Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

We will not go back.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

You are here: Home / Supreme Court / Supreme Court Corruption / Supreme Court Decisions at 10 am Eastern

Supreme Court Decisions at 10 am Eastern

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1

Some decisions will be announced today (6/20), some tomorrow (6/21).

Holding my breath as I wait.

SCOTUSblog appears to be adding a quick summary as each opinion is released.

*****

Live blogging at The Guardian

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Reader Interactions

283Comments

  2. 2.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    From the Washington Post via Bluesky

    Breaking news: The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to an obscure provision of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax package, ending a lawsuit that many experts feared could destabilize the nation’s tax system.

  4. 4.

    WaterGirl

    The Guardian:

    The first case is Moore v United States, which deals with whether a one-time tax on Americans who hold shares in foreign corporations is legal.

    The tax was created under the 2017 tax code overhaul enacted under Donald Trump. In a 7-2 vote, the court held that it is legal.

  6. 6.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    From TPM

    The Supreme Court Thursday ruled not to redefine “income” — a move, pushed aggressively by Justice Neil Gorsuch during oral arguments, that would have headed off various wealth tax proposals that have gained steam on the left, and been a bounty to the very wealthy and corporations.

  7. 7.

    RaflW

    THIS, from Bsky

    Grudgy the Whale
    @grudgy.bsky.social

    Biden should have a missile pointed at the Alito house with “Presidential Immunity” and “Official Act” written on it in case the Trump immunity case goes Alito’s way.

  8. 8.

    RaflW

    Also

    Hayes Brown

    Frantically refreshing social media at 10 am ET to learn what’s to become of the Union, as the Founders intended

  11. 11.

    Leto

    @RaflW: “Sources state that Biden was heard saying, “Would you shut up, man” as he authorized the strike.” – Howard Stern Show

  12. 12.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Chiaverini v. City of Napoleon is next.  6-3 by Kagan.  Malicious prosecution case.  Good result.

  16. 16.

    WaterGirl

    SCOTUSblog latest:

    In Moore v. United States, the court rules 7-2 that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act known as the “mandatory repatriation tax,” which required U.S. taxpayers who owned shares in foreign corporations to pay a one-time tax on their share of the corporation’s earnings, does not violate the Constitution.

    Rating: ??

    The court rules 6-3 in Chiaverini v. City of Napoleon that valid criminal charges do not create a categorical bar on a subsequent malicious prosecution claim. It leaves “for another day the follow-on question of how to determine in those circumstances whether the baseless charge caused the requisite seizure.

    Rating: GOOD

    In a victory for federal prosecutors, the court rules in Diaz v. United States that expert testimony that ‘most people” have a particular mental state is not an opinion about the defendant and therefore does not violate federal evidentiary rules.

    Rating:  NOT GOOD

    In Gonzalez v. Trevino, the court agrees with Sylvia Gonzalez that requiring her to provide examples of people who also mishandled a government petition but were not arrested “goes too far” in her suit alleging that she was arrested in retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment.

    Rating: GOOD, I THINNK.

  18. 18.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Diaz v US.  6-3 by Thomas.

    This was a case about whether prosecutors in a drug-trafficking case can call a government witness to provide expert testimony to rebut a defendant’s contention that she did not know that she was carrying drugs. The question comes to the court in the case of a woman who was stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border with 28 kilograms of methamphetamine hidden in her car. She maintained that the car belonged to her boyfriend and that she didn’t know that the drugs were in it.

    The court holds that expert testimony that ‘most people” have a particular mental state is not an opinion about the defendant and therefore does not violate federal evidentiary rules. It is a victory for the federal prosecutors, as the court upholds the ruling in the government’s favor by the Ninth Circuit.

  22. 22.

    TBone

    @WaterGirl: not if you’re driving your BF’s car and don’t know how he really makes his living. Cuz people never lie about stuff like that.

  23. 23.

    sdhays

    So, the Supremacist Court still can’t decide if a President can legally “officially act” to seize power?

  25. 25.

    Almost Retired

    @Omnes Omnibus:  Diaz was 6-3, but not the usual suspects.  It was mix and match with Jackson in the majority and Kagan in dissent.  Gonna read this one for the novelty factor.

    ETA. I’m sitting in Dread Terminal 1 at LAX (home of Southwest, Allegiant and most of the other flying bus airlines).   There must be some constitutional violations here?!

  26. 26.

    WereBear

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Jiminy H, I didn’t even have time to worry about that… don’t know if I’m ticked or not.

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    At least half the reviews objected to the mere presence of politics and, to a lesser degree, the pandemic. They didn’t say they objected to the treatment of Trump, though they may have. What they said was they didn’t want to think about the pandemic or Trump at all

    ETA: In case it isn’t clear, I assume attitude is common and is affecting how much voters are willing to learn for the current election.

    You have answered one of my burning questions! I am telling a cat tale in my latest book, but it’s how we adopted the kittens Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in the <strong>fall of 2019</strong>.

    It’s about them growing up in a multiple cat world as a way of illustrating my Cat Civilization How Tos. Since basics are in my first cat book, <em>The Way of Cats</em>. This one is for fun.

    How can I not talk about the Pandemic? Or maybe it is all from the cat’s point of view… she mused.

    Jackals, please help! Should I go Watership Down? Alternate chapters of protagonist, one of my cats… and then a hooman explanation chapter?

  27. 27.

    sdhays

    @TBone: Well, they can’t wait that long unless they decide to just flush their SOP down the toilet – they’re supposed to issue a ruling by the end of their session, which is soon.

    But, of course, they (for all practical purposes) answer to no one, so I suppose it’s possible.

  28. 28.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Final case is Gonzalez v. Trevino.  Per curiam by Roberts.

    This was a case about what kinds of evidence a plaintiff alleging that she was arrested in retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment must show to qualify for the exception outlined in Nieves v. Bartlett, which holds that although plaintiffs must generally show that police did not have probable cause to arrest them, they can also show that they were arrested when others who had not been engaged in protected speech would not have been. The question comes to the court in the case of a 76-year-old Texas woman who was arrested after she – accidentally, she claims – picked up a petition that she had initiated and placed it in her binder after a long meeting. She was charged with violating a state law that prohibits tampering with government records.

    The per curiam opinion agrees with Gonzalez, the woman who was arrested, that the court of appeals took a view of Nieves that was too narrow. Requiring her to provide examples of people who also mishandled a government petition but were not arrested “goes too far,” the court holds.

  29. 29.

    Jeffro

    @RaflW: we hear you, Grudgy, we hear you!

    Second Term Brandon is going to have the missile launcher on the WH lawn, with a fresh pack of Sharpies handy for ‘addressing’ his ‘Official Acts’

  36. 36.

    TBone

    I read yesterday or day before there are (were) 20+ outstanding cases. So now in the teens

  37. 37.

    Baud

    Moore doesn’t really help with the wealth tax in that it seems to require income be realized. Increase in stock price alone would not be income.

    ETA: Nevermind, the end of the opinion says it doesn’t address whether realization is required.

  38. 38.

