels lynch mobs AND TRUMP'S INSURRECTIONIST THUGS ON JANUARY 6, 2021. 

You can take your "more speech" and shove it up your ass.  Or that of any member of the Supreme Court you choose. 

I don't have much respect for much of any members of the Supreme Court, almost every one who you'd expect me to have any respect for have either written or concurred in terrible injustices or taken obviously cowardly actions or, even more often, inactions.   The year before he wrote his famous phrase, Brandeis concurred with Holmes Buck v Bell decision which he cited the very next year in one of his dissents.   And that goes right back to the start with the likes of Oliver Ellsworth, John Marshall and Joseph Storey.  I don't like lawyers.  They are in the profession of lying, generally for those who can pay the most.   The whole thing is fruit of the poison tree.  We need a new Constitution, not least of which is a "First Amendment" that makes it clear there is no such a thing as a court protected "right to lie." 

Our Filthy Dirty And Dangerous Democracy Destroying Politics Is A Direct Result Of The Dangerously Written First Amendment

HERE IS BERNIE SANDERS with whom I agree on many things - but not everything -  on the combined "money speech" in even primary races targeting a Republican with whom, like Bernie Sanders,  I have little in common though we agree entirely on at least two key issues,  the Epstein criminals being exposed and the disastrous Trump-Republican-fascist war on Iran.

If you want more particulars on where the FRICKIN' NINETEEN-MILLION DOLLARS - ON A PRIMARY! came from,  here from the NYT.  

Supporters of Mr. Trump, as well as pro-Israel groups that are unhappy with Mr. Massie over his opposition to the war with Iran, have spent heavily to defeat the congressman.

They and other advertisers have laid out nearly $19 million against Mr. Massie or in favor of Mr. Gallrein. Last summer, Mr. Trump’s aides even started a super PAC, MAGA KY, for the purpose of ousting Mr. Massie, drawing support from the Republican megadonor Paul Singer and a super PAC heavily funded by Miriam Adelson, another megadonor and supporter of Mr. Trump. Two pro-Israel groups, including one tied to the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, spent over $9 million against him.

After the crimes of Nixon, his campaign, his campaign donors were revealed,  the role of dirty money in American politics at levels that were shocking fifty five years ago BUT WHICH ARE ROUTINE TODAY,  a bi-partisan group of House members and Senators passed sweeping CLEAN ELECTION campaign laws so that that kind of thing couldn't happen ever again.   

Only the Supreme Court wiped out that CLEAN ELECTIONS LEGISLATION,  BI-PARTISAN LEGISLATION PASSED TO MAKE OUR ELECTIONS SYSTEM HONEST,  they did so by not only claiming it was a violation of "free speech" but inventing the absurd, dishonest AND ENTIRELY CORRUPT concept that billionaire and millionaire money equaled "speech" and so the Congress was barred by the sacred cow of Constitutional worship, the First Amendment.    And in that they had the full support of the ACLU, the NYCU and other "civil liberties" entities such as Joel Gora (the lawyer who argued the case in favor of dirty money),  Stewart Mott, Eugene McCarthy,  as well as fascist Republicans such as James Buckley (brother of the fascist and white supremacist William F. Buckley)  whose name names the case, Buckley v Valeo.  

That is why the likes of AIPAC,  Mariam Adelson, Paul Singer, - whose motives, support of the war that Netanyahu got Trump to wage are obvious - and so many others whose motives are opaque but likely as dangerous, are pouring billions into buying us dirty government - it's all because of the mid-1970s "civil liberties" lawyer-liars and the fat-headed members of the Supreme Court - including some of the more ill considered heroes of liberalism on the Court and off of it.   I have no doubt that many an Epstein-Maxwell client may have put money on Massie's opponent hoping to keep their names hidden. 

