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Posts posted by bolverk
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13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:
Anal probes, man. Anal probes.

Oh my God! They killed Cartman. Those bastards!

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18 hours ago, Gil Bang said:
Naughty Events issued wristbands that indicated if an individual had shown paperwork to prove they had antibodies and other wristbands that had the date of the individuals' last negative test result. Attendees were also required to socially distance in lines and wear masks in public spaces, Hannaford wrote, but some attendees admitted to being more lax on the last few days of the convention.
The visual for this just cracks my shit up: socially-distanced line of middle-aged naked dudes with masks on and their tallywackers out patiently waiting their turn and thinking to themselves "I'm here for the gangbang."
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2 minutes ago, Cacti said:
That line was crossed well before my time, and I’m an old. Steering their flock in a certain political direction certainly isn’t limited to pastors who are Trump-supporting evangelicals.
All the more reason to tax them all.
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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:
I suspect that most evangelicals don't get their whacked beliefs from the pulpit so much as the various social things that they're involved with. And even if they get it from clergy, too, it's probably not from the pulpit. Evangelicals tend to cling to one another.
It gets preached directly from the pulpit. I witnessed it first hand growing up in a Baptist church, as well as the Sunday before this past election. My mom was staying with me for a few days after having eye surgery (lens replaced). She's been a member of the same congregation since 1977 and attends every Sunday. I felt bad for her and showed her how to stream the service on my laptop, and out of curiosity I wanted to hear what the preacher would say since the election was in a couple of days.
It was exactly like watching Fox News but imagine Sean Hannity preaching from the pulpit with him railing against socialism, that "Christianity is under attack" and they (the flock) had a Christian duty to protect this country. Now, granted, he never called out Biden or Democrats by name; he didn't have to when the messaging is the same as what they hear and see on their preferred cable teevee news station. It's a neat trick when your preacher can be a megaphone for an overtly partisan message without coming afoul of the IRS.
And it's a powerful reinforcement mechanism for the information bubble you live in when your preacher tells you that "they" or "those people" are working in cahoots with Satan, and therefore you have a moral, nay, religious duty to conquer your evil foes. ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIER!!!
It was the same bullshit garbage I was forced to listen to in silence for the first 17 years of my life, wishing that a different family would've adopted me as a baby.
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17 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:
the very beautiful resolute desk?
you know, people made jokes about him stealing furniture, and i laughed it off. then we saw him sitting behind that fisher price my first desk over thanksgiving, and i didn't really think about it. but now that he's specifically mentioning it, i'm gonna need proof of life. i need a photograph of the resolute desk with a copy of today's newspaper.
If you recall, there was that moving truck parked out front of the White House for a couple of days right after the election.
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Curiosity about how the Founding Fathers viewed US Citizenship lead me down a small rabbit hole on Wikipedia (yeah, I know) on the Naturalization Act of 1790 and the multiple modifications which followed. It appears that it was granted pretty freely after a period of time of residence and having a "good moral character."
This gets to the crux of the history in pretty short manner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790
None of this, however, goes back to the counting of all the people in the US and the question of counting Indians. Here's the history on that: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/summer/indian-census.html Basically, the "Indians not taxed" clause for the count excluded those who were "living among us," they were counted. The instructions read:
QuoteBy the phrase "Indians not taxed" is meant Indians living on reservations under the care of Government agents, or roaming individually, or in bands, over unsettled tracts of country.
Indians not in tribal relations, whether full-bloods or half-breeds, who are found mingled with the white population, residing in white families, engaged as servants or laborers, or living in huts or wigwams on the outskirts of towns or settlements are to be regarded as a part of the ordinary population of the country for the constitutional purpose of the apportionment of Representatives among the States, and are to be embraced in the enumeration.
1890 is when we started to count all Natives.
So, yeah, that clause shouldn't be one that would be relied upon to not include illegal aliens, because they do indeed live among us and are part of our communities.
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14 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:
Under that argument, legal aliens, that is permanent residents, those on student or H1B or other visas, etc. all count on the census.
Those without legal status do not.
Given that there wasn't much conception of someone unlawfully present at the time of the founding, it seems to me to be a legit question to pose.
I think the answer should probably be "persons are persons," legal, illegal, citizens, aliens, men, women, children, slaves, free people, the whole lot. Not dogs, cats or hamsters. Still worth asking though.