    TBone

    @Jeffro: that’s why I said they’re waiting to see if Dotard strokes out.  Or, they’ll drop it on our heads when he loses the debate(s).  They excel in taking over a bad news cycle for Dotard.

  40. 40.

    RaflW

    Since it’s a politics open thread as well (aren’t they all?): Republicans in disarray! (paraphrased via a StarTribune politics daily email).

    In MN-02 (Angie Craig, the Dem is on the bubble there) endorsed candidate atty Tayler Rahm and former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab are running in the GOP primary. But the not party-endorsed Teirab is touting personal endorsements by Speaker Johnson and Whip Tom Emmer (MN-06).

    That’s two very prominent Repubs endorsing the insurgent Republican. Any nastiness I hope will inure to Ms. Craig!

    Meanwhile, Strib says: “That’s also happening in the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate, where former Republican Sens. Norm Coleman, Rudy Boschwitz and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty recently endorsed businessman Joe Fraser over GOP-endorsed former NBA player Royce White (who got The Daily Show treatment recently).”

    The MN GOP has gone MAGAloon, so I’m not shocked that ‘establishment’ Rs in MN are doing what they can to downplay Royce. He’s a terrible/perfect brand ambassador (R/D perspective).

  43. 43.

    cmorenc

    Since there has likely already been sufficient delay in issuing the Presidential immunity decision to push any trials beyond the election, the remaining delay more likely indicates there is a majority to limit the extent a President (or ex-President) can claim immunity, but there has been insufficient consensus on where those limits are.  They are probably wrestling with how to limit Trump’s ability to claim immunity without creating an overly wide opening to be applied vindictively against Biden.  Some of the harder RW justices (Thomas, Alito) are likely pushing for a version that would de facto make successfully pursuing the cases against Trump impracticably difficult, others (e.g. Roberts, Kavenaugh) merely difficult enough to  handicap the odds of successful prosecution.

  47. 47.

    Wapiti

    @WereBear: I just reread a wonderful book, Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt, that has the narration alternate between an (imprisoned!) octopus and then a narrator following two other characters. It can work!

  49. 49.

    hueyplong

    @cmorenc: That’s reasonable, but saying so doesn’t in any way link it to the actual thinking of the fanatics on the Court.

  50. 50.

    sdhays

    @Almost Retired: I was in LAX for a layover a few weeks ago and there was a load buzzer going off for at least 10 minutes near our gate. My wife had ringing in her ear for days.

    So it could be worse!

  51. 51.

    RaflW

    @sdhays: Waiting till the last round of releases because it’ll piss off Trump? Or because Biden will press the ‘launch’ button vaporizing Alitos’ flag pole?

  52. 52.

    Wapiti

    @cmorenc: And the thing about this immunity delay is that if these “supreme” “justices” would just limit themselves to the case at hand, it probably could be resolved easily. But no, these people have decided to legislate an answer for all immunity cases. That’s not their job.

  53. 53.

    WereBear

    @Wapiti: It looks lovely, thanks so much. I borrowed the audiobook from my Everand app for extra emotion. (That’s what being read to does for me. Lets out certain categories of non-fiction, for sure.)

    One I adore is The Plague Dogs.

    Aim high, WereBear.

  56. 56.

    RaflW

    @Baud: As someone with non-IRA/Keogh funds invested for retirement, anything that would require annual mark-to-market and netting out unrealized gains and losses would be a massive PITA (and a place ripe for tax cheats to play with).

    No, what we need is an end to the carried interest loophole for Wall St. sharks, and a trading tax so we can tamp down on the g.d. casino nature of share investing. The latter is also an area rife with corruptible influences, ie insider trading, pump n dump, and all that.

  57. 57.

    JCJ

    @RaflW:  Royce White?  Didn’t he have some phobia and / or mental health issues which basically ended his basketball career?  College ball at Iowa State?

  58. 58.

    WaterGirl

    @WaterGirl: that was me dictating because I’m not at home. It was supposed to say I wasn’t seeing the fourth case on Scotus blog either.

  60. 60.

    RaflW

    @TBone: Yes he has stayed in after not getting endorsed (lol Royce got the all important Kari Lake endorsement!).

    “…days later, Fraser, who lost the endorsement to White in the first round, announced he will still run in the primary after pledging to abide by the endorsement.”

    While I watch a fair bit of politics closely, Klobuchar is such a shoe-in that I’ve not paid attention to the GOP side. Is there a reason you’re surprised/curious? I’m always up for some insights on that side of things.

  63. 63.

    TBone

    @RaflW: I met Joe Fraser when I was working in a law office in Media, PA.  He is well loved and for good reason.  I’m disappointed that he’s on the wrong side of history now.

    Jiminy Cricket!  WRONG JOE FRASER TBONE 😆 HE DAID

  64. 64.

    RaflW

    @TBone: Norm Coleman was kind of a dick, and Tim Pawlenty played a lot of ‘aw shucks’ hockey dad bullshit while governing further to the right than he appeared. Boschwitz (before my time here) was I think more of the old school Independent Republican party as MN’s was called back then. All three of them, despite my general distaste for Repubs, aren’t election deniers and scam artists like the MAGAloons.

    I don’t see how Fraser has a path to winning, but if this country isn’t going to be riven to shreds, we need people like it sounds Fraser could be to rise up and start tying to yank the Republican clown car outta the ditch.

    Or maybe Joe’s gone over the edge. I am not close enough to all that to be able to tell.

  68. 68.

    Wapiti

    @Juju.: We had a case, years back now, where a woman drove her beau’s truck from Oklahoma to Fort Lewis, WA (he was in the Army). His directions had her go over I-90 and then follow I-5 to Vancouver. Whoops. While going south to Vancouver, WA, would have gotten her to Fort Lewis, the highway signs directing her to Vancouver sent her north, to the Canadian one. She figured it out only when she was already in the border control zone.

    I don’t know if it was the Canadians who found the (explosive) artillery simulators, or if they simply sent her back south and the US Customs guys found the stuff.

  69. 69.

    TBone

    @RaflW: 100% agree – some yanking back from the edge of the abyss is in order.  Success not guaranteed but at least some need to TRY

  71. 71.

    RaflW

    @TBone: It’s been horrifying to see how few in-office Republicans put up any resistance to veering off a cliff, and the general silence from retired GOP pols and apparatchiks points to a very hollowed out and shitty party. I’m not very sanguine that the patient can be saved, but wouldn’t begrudge some CPR and a defibrillator.

  72. 72.

    NotMax

    @RaflW

    Sometime in September.

    Company announced another plan (second one) to award yet more shares to you-know-who presuming the whole shebang doesn’t combust by then.

  74. 74.

    lowtechcyclist

    @prostratedragon:

    List of remaining cases this term from Steve Vladek, who is another one of many great follows.

    He lost me already. First commenter says, ‘I just love color-coded lists with no key,’ and Vladek replies that while it got cut off this graphic, he’s provided it many times before.

    Not much help if you’ve never heard of the guy before.

  77. 77.

    TBone

    @Sister Golden Bear: WTAF AAAARRRGGGHH

    Life without the arts is no life.  We need bread AND roses!