You won't get much of that from the media WHO ARE ENORMOUS FINANCIAL WINNERS FROM OUR DIRTY POLITICS THROUGH AD BUYS as well as beneficiaries of them being freed by "civil liberties" rulings to lie with impunity.  I doubt you'll ever hear the best of them point this out, not Rachel Maddow, not Keith Olbermann, but that "FREE SPEECH" is the direct source of our dangerously anti-democratic politics.   The old answer that such lies can be effectively countered with "more speech" is a quaint notion, the kind of notion that pretends that even massive demonstrations with hundreds of thousands, millions, even, can compete with the continual broadcast and online lie campaigns and the billionaire and millionaire money.   IF THAT OLD LEFTISH, CIVIL LIBERTISH LIE OF "MORE SPEECH" WERE TRUE WE WOULDN'T HAVE LOST THE ELECTIONS THAT RESULTED IN CITIZENS UNITED and the many other cases that flowed from Buckley v Valeo that have systematically made our politics more and more corrupt,  First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, McCutcheon v. FEC, Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett  and other rulings by the most corrupt entity in American politics throughout history, the Supreme Court and their followers in lower courts. 

This, by the way, also answers the question as to why I use the phrase "civil liberties" and, especially,  "civil liberties lawyers" with utter and complete contempt.   So many of them care nothing for real equality, for clean politics, for good governance, so many of them are total hypocrites, such as the older members of the ACLU and its affiliates, such big names as Joel Gora, Ephraim London, Alan Dershowitz,  most of them were either OK with all of that corruption or they supported it the results as they basked in the media adoration of their "civil liberties" BS.   As mentioned, they freed the media to lie and to collect all that dirty money in ad buys, so why would they tell the truth about it?   Though I'm fully prepared to believe a few of them simply never thought the issue through to its final consequences in the real life of those who are destroyed, oppressed and ruined by what that money in politics buys for those who spend it. 

Two Epitaphs On A Politican by Hilaire Belloc

Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

Another on the Same

This, the last ornament among the peers,
Bribed, bullied, swindled and blackmailed for years:
But Death's what even Politicians fail
To bribe or swindle, bully or blackmail.

This Is The Danger I Warned About As The Zionists Destroy The Potency And Accuracy Of The Word "Antisemitism"

BELOW IS A COMMENT I JUST FOUND on this Youtube talking about the increasingly angry mood of the public in Germany.  I include my response to the comment 

Katja Hoyer, author of Beyond the Wall and Weimar, joins Will Lloyd to discuss the reception of her history books in Germany and the country's political situation.

Here is the typically neo-Nazi comment, including the "Lebensraum666" pseudonym and echoing 1920s-40s Nazism. 

@lebenstraum666
5 hours ago
West fails to understand Jewish Privilege. To even bring up the JQ today is condemned as anti-Semitic. Modern or Jewish 'science' is mathematics-based and has displaced genuine science.
Unless this is understood, the Western masses' continuous fall into debt-based poverty cannot and will not be reversed.
1

Reply
Anthony McCarthy
​ @lebenstraum666    You are an idiot.  "Jewish 'science'" is mathematics-based and has displaced genuine science."    That would be a surprise to scientists from Copernicus to Galileo and Kepler and Newton and Max Planclk.   Science has been intimately tied to mathematics since classical times.     As for the rest of it,  neo-Nazi garbage.   There is plenty to criticize and condemn and fight against when the question is Israel AS MANY JEWS DO,  Targeting "Jews" in this way is far stupider than blaming the billionaires and millionaires who are the real dangers most of whom are not Jews and many of whom are your fellow antisemites. 

Zionists have increased the danger of this with their dishonest use of words to shield Israel from its Nazi-like crimes and they and their allies and tools using everything from badly considered laws and the mass media in their attempt to shield Israel from legitimate criticism and targeting.   The neo-Nazis, no doubt, saw this as the golden opportunity that it is to help them recruit AS HAS THE AMERICAN FASCIST, WHITE SUPREMACIST FORM OF INDIGENOUS FASCISM.    It has entered mainstream American RIGHT WING media and propaganda while the Zionists target peace marchers and demonstrators and those who call for defunding the Israeli state.