Thank you for explaining what you're saying in a way I can understand the distinction you were making. Like others, I still disagree that their argument has any merit if one were simply looking at the "plain language" of counting all persons in a state and using that to apportion the number of reps.
While I can "get" the rationale for saying something along the lines of "those people cain't vote so why should they count?", I'd say the counterargument is that representatives are bound by a responsibility of representing ALL of their constituents -- voters and non-voters alike -- as they make the rules that govern all of society which, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, includes undocumented workers as it did once did for women and non-property owners before the suffrage was expanded. Hell, even going back the 3/5 compromise, the slaves whom many considered not to be actually "human" got counted and represented.
Now, I'm pretty sure that you would likely come down on the side of saying we should be counting all persons living in a state and your position is more of a legalistic thought exercise that the Trump administration just may have a point, but I'm saying strictly as a layman that their argument is basically a bunch of bullshit.
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3 minutes ago, RPM said:
That and as Churchill famously stated, if the island falls, the Empire will carry on the fight until victory. Even though much of the empire has been liberated, I can't help but think they would go all in, especially Canada and Australia. Possibly India.
Not to mention they also got a big assist from FDR (directly) and Stalin (indirectly).
Off topic, I do sort of admire the Irish a bit for staying out of defending England from a pure resentment/hatred standpoint but remaining neutral after D Day is still a bad look.
/ending thread derail
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4 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:
Actually, they're not arguing that non-citizens don't count.
Just those whose status here is not lawful.
Given that the constitution says not much about immigration or citizenship, it's a legit question. Granted, their motives for asking the question are geared to disenfranchisement or underrepresentation, but it's still a legit question.
Huh? Can you expand on what you mean there, because I'm not following what you're saying. Also, I'm not a constitutional legal scholar. If, as the article states, that their case is based on Trump's memo which reads:
In July, Mr. Trump issued a memorandum taking a new approach. “For the purpose of the reapportionment of representatives following the 2020 census,” the memo said, “it is the policy of the United States to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status.”
“Current estimates suggest that one state is home to more than 2.2 million illegal aliens, constituting more than 6 percent of the state’s entire population,” the memo said, apparently referring to California. “Including these illegal aliens in the population of the state for the purpose of apportionment could result in the allocation of two or three more congressional seats than would otherwise be allocated.”
then, their entire argument is that undocumented residents shouldn't be used to apportion seats. What am I not getting?
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1 minute ago, DigglerontheHoof said:Now we all we need is our Olenna Tyrell.
Obligatory

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3 minutes ago, RPM said:
He's really King Joffrey at this point. We all know how that ended.
I've long argued he's some combination of Chauncey Gardiner, Ignatius J. Reilley, and King Joffrey.
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2 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:
Well, they've got a pretty long history of flirting with disaster. To read how high up moles from both the Nazis and the Sov-Coms managed to rise in Britain, you have to wonder that they still exist as an independent country at all.
The answer can only be the Channel for the last 1000 years. Before then, the Anglo Saxons, Vikings, and Normans got them pretty good, but they finally figured out having a bunch of boats is a good thing when you're an island.
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14 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:
We really need to send the Queen a nice apology note explaining we didn't mean it, we clearly don't deserve to be governing ourselves, and sorry about all the fuss.
I sometimes have wondered if we wouldn't have ultimately been better off going the route of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand for independence, but then my populist anti-monarchy sentiments get the better of me and say "Fuck the King/Queen." Moreover, I think the UK is about to be in worse shape than we are, since it appears we've hopefully somewhat course corrected while they're still driving full speed toward the cliff.
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Bump
They're back in front of the Supreme Court arguing that only US citizens should be counted in the apportionment of congressional seats. With all the other fuckery going on, this one has just as much, in not more, long lasting consequences. On the face of it, they don't seem to have a case if using the "plain language" of the Constitution, and changing the process would be a clear example of Republican "judicial activism."
Supreme Court Takes Up Trump Plan to Exclude Unauthorized Immigrants in Redistricting
The administration’s efforts, which are subject to practical hurdles, would upset a constitutional consensus and could shift political power from Democratic states to Republican ones.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday on President Trump’s efforts, in the final days of his presidency, to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the calculations used to allocate seats in the House.
If the court rules for the administration, it would upend the agreement that the census must count all residents, whatever their immigration status, and could shift political power from Democratic states to Republican ones.