    What a fucking WANG thing to do! I know I know it’s his brand but this shit…goes waaaayyy too far.

  78. 78.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Almost Retired:

    ETA. I’m sitting in Dread Terminal 1 at LAX (home of Southwest, Allegiant and most of the other flying bus airlines).   There must be some constitutional violations here?!

    More like a violation of the Geneva Convention’s ban on war crimes. Abandon all hope ye who enter.

  80. 80.

    sdhays

    @Sister Golden Bear: Line-item vetoes are such stupid things. What’s the point of having a legislature, even an awful one like the Florida legislature, when they can pass something and the Duke Governor can just arbitrarily cross shit out?

  82. 82.

    Geminid

    @TBone: This reminded me of something someone said recently about their authoritarian government

       If they won’t let us dream, we won’t let them sleep.

  85. 85.

    Juju.

    @Wapiti: I had a policy of I don’t drive my boyfriend’s car and he doesn’t drive mine unless I’m in the car. It was probably a prudent thing to do, but only had to do with the fact that he smoked nasty smelling cigars in his car and it smelled bad and I’m allergic to tobacco and it made me itch and wheeze.  He never smoked in my car because I was there. He also didn’t smoke cigars that often but when he did it really irritated me on so many levels.  I’m not seeing anyone now, so only I drive my car.

    I had a friend when I was in college who let her unlicensed boyfriend drive her car all the time.  She was shocked when he was arrested for driving without a license and her car was impounded. I told her that letting him drive her car without a license was an I can’t connect the dots level of stupidity. I haven’t heard from her since.

    I’d like to see either Vancouver.

  86. 86.

    Tom Levenson

    @Sister Golden Bear: Florida is doing its very best to ensure a rapid decline to reverse its rapid rise in wealth, population, and influence.

    Any kid with brains and options will see this, on top of the assault on higher ed., and make the obvious inference.

    The place is a residential insurance time bomb, which will make the state ever less desirable to snowbirds (and locals who don’t want to see their single largest asset blow down or float away). Anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy will tighten the labor market.  Anti-abortion fanaticism will have its effects too; I can’t imagine a newly trained OB-Gyn would choose to practice there if they had any other choice (and given national shortages, they do and will). Etc.

    Don’t know when the seemingly infinitely inflatable Florida dream bubble will burst, but I would not be surprised if it were much sooner than I currently think.

  87. 87.

    TBone

    Oh my GOODNESS!!! Hubby just got his dentures fixed FOR FREE!!!  I am so shocked and happy that I was SO wrong about his choice of dentist!  I feel like we just won the lottery!  RARE WIN FOR THE LITTLE GUY!!!

    I had berated him for going to our local McDonalds Aspen Dental.  No, they weren’t the provider of said dentures – they fixed someone else’s work on the spot FOR FREE!

  89. 89.

    TBone

    @Baud: I’m so happy I’m almost in tears.  Hubby didn’t get the guy’s name and I’m making him call them right now so I can see an honest dentist too!  I had a bad experience with a supposedly great clinic here recently.  They wanted $23,000 for unnecessary work.

  91. 91.

    West of the Rockies

    @Tom Levenson:

    I think you are spit on, Tom.  I think it will take time (similar to how Russia has created its own brain drain and fucked its future-self over for phantasmagoric “gains” in Ukraine).

    Ten years from now, Florida may be another Mississippi, a state that people aren’t just flocking to.

  92. 92.

    RaflW

    @Sister Golden Bear:
    “Ron DeSantis Vetoes All State Funding For The Arts”

    Damn, that sucks. It does strike me that this is the sort of thing that a well functioning FL Democratic Party could act on to roast Lil’ Boots. Sure some MAGAts want an artless, cultureless vast wasteland (sorry, Betty, but that’s a lot of Florida already).

    But, unless my sense of retiree-Republicans is too antiquated, many of them love going to see plays, hear orchestras and even take in a public art museum from time to time.

    He’s zeroing out support for that? Enumerate the carnage and hit him hard with it, FL Dems! Go.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @RaflW: There a large number of people whose only visits to museums of any kind came during school outings and aren’t really remembered fondly.

  95. 95.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Almost Retired: Gorusch’s dissent is worth noting.  Jackson’s concurrence shows she is hanging by a thread to the majority here.  I dislike the result because it ignores the Fifth Amendment entirely.  Putting experts on the stand to testify that “most veteran bloggers with dogs and cats from West Virginia” isn’t directly about John Cole, but the only way to rebut such expert testimony would require waiving the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

  97. 97.

    RaflW

    @Juju.: 30 someodd years ago I was driving my then-BF’s Honda civic. I can’t actually recall if he was in it with me. I clearly remember panic-braking the car at some moment. And a f**king handgun slid out from under the driver’s seat and hit the heel of my braking foot!

    Hooooo boy was I instantly freaked out and then angry for a long time. I had known he had had the gun. At some point he’d told me that his very southern, rural, farmer dad had made him take it to the big city. He said (and I basically believed him) that he hated having it.

    When we moved in together, I’d quite pointedly asked him to bring the (unregistered!) gun back to Louisiana. “Just hide it somewhere in your boyhood bedroom closet! Don’t tell him!” He apparently lied to me that he’d done so. Admittedly, his alcoholic dad was a piece of work and I’d not really have wanted to cross him.

    But after the gun slid out and, I dunno, could possibly have misfired right in the freakin’ vehicle!? It HAD to go. Imagine if I’d been pulled over and the car had been searched some time? I’d have sworn that BF had removed the illegal thing, but what cop is gonna say “OK, sure.” Not to mention the chance of harm. Grrr.

  98. 98.

    RaflW

    @Omnes Omnibus: No doubt. And, at least before the MAGAzation of the Republican Party, a lot of the fancy people who tend to be reliable over 55 voters and tic the “R” boxes are arts patrons of many sorts.

    Maybe Puddin’ Guy is just acknowledging that the old Brahmin GOP is dead and gone. It still strikes me as politically stupid (but that in itself is no surprise with RonnyD).

  99. 99.

    CaseyL

    @Bostondreams: Well, he’s banned any and all mention of climate change, so it certainly couldn’t be that!

    With insurers either hiking rates astronomically or leaving the state entirely, the GOP has to come up with a reason that isn’t climate-related.

  101. 101.

    eclare

    @RaflW:

    Your first paragraph describes my aunt and late uncle to a T.  They loved going to see plays, the opera, museums, etc.  One of the last times I saw my uncle he was so excited because (in his dementia) he had seen Theater Memphis rehearsing at his rehab facility to put on a show.

  102. 102.

    smith

    So after his much-vaunted outreach to Black voters in Detroit, featuring an almost all-white cheering section, the Felon completely ignored Juneteenth. Such a well thought-out strategy.

  106. 106.

    Trivia Man

    @RaflW: The transaction tax is my choice. Some miniscule cist per share so normal (“real”) transactions barely notice it. But the multiple transactions per second crowd will feel it.

  108. 108.

    Trivia Man

    @sdhays: In Wisconsin gov can cross out individual letters, numbers, and punctuation. Courts finally applied some limits but the Frankenstein Veto is still powerful.

  112. 112.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Bostondreams:

    and DeSantis seems to be lately blaming Biden and inflation for the insurance costs. What an ass.

    Since my in-laws are in central FL (and well away from the water, fwiw), I can attest that the cost and difficulty of obtaining homeowner’s insurance in FL predates both Biden’s election and the recent wave of inflation.

  115. 115.

    CaseyL

    O/T: Deadline Hollywood is reporting that actor Donald Sutherland has died at age 88.

    I’m not finding anything about it anywhere else so far, though.

  116. 116.

    RaflW

    @eclare: We took my dad to the Houston Symphony many times as he made the Alzheimer’s journey.

    He’d settle in comfortably, knowing the routine from some deeper memories, and often really enjoyed the programs. One time he shocked BF and me at an intermission, saying about the clarinet passages “That’s the best triple-tonguing I’ve ever heard”. I had to quick google it :) !

  117. 117.

    Soprano2

    @WereBear: I think you could talk about how the cats notice that their humans start to behave differently without actually mentioning Covid or the pandemic by name.

  119. 119.

    scav

    If only some museums, concert halls and the like could designate themselves as safe havens for refugee artworks and musicians from Florida.  Set up some sort of “For only 3$ a month (the price of a small coffee!) you could save this Renaissance masterpiece from the danger of mold, neglect and squalor.  Donate now to support the emergency airlift of such priceless orphans to welcoming forever homes. etc etc.”  For that matter, if DeStructo keeps his anti-culture ink flowing, there are going to be massive anti-yogurt decrees in the immediate future.   Medical culture tests will go the way of vaccines.

  120. 120.

    Ken

    @smith:  the Felon completely ignored Juneteenth. Such a well thought-out strategy.

    I’m sure he had some remarks prepared for Truth Social, but his campaign staff accidentally destroyed his phone. Again. So a well-thought-out strategy on their part, at least.

  121. 121.

    hueyplong

    I could see TCM running an evening of Sutherland movies with M*A*S*H, Don’t Look Now and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  126. 126.

    cmorenc

    @hueyplong: My prediction that a SCOTUS majority will hold against absolute immunity (minus perhaps either/both the utterly shamelessly corrupt and hyper-partisan Thomas & Alito) is because the rest realize that a 5 or 6 RW majority decision granting Trump immunity would be a disaster for the court as pretending to be anything more than a partisan political tool of the GOP.  And hence, there will likely be a split majority decision holding that there is only limited presidential immunity for discretionary acts within the enumerated scope of the president’s article 1 powers, but not for activities beyond that.

    The real crunch will be the extent to which they distinguish campaigning for office or disputing election results from enumerated article 1 powers – whether and if so how large a loophole they leave for Jan 6 activities to potentially fit within some article 1 presidential power.  That approach would also have the effect of likely shielding Biden with immunity, even while potentially cutting just enough of a loophole for Trump to wiggle out from being held accountable.

  129. 129.

    CaseyL

    @Belafon: ​
     @SiubhanDuinne: ​

    It’s always sad – and disconcerting – when a public figure you “grew up with” so to speak, via their work, dies.

    88 is a good age, though.

    I am far from the Biggest Donald Sutherland Fan ever, but I did like him in the movies I saw. I very much appreciated his slyness, which could be villainous or rogue-ish at the drop of an eyelash. He was one of those actors who understood how tiny physical details matter.

  131. 131.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​
     

    That’s why the latest NYT poll shows black women shifting toward him by 28%.

    It doesn’t. It shows the margin decreasing by 28%, from +86 to +58. So that translates into Black women having supported Biden by 93-7 (+86) in 2020 to 79-21 (+58) now.

    That would still be very not-good if true, but the actual shift is 14%. It’s just that in recent years, they’ve gone to presenting these numbers in a way that gives one an initial impression that the change is twice as big as it is. If they’d shifted from being pro-Biden by 100-0 to being pro-Trump by 100-0, they’d show that as the margin having changed by 200%, even though there are only 100 fucking percents.

    Very misleading and easy to misinterpret.

  133. 133.

    smith

    @cmorenc: decision granting Trump immunity would be a disaster for the court as pretending to be anything more than a partisan political tool of the GOP

    That ship has already sailed just from the fact of their holding off on the decision so long. That is a nakedly political act, regardless of the details of their decision.

  138. 138.

    smith

    I’m feeling kind of overwhelmed by political dread today, but am finding a bit of joy in watching the Felon’s Truth Social stock plunge ever downward. Last I looked it was down 14.5% for the day.

  139. 139.

    Ksmiami

     

    @Baud: you can’t really tax people on stock values though. They fluctuate daily and today’s winners can become tomorrow’s losers. You can and probably should have a higher rate on dividend and interest income… ok, – as I slowly duck away.

  142. 142.

    Doug R

    @Almost Retired:

    I found Alaska to have good prices and decent service, at least when we flew with them over a decade ago.

    Looks like they share terminal 6 with Air Canada now.

  143. 143.

    Leto

    I came in on this late, but apparently Judge Loose-Cannon has “rejected suggestions to step aside”. Apparently it’s other judges around her who are suggesting this. This is on MSNBC right now.

  144. 144.

    piratedan

    @eclare: no doubt he was a talented dude.  He’s in three of my favorite movies of all time (Kelly’s Heroes, The Dirty Dozen and Animal House) and he had a range from sophmoric to sinister, he could carry  movie or add to its gravitas.  He had a quality of sincerity no matter the role.

  148. 148.

    hueyplong

    I’m not a fan of goofy war movies, so Kelly’s Heroes was an intentional omission (that exposes mine as a minority taste), but omitting Klute was accidental. It will be shown for sure.

  150. 150.

    NotMax

    @Doug R

    Nastiest, rudest cabin crews ever encountered on Alaska. Swore off them after that horrendous experience.

    All-ulcer Airlines.

  151. 151.

    Citizen Alan

    @RaflW: As a former band director, this disgusts me. As a thinking human being, I once again give praise to God Almighty for me not getting an offer on that job I applied for in Tallahassee.

  153. 153.

    Leto

    @piratedan: The opening of the WaPo obit:

    Donald Sutherland, an actor of breathtaking range who became one of the most compelling players in cinema, whether portraying a misfit combat surgeon, an inscrutable cop, a grieving father or a futuristic tyrant, died June 20 in Miami. He was 88.

    His agency, CAA, announced the death but did not provide a specific cause.

    With his lilting, velvety baritone and ghoulishly expressive features — gangly frame, prominent ears, wolfish smile and chilling green eyes — Mr. Sutherland perhaps unsurprisingly began his movie career in horror films.

    He’s one of those actors who was just consistently there through out the decades. He’d pop up in different roles and would always just bring something… off, to it. Always in a good way. Need to check the TCM channel to see if they’ve made any adjustments.

    Edit: they might do something tomorrow night, but as it stands at this moment Rear Window is scheduled for the 8pm EST slot. Looks like a James Stewart night: The Far Country and Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation.

  154. 154.