But the case is riddled with practical complications. Census Bureau officials have said they cannot produce the required data until after Mr. Trump leaves office in January. Even if they do, it is not clear that congressional officials would accept what they may view as flawed calculations, and President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. may try to reverse course once he takes office, prompting further litigation.
The core question in the case — who counts for purposes of congressional reapportionment — is fundamental and largely untested.
The Constitution requires congressional districts to be apportioned “counting the whole number of persons in each state,” using information from the census. To that end, a federal law requires the president to send Congress a statement setting out the number of representatives to which each state is entitled after each decennial census. In the past, those statements have been based on a count of all residents.
SpoilerIn July, Mr. Trump issued a memorandum taking a new approach. “For the purpose of the reapportionment of representatives following the 2020 census,” the memo said, “it is the policy of the United States to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status.”
“Current estimates suggest that one state is home to more than 2.2 million illegal aliens, constituting more than 6 percent of the state’s entire population,” the memo said, apparently referring to California. “Including these illegal aliens in the population of the state for the purpose of apportionment could result in the allocation of two or three more congressional seats than would otherwise be allocated.”
Removing undocumented immigrants from the count would most likely have the effect of shifting seats to states that are older, whiter and typically more Republican.
Mr. Trump ordered Wilbur Ross, the secretary of commerce, to provide him with two sets of numbers, one including unauthorized immigrants and the other not. It was not clear how Mr. Ross would derive the second set of numbers, as last year the Supreme Court rejected his efforts to add a question on citizenship to the census.
The case before the court, Trump v. New York, No. 20-366, was brought by two sets of plaintiffs, one a group of state and local governments and the United States Conference of Mayors, and the second a coalition of advocacy groups and other nongovernmental organizations.A three-judge panel of the Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled that the new policy violated federal law. Two other courts have issued similar rulings, while one said the dispute was not ripe for consideration.
In an unsigned opinion in the case from Manhattan, the panel said the question before it was “not particularly close or complicated.”
“The secretary is required to report a single set of figures to the president — namely, ‘the tabulation of total population by states’ under the ‘decennial census’ — and the president is then required to use those same figures to determine apportionment using the method of equal proportions,” the panel wrote, quoting the relevant statutes.
Much of the panel’s opinion concerned whether the plaintiffs had suffered the sort of injury that gave them standing to sue. It concluded that the new policy made it less likely that undocumented immigrants and others would participate in the census, harming its accuracy.
But the counting is over, and that theory of standing is now open to question. In the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs argued that they also had standing because they would be hurt by the revised apportionment. Jeffrey B. Wall, the acting solicitor general, responded that this second theory was speculative and premature, as Mr. Trump has not acted.
On the core question in the case, the administration told the justices that the term “persons in each state” can be understood to require “a sovereign’s permission to remain within the jurisdiction.”
In response, Barbara D. Underwood, New York’s solicitor general, representing state and local governments, said the administration was asking the court to endorse a stunning departure from the nation’s traditions. “Since the founding,” she wrote, “the population base used to apportion seats in the House of Representatives has never excluded any resident based on immigration status.”
In a separate response, groups represented by the American Civil Liberties Union said the administration’s new policy violated the federal statute and the Constitution.
“The president does not have ‘discretion’ to pencil out persons included in the actual enumeration to create a separate apportionment base of his own liking,” the brief said.
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How influential is Bill Buckley's National Review in Republican circles these days? I'm asking because this OpEd is rather scathing.
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There was some speculation about Trump firing Esper in order to get a yes-man in the job who would do Trump's bidding in these last months without pushing back on risky military actions with specific consternation over a potential attack on Iran.
And Trump continues to oust others with extensive national security expertise in his last months in office. One can't help but question his motives and what (if anything) he's got up his sleeves.
QuoteTrump administration removes experts from Defense Policy Board
(CNN)Several high profile members of the Defense Policy Board were removed on Wednesday by the Trump administration, in yet another purge of longstanding foreign policy experts and national security establishment figures in the final days of the Trump era, according to three defense officials.
Members who were suddenly removed include former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger, former ranking member of the House Intelligence committee Jane Harman and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, two of the officials said.
The Defense Policy Board is an outside advisory group of former high profile national security officials who "provide the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense, independent, informed advice and opinions concerning matters of defense policy in response to specific tasks from the Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Secretary of Defense," according to their website.