    Baud

    @Ksmiami:

    I’m not advocating it, but if it happened, you wouldn’t be taxing stock daily. You’d be taxing it based on appreciation over the year. I’d imagine there’d also be provisions for loss carryover.

  155. 155.

    cmorenc

    @smith: The RW SCOTUS justices (other than the shamelessly partisan Thomas & Alito know that SCOTUS is already on very shaky grounds for public respect as anything more than a partisan court, which of course we progressives already grasp they are simply by the delay in the decision.  What i am saying is that the other four RW justices will craft a decision that avoids irreparably destroying the court’s  long-term power – they have to craft at least a fig leaf of room to limit presidential immunity for Trump, even while leaving him potential wiggle room to escape accountability.

  156. 156.

    NotMax

    @Leto

    Guessing this coming Monday. Takes some time to schedule, compile and announce. Too many baked-in slots (Underground, Noir Alley, Silent Sundays, cartoon and/or serial shorts) on the weekends.

  157. 157.

    brantl

    I have a question about the SC picture, why doesn’t the d*ckhead in the middle of the lower row have a coat-hanger? He signed on, too.

  158. 158.

    Jackie

    “Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) this month launched an investigation into Affinity Partners, the Saudi-backed private equity firm led by Jared Kushner,” Axios reports.

    “Wyden is chair of the Senate Financial Committee, and as a member of the majority could get enough votes to subpoena documents that House Democrats have unsuccessfully sought.”

    GOOD! And FINALLY!!!

  160. 160.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Sutherland was great in ‘Trust’, the series about the whackadoodle Getty family.

    ‘Kelly’s Heroes’, for all it’s comedic greatness, is also an astute look at leadership.

  161. 161.

    Starfish

    @Bostondreams: They do it because it works!

    A lot of the states that refused the health insurance expansion measures blamed Obama and ACA for the rising costs of prescription drugs. No one is out there pushing back on that nonsense because it is targeted at people living in whatever crazy state it is, and no one is pushing the other message that “Hey, we see this is affecting everyone, and that is WHY we did these reforms. We are sorry it wasn’t enough and that your governors are refusing things that can help you.”

  162. 162.

    West of the Rockies

    Sutherland was also good in Backdraft as a crazed and compelling arsonist.

  163. 163.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Niall Harbison@NiallHarbison
    On the 22nd of September last year I found Cindy Crawford on the streets. She was morbidly obese and about to die.

    She weighed 46kg or just under 100lbs.

    Her transformation today is seriously hard to believe… (1/7) 🧵

  164. 164.

    laura

    @CaseyL: I can understand why he wouldn’t want to live in a world without Willie Mays. He was an excellent actor and left us with many opportunities to enjoy his body of work. Personally, his role in the Phillip Kaufman remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is his best, but I’d welcome arguments in favor of Klute, Prdinary People, Kelly’s Heros and such like. A well lived life is a wonderful thing.

  165. 165.

    smith

    I see Melinda Gates has endorsed Biden — she’s never before endorsed a presidential candidate. Hope she brought her checkbook.

  168. 168.

    Ksmiami

    @Baud: I think that sounds totally unworkable… the best way is to have higher marginal rates on dividends and interest and enforce a stronger estate tax code.

  169. 169.

    TBone

    @NotMax: I hope when they do a tribute, they show A Dry, White Season. I love him in all of his films, but that one was so important.  Apparently I’m the only person here who’s seen it?

  170. 170.

    Starfish

    @OzarkHillbilly: Can you give us a link to a place in that thread that shows the after photos for those of us who deleted our Twitter accounts and can’t see whole threads anymore?

  171. 171.

    divF

    @Leto: I really liked most of his well-known movies, but I also have a warm spot in my heart for Steelyard Blues , a early-70s counter-cultural piece set in the East Bay, with a cast consisting of a bunch of lefties (Sutherland, Jane Fonda, Peter Boyle, Howard Hesseman). Many location shots in Oakland, including one on an AC transit bus going up Telegraph Ave. (I think – could have been Grove St.)

  174. 174.

    Elizabelle

    @Leto:  Top story on the FTF NY Times website a few minutes ago.

    Please let this shame the court, if not Cannon, into getting her off the case.

  176. 176.

    Geminid

    @laura: I’m not much of a film aesthete, so I am reassured to see that someone else liked Sutherland in the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

     I thought Leonard Nimoy was pretty good too. Like I said, I’m not much of a film aesthete.

  178. 178.

    scribbler

    @NotMax:   Slightly OT, but thanks so much for your TCM movie recommendations the other day.  I had never seen The Band’s Visit or Central Station – both were very good (Central Station was especially moving).

  179. 179.

    JCJ

    @OzarkHillbilly:  I laughed where he described the dog living outside of a 7-Eleven in Thailand.  Street dogs love hanging out by the doors of those stores.  I think they like the cool air from the A/C when customers go in and out.  Also sometimes food vendors have their carts in front of 7-Eleven.  I often stop to get a piece of fried chicken!

  180. 180.

    smith

    @Elizabelle: Since one of the judges in question is the chief judge of the 11th Circuit, it’s a hopeful sign, I think, that if/when Jack Smith gets a solid ruling he can appeal, the Court might be sympathetic to removing her.

    A week or so back, it was the same judge, I believe, who responded to a rash of complaints of bias against Cannon. He said the flood of complaints looked like a coordinated effort (duh) and declined to act on them. However, at the time, he also said that the Court had taken several remedial actions with Cannon. He didn’t say what they were, but it certainly looks like they are fully aware of how out of line she’s been. My guess is they are thoroughly embarrassed by her antics.

  182. 182.

    TBone

    @smith: are they ashamed tho? Enough to take action?  GAH!

    THIS is why I chose to highlight the movie A Dry, White Season today.

    Required viewing IMO!

  183. 183.

    Elizabelle

    @smith:  The Florida case really needed to be adjudicated (or in progress) before the election.  Total denial of justice.  I hope Cannon gets jettisoned sooner rather than later.

    @Baud:  And she is not even going to vote for him!

    (The FTF NY Times assured me today — top story on website at one point —  that Biden is in trouble with the womens.  Right.  The fake narrative rides again.)

  184. 184.

    Elizabelle

    Leaving aside the deplorable Cannon:  came here to inform that Donald Sutherland in Eye of the Needle is free on Amazon Prime right now.  Probably several other DS movies too.

    Loved the book; have never seen the movie,  but Sutherland is no doubt a marvelous Nazi spy villain.  He could be very icy.

  185. 185.

    smith

    @TBone: I’m not sure they could just remove her without a solid legal reason and a request from Jack Smith to do so. So far she’s avoided making the kind of final ruling that would give him the basis for that, but there are several big issues in the hopper that she won’t be able to dodge ruling on forever.

  190. 190.

    Elizabelle

    @eclare:  Might have been the LA Times, but I laughed at anecdote from an obit:  Donald Sutherland auditioned for some role in the 1960s, and thought it had gone very well.  The director called him the next day to say they’d been looking for a “guy next door” type, and DS did not look like he had ever lived next to anyone.

    He could certainly bring the feral.

    Have never seen Don’t Look Back; hear it’s very scary.  Hoping to see it on a big screen.

  191. 191.

    topclimber

    @Ksmiami: Exempt the first $10 million in unrealized gains and you are left with a very wealthy group that can (and does) hire accountants who could handle such issues.

    The name of the game is not just raising revenue but cutting into entrenched billionaire wealth that gives you an eternal plutocracy.

  192. 192.

    JML

    Sutherland was a really interesting actor, and I always really liked him in supporting roles where he could get a little weird, but he also had the restraint to not let it go too wild. He could be menacing, charming, stiff, or loose for whatever the role needed and be totally convincing in it. Equally great as Hawkeye Pierce or firebug Ronald.

    88 isn’t a bad run at least.

  194. 194.

    smith

    @TBone:  IANAL, but I thought higher courts were unlikely to remove a judge from a trial without a formal request to do so. They won’t act on the myriad requests they’ve gotten from the public, so I’m guessing they will wait for an official one from Jack Smith.

  195. 195.

    Raven

    F.T.A. is a 1972 Americandocumentary film starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland and directed by Francine Parker, which follows a 1971 anti-Vietnam War road show for G.I.s, the FTA Show, as it stops in Hawaii, The Philippines, Okinawa, and Japan.[1][2]: p.143 It includes highlights from the show, behind the scenes footage, local performers from the countries visited, and interviews and conversations with GIs “as they discuss what they saw in battle, their anger with the military bureaucracy, and their opposition to America’s presence in Indochina.”[3]

  196. 196.

    topclimber

    @Elizabelle: You are talking about a norm–one of those things the GQP has shat on for decades.

    There is NO precedent for delaying a criminal case that is already underway just because someone is running for President. Thanks to TCFG, we get to make new rules.

    Now I wait for BJ’s lawyers, jackals squared, to correct me.

  199. 199.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Don’t Look Now is one of my all time favorites but how can one pick the best Donald Sutherland movie? He was so prolific and had such great range. And such a voice, no wonder he made so many commercials.

    Going to dig out my Don’t Look Now DVD for a tribute this evening.

    Oh, I forgot Six Degrees of Separation! Is that in the DVD box? Where is the DVD box?

  201. 201.

    prostratedragon

    @Kelly: That’s the movie I was trying to think of just a day or two ago. Real sleeper. Also liked Ordinary People and 1900, in which he plays a villain who ends up getting chased by serfs with a pitchfork. Have to see The Hunger Games one day.

  204. 204.

    eclare

    @Elizabelle:

    Don’t Look Now is very good, and it is scary, but more in a creepy way, not gory.  Venice has never been more menacing.  It would be better on a big screen, but if you can catch it for free on a small screen (I don’t know which, if any, services you have), just see it.

  206. 206.

    TBone

    @Raven: *chef’s kiss

    A professor of film described this combining of women’s issues with GI antiwar sentiment, as positing “a total continuity…between a woman’s right to control her body and that of a young male GI to refuse to give his body in a futile war.”[10]: p.122

    I’ll be looking for my Dad in this footage.  I have photos of him in Nam with his fist in the air FTA!!!

  207. 207.

    prostratedragon

    @Geminid:  But it’s a good movie — maybe the best version. Not everything needs to be The Seventh Seal [shudder].

  209. 209.

    raven

    @TBone: Try Sir, No Sir

    In the 1960’s an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn’t take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point. And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam. It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile. And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services. Yet today few people know about the GI movement against the war in Vietnam.

  210. 210.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:  I keep the FTF NY Times subscription just to see what they are up to.  But I will cancel them in November.  No food section recipe is worth supporting fascism.  ETA:  When Biden wins re-election, the FTF NY Times’ slant, or downright ignoring him, is nothing I care to pay money for.  I almost cancelled today, with that asinine banner headline about Biden losing support among women.

    The WaPost might go too, depending on what Tax Dodger Bezos decides about his new Murdochized leadership team.

    Bezos makes me reluctant to order from Amazon.  Although, at this point, I don’t even think it’s possible to hit him in the wallet.  Only the federal government can do that, and I wish they would.

  212. 212.

    Gravenstone

    @Leto: Story I saw reported this was right after she was assigned the case. Suggested she not take something so high profile since she has little trial experience. So yeah, they knew what sort of clusterfuckery awaited us here.

  214. 214.

    Elizabelle

    @Raven:   Thank you for the recommendation.

    Thing about Donald Sutherland:  he was in so many films and shows.  And was still acting right through last year or so.

    What a pleasure to discover 90% of his work!

  215. 215.

    smith

    @Gravenstone: She’d already shown both her bias and her incompetence in her handling of the MAL search warrant. That, combined with her utter lack of trial experience, gave them a whole parade’s worth of red flags.

  216. 216.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Elizabelle:

    No food section recipe is worth supporting fascism.

    Does the FTFNYT still support Hitler or have they renounced their history?​

  219. 219.

    smith

    @Baud: I wonder how much his conviction took the wind out of their sails. The stock price started to plummet the day of the verdict and it’s been a steady decline ever since.

  220. 220.

    Martin

    @topclimber: The problem isn’t that. The problem is that the point at which value is assessed is arbitrary with how we do things now. Consider a high volatility security. I made decent money in options trading. I’d put $5K on some deep out of the money options and at various points over the next 12 months they’d be worth anywhere from $0 to $250,000, sometimes fluctuating by a lot over a period of 24 hours, when I might not even be in a position to execute a trade to take profits to pay for a tax liability that might be determined on that day (in the event his might be done quarterly for people who pay estimated taxes). On that day it might be worth $250K, I’m expected to pay say $12,500 on a 5% wealth tax, and literally the next day those options are worth less than $12,500, simply because they can be that volatile.

    The problem I have with most of these schemes is that they make the usual IRS assumption of calculation of middle school level of mathematical complexity, where for something like a stock investment, it would make more sense to take the daily aggregate value – basically integrate under the stock price. That way if there’s a 1-day run up that I miss, it gets averaged in with all of the other days of the year. And of course if I do sell on that day, I pay the realized gains.

    The stock market is a simple one to solve, overall. A harder one are assets that don’t have public markets. This is why Trump got in trouble with the IRS – a lot of real estate doesn’t have a market. What’s Trump Tower worth? Well, you kind of have to rely on Trump to give you an honest answer. You could ask someone like Moody’s but they’re just going to lie, because all external appraisers do – they set values for insurance purpose, which is basically an overvaluation racket for replacement, not for sale. The $20,000 diamond is valued at that because that’s what you would pay retail to replace it, not what the retailer will pay you to take it off your hands. Odds are, that number will be half that or less, which is really what the value of your asset is.

    Stocks and residential properties have markets (you at least have a government assessment office for property tax purposes) but it’s not hard to bury your wealth in things that don’t, which is pretty much why the fine art world exists – as a tax avoidance mechanism.