"As part of long-considered changes, we can confirm that several members of the Department's Defense Policy Board have been removed. We are extremely grateful for their dedicated service, commitment, and contributions to our national security. Future announcements for new members of the board will be made soon," the third official said.
The first two officials said the members removed also included former Chief of Naval Operations, retired Adm. Gary Roughead, former chief operating officer at the Pentagon Rudy De Leon and former Bush deputy national security adviser J.D. Crouch II.
Foreign Policy first reported the removals.
Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, who made an unannounced trip to Bahrain and Qatar Wednesday nearly a week after announcing US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan would be further reduced, said in a statement Thursday, "I am grateful to the departing board members, many of whom have served for decades."
"As we adapt the Department for great power competition, I look forward to naming new board members in the coming days," Miller said.
After Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper earlier this month, the Pentagon made sweeping changes in leadership and removed several most senior officials, replacing them with perceived loyalists to the President. The move fueled alarm among military and civilian officials who were concerned about what could come next.
The new appointments include retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, now a top Pentagon official, who once called former President Barack Obama a terrorist leader and suggested that a former CIA director was using a Cicero quote to activate a sleeper agent to kill Trump. Kash Patel, former aide to Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California, is chief of staff to Miller and leading Pentagon transition efforts with the incoming Biden-Harris administration.
Ezra Cohen-Watnick was also named to a new post and will be the acting under secretary of defense for intelligence. Cohen-Watnick gained notoriety in March 2017 for his alleged involvement in providing intelligence materials to then-House Intelligence Chairman Nunes, who went on to claim that US intelligence officials improperly surveilled Trump associates.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
🍁🍽🦃🍂-
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Didn't see this posted but yet another example of Trump going scorched earth on his way out the door.
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Ed Norton thread. Worth a read.
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Yet another example of them going scorched earth on the way out the door:
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The following two reflect my thoughts for y'all having forgotten the following two.


At least someone remembered fuck-that!-upchuck-tech chick
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14 minutes ago, Tuco said:
The counterpoint is that lowering the barriers to entry, by making the races smaller, will encourage greater participation and draw more people. More people means better choices.
Well, yeah, and the barrier of entry for an effective small town mayor to a rep is much lower.





CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
in Cloak Room
Posted · Edited by bolverk
That motherfucker. Yes, if you read the full story, it sounds like they took all the right precautions before going and didn't break any of the rules at the time. But it's just a terrible example of leadership and a great one of hypocrisy.
https://www.kvue.com/article/news/investigations/defenders/austin-mayor-steve-adler-coronavirus-covid-19-daughter-wedding-vacation/269-d76bf9b8-54bb-4736-9b00-80fdf2953145
On another note, my 83-year-old dad caught it the weekend before Thanksgiving while my mom was staying with me here for a few days to recover after having eye surgery (lens replacement) in Austin. My mom and dad have a small group that they typically get together with for game night on Fridays. I've been lecturing them both about going, because I know they weren't wearing masks. Their excuse was always "But we know these people." Well, no shit, but you don't know who all they've been around.
At any rate, one motherfucker showed up with a cough. Of the six at the table, none were wearing a fucking mask, and every single one of them ended up testing positive. The kicker is that the motherfucker with the cough is a recently retired healthcare worker of some sort, and he's now in the hospital which gives me some twisted comfort.
I got the call from my mom a couple of days before Thanksgiving last week when she told me they'd found out my dad had been exposed. He started getting a fever on T-Day and tested positive on Friday. Mom was negative, but she's still sharing a home with him. As of Monday, my mom was still feeling fine, and they seem to be managing his (so far) mild fever with Tylenol and Advil. Sis overnighted them shitload of medical supplies and is prepared to drop everything if need be and fly down to West Texas.
I'm pissed as hell with their stupidity but realize that my sister, who's a PA up in Denver, and me down in Austin have been the only two voices of sanity in their lives during this whole thing and have been battling against the barrage of messages they hear from Fox News and all the fine conservative congregants of their goddamn Southern Baptist church.
Edit: And I'll add that they knew the virus was starting to circulate among people in their church (all of the game night attendees are members) and that the preacher's wife had already been flown to San Antonio and is in the ICU, as well as one of my mom's other friends in a hospital in Lubbock. Just fucking a fucking delusional madness fed by a constant misinformation campaign that placed doubts in their minds about the severity of this shit. Thanks for playing a role in that @GRHornand all the other imbeciles from the DT thread.