    I think what the IRS would need to do is to hook into global insurance and financial services that can capture your valuation from them. If your income comes from borrowing off of existing assets that are growing faster than you can spend, you have $0 income – in fact you are reporting debt, because you’re paying your bills from loans. But you can borrow from foreign banks. And those banks are extending that credit on an evaluation of your assets, so they’ve valued them, and that’s what you want to tax. Also, you’re insuring that fine art for a specific amount, so you need to capture their assessments as well.

    Doing that internationally will be difficult, because if the Cypriot bank doesn’t want to participate, there’s no real way for the IRS to know who has an account with them. So once again, the super wealthy would have ways to hide their assets, which wouldn’t be available for the rest of us. I’m not rich enough to do that, so I’m paying the tax. But someone 10x richer than me isn’t.

    This goes back to my central thesis of what I think is behind the economic malaise. The problem isn’t that people are economically badly off. The problem is that the system is unfair, and even if I’m doing well with a job and a high income and cheap gas, if my landlord is raising my rent simply because some piece of software has determined that there are people who will pay it rather than become homeless, even if I can afford to pay it, it feels unfair. Having my employer lay me off even when they’re earning record profits feels unfair. Even if the wealth tax system captures me but lets Bezos and Trump escape, it still feels unfair.

    I think in order to solve this, you need a fairly complete tearing down of how US markets and taxation works to be replaced with something with modern sensibilities, asset valuation and all that. Not just because you need it for wealth taxation, but also because its those shortcoming that the 2007 financial crisis operate in the cracks of, as well as crypto and this process will repeat indefinitely by people finding ways to exploit an antiquated system that is not able to respond with the kind of pace that people can innovate new scams and tax avoidance schemes.

  223. 223.

    Baud

    @smith:

    It showed that a jury isn’t going to be so awed by him that they won’t convict. And if he loses, he’s likely going to go down hard for his more serious crimes.

  224. 224.

    Yutsano

    @RaflW: No, what we need is an end to the carried interest loophole for Wall St. sharks, and a trading tax so we can tamp down on the g.d. casino nature of share investing.

    A) It’s not quite the carried interest rule (which yes should bite the dust) but the IRS is working on closing the basis shifting rule that does absolutely nothing for the economy. It’s one of the biggest tax cheats out there.

    B) There are findings that just a small transaction tax on Wall Street alone* could raise hundreds of billions just by itself. It would also work to curb some of the excesses from Wall Street alone.

    *I don’t know if this accounts for just the Dow or if it includes NASDAQ and the S&P exchanges. I also don’t know if this includes the commodities exchange in Chicago. Also, if even these three things were implemented along with removing the Social Security income cap, we could fund so much shit in this country. It’s no wonder it hasn’t happened since it MIGHT slightly inconvenience our billionaire overlords.

    OT: my spelling is shit today for some reason. I think it’s because Biden is too old,

  226. 226.

    Dan B

    @eclare: I met Jane Fonda and Donald Southerland at the ferry dock for Mac Neil Island Federal Penitentiary in 1973 or so.  She was beguiling and humble.  He was standoffish except to the handsome young guys at the lunch (or dinner?) meeting.  They were surprised by Donald’s footsie.  He didn’t do it to extremely skinny me.  I had the impression he was pan and casting couch.  Who knows.  He did know how, and when, to chew the scenery.

  227. 227.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: Interesting comments.

    The $20,000 diamond is valued at that because that’s what you would pay retail to replace it, not what the retailer will pay you to take it off your hands. Odds are, that number will be half that or less, which is really what the value of your asset is.

    I thought the standard usually was “motivated seller, motivated buyer” and all that.

    Diamonds are probably a bad example because of the DeBeers cartel and all that. ;-)

    I don’t like the idea of insurance companies and appraisers somehow being the gold standard on what something is “worth”. I think, but I haven’t thought really deeply on this, going back to what someone paid for something or what a company claims some award is worth, is probably the simpler way to go. And then the usual depreciation/appreciation stuff on top.

    You actually paid $100 for a”$60M” NFT? That’s what it is worth until you sell it to a real, un-conflicted, motivated buyer to demonstrate that it’s worth more. Or less. Your company gave you “$5B” in stock options? That’s what it is worth until the motivated buyer says otherwise. That’s income to you even if you haven’t realized it yet. It changes your financial situation because you know you have that backstop, you can borrow against it, you can use it to get societal rewards. You pay taxes on it. If you have to sell some of it to pay the taxes, well too bad so sad. (If the company tries to claim that the “$5B” in stock options is actually only worth $10M, then the FTC and the IRS should come down on them like a load of bricks for looting the company, being a tax scam, and all the rest.)

    Adding yet more layers of complexity on top of a complex system doesn’t make it more difficult to cheat over the long term – it makes it easier for those with resources.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  228. 228.

    Baud

    @Yutsano:

    OT: my spelling is shit today for some reason. I think it’s because Biden is too old,

     

    Congrats on landing a job with the NYT!

  230. 230.

    TBone

    @raven: 👍❤️

    My Dad was a Ross’ Rice Runner.  He taught me that war is always wrong. It is a pathetic last resort.

    https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_88207007432441CB989B55B3A794C212

    Ross: I think in a lot of ways the experience I had with the village of Ben Suc was the beginning of a long questioning process regarding our involvement in Vietnam. Um in the past, we’d done search and destroy missions search and seal missions but we’d never done anything quite this large we were literally taking an entire area of the countryside and just emptying out all the people.

  234. 234.

    smith

    More GQP family values:

    Michigan GOP state Rep. Neil Friske arrested after alleged altercation with a stripper involving a firearm

    According to initial reports from the Lansing-based MIRS News, Friske was arrested by the Lansing Police Department with a gun in his possession at 2:25 a.m. near his home, after sources said he allegedly chased an adult dancer from his home. The dancer also supposedly works at the Déjà Vu gentlemen’s club in Lansing, which is located close to Friske’s home. The LPD also confirmed they were responding to a shots fired call.

  237. 237.

    TBone

    @raven: thank you for that remembering💙💜🩷 I should have known you’d remember.  I’m going to rent FTA tonight if I can find it.  Thank you!

    And Sir No Sir is on my list!

  238. 238.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @frosty: ​
     

    Everybody has ‘conversational shorthand’ from movies. That one provides a *lot* of conversational shorthand.

  239. 239.

    Baud

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    And we know how that worked out.

    IMHO, many of the things we’d like to see scare the other side or normies more than they inspire our voters.  As discussed here yesterday, we’ll be lucky if student loan relief doesn’t end up a net negative for Biden’s reelection.

  241. 241.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Another Scott: that’s why you exercise and sell enough options each year to pay the taxes.  Hurts you if the stock keeps going up, but really protects you if it goes down.

     

    @smith: female stripper?  That doesn’t sound like the GOP at all.

  242. 242.

    TKH

    I had seen this picture a couple of times and wondered why some of the justices were waving. Now I finally look closely and notice the coat hangers for the first time. Duh! What a sick burn!

  243. 243.

    raven

    @TBone: The picture on this site is Rusty Sachs, he was also a USMC Chopper Pilot. When Winter Soldier was re-released there was a picture of my in front of the White House at Dewey Canyon III, it’s not there anymore but they did send it to me before they took it down.

     

    in 1961, Rusty moved to Gernoble, France after being waitlisted at Harvard. He attended L’Externat Notre-Dame, Université de Grenoble until he was accepted at Harvard the following year.

     

    After two years, Rusty left Harvard and joined the United States Marine Corps. He made his way into the Marine Aviation Cadet Program (MARCAD), a unique program where enlisted Marines with two years of college experience could become pilots and earn a commission as an officer in the United States Marine Corps.

    Rusty was sent to Vietnam in July of 1966 as a replacement pilot and was assigned to H-34 helicopter squadron HHM-362, which at the time was based out of Ky Ha.

    During Rusty’s time in Vietnam, he flew 725 combat missions with his primary role being the medical evacuation of wounded soldiers and Marines.

    After returning from Vietnam, Rusty went back to Harvard to finish his bachelor’s degree. He became involved with the group known as Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) as a speaker and organizer.

  244. 244.

    Dan B

    @raven: The groups sponsoring Fonda and Southerland’s visit were The Shelter Half and Pacific Counseling Service.  I volunteered for Pacific Counseling Service.  We counseled GI’s from the bases.  The Shelter Half provided a gathering space for GI’s.

  245. 245.

    raven

    @Dan B: I don’t know if it was there when I was at Lewis in the summer of 68. I do remember that I could have gotten help from folks at UW in Seattle  to go to Canada if I had wanted to. It was a tough call but I decided to go.

     

    eta. I see the Shelter Half was in Tacoma. We’d take the bus to Seattle and hang around on the Ave. The first time I dropped acid we scored in Seattle and took the bus back to Lewis. We got back after lights out so we took a ratio into the laundry room and they broke in with the news that Bobby had been killed.

  247. 247.

    Captain C

    @Steve in the ATL: Anything official would likely be something like:

    “In retrospect, we should have taken Mr. Hitler with a little more skepticism and seriousness, but given what was known at the time, we stand by our stout, competent, and totally correct reporting on his nature, demeanor, and plans.  Also, Walter Duranty should have won multiple Pulitzer Prizes, not just one, for his excellent and fact-based reporting on Stalin’s USSR.”

  249. 249.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    Here in BC, property values are appraised once a year by the Land Title Office, for property tax purposes. That assessment can be challenged but it’s an expensive, time consuming process, and is rarely won.*

    The Land Title Office registers all loans and liens on a property, ownership, ownership history, etc.

    For sales valuation, insurance, mortgages, etc, the Land Title Office’s most recent assessment, is the baseline for the Real Estate Agent, the Bank, the Insurance Company to calculate an adjusted current value of the property dependent on improvements and what the market has been doing.

    *one recent case that the owner won, was based on the fact that between the time of the assessment and the due date for the taxes, both apartment buildings on either side of their apartment building, had burned down and were boarded up, so you know, squatters, taggers, etc on what had been a “nice” block.

  250. 250.

    Dan B

    @raven: I believe both groups set up shop well after ’68.  When I arrived at PCS in Fall ’72 we all lived in a little house at the crest of the hill about the Federal Courthouse.  It wasn’t crowded.  We moved to a much bigger house when the little church next to our house fell onto our little house.  The bigger house filled rapidly with volunteers and we rented another big house nearby.  That winter we discovered the latest house had enough drafts to blow out candles.

    Sometime during my time there a group of GI’s who were going for their CO’s were shackled and put on a transport to Vietnam.  This was just the most egregious act by the military that we experienced.

  251. 251.

    Dan B

    @raven: Pacific Counseling Service was in the Court ‘C’ coffeehouse complex in downtown Tacoma.  The Shelter Half was south of downtown somewhere.  We never went to far away Seattle.

  252. 252.

    scav

    @smith: Good to see Little Friske(y)’s campaign whipping out the party position that any arrest for any criming done during a campaign is clearly politically inspired over-reach!  And they’ll likely get bonus NRA stars for the “always his exercising 2nd amendment right” which of course means gunfire in local streets after disagreements with temporary (alleged) employees.

  253. 253.

    raven

    @Dan B: Fuckers.  They put us in a barracks right next to Post HQ. They would the cannon deal at revile and retreat and we loaded that baby with toilet paper! The lifers were not amused.

  254. 254.

    smith

    @scav: I liked how the whole kerfuffle was the fault of his RINO primary opponent with ties to the deep state.

  255. 255.

    raven

    @Dan B: Seattle was the only place we could score! The street dealing on the Ave in front of UW was a wild scene of people whispering “lids, acid, speed. . . “! Most dealer shied away from us because of out buzz cuts but there was a Navy Vet who would sell to us. Seems like yesterday.

  256. 256.

    scav

    @smith: sshhhhh!  I’m sure he doesn’t want the Donald to learn his felony-level offense wasn’t done (with tears in his eyes and a whispered “sir!”) in abject emulation of their dear leader.

  257. 257.

    Dan B

    @raven: I don’t recall John Balaban.  His story seems heart rending.  The US Military establishment would have called these people and these children “collateral damage” or “Gooks”.  There are quite a few people who have no idea what it feels like, and what the consequences are, of being labeled as a dangerous subhuman.  The two gay ex-Jesuit priests who headed PCS knew all too well how it felt and what the label did to people.

  258. 258.

    Miki

    @Juju.: Oddly enough, I had 3 BFs between 1971 and 1981 who drove 1964 slant 6 Plymouth Valiants. And I drove all of them from time to time.

    I also drove my own V8 Valiant.

    There were some drugs involved on the edges but mostly it was about cheap wheels, cheap maintenance for said wheels, and poor students.

  260. 260.

    raven

    @Dan B: The book is incredible. I learned of him in a book called “Late Thoughts on an Old War” by University of Alabama history professor Phil Biedler. He has a chapter “Wanting to be John Bablaban where he tells John’s story. After I read it I got “Remembering” and saw that John and I were both in Can Tho at the same time. I wrote him and we had a little correspondence. Phil died last year but I still communicate with John some.

  262. 262.

    raven

    Fox is showing a baseball game between the Cards and Giants that is being played a Rickwood Field.  Willy Mays staryte there.

     

    The Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues called Rickwood Field home from 1924 through 1960. As a teenager, Willie Mays began his professional career with the Black Barons in 1948. He played with them before beginning his legendary MLB career as a member of the New York Giants in 1951. Rickwood Field was the site of the final Negro League World Series game in October 1948, which saw Mays’ Black Barons falling to the Homestead Grays in five games.

  263. 263.

    Another Scott

    @Jay: Yeah, residential property is a different kettle of fish than diamonds or stocks or options.  It works similarly to the way you outlined here in NoVA.

    When we were buying our house in the late ’90s, the DC area housing market was just heating up again after being in the doldrums for about half a decade (recovering from the previous run-up).  Our mortgage lender was a little worried about the appraisal we needed to get for our mortgage, as prices were increasing quickly enough that the appraiser had to be careful so that it didn’t look like weird hanky-panky was going on.  Of course, the county’s tax appraisal was 1-2 years behind what the market was doing, also too.

    Every system will have corner cases or be easy to game or have other issues.  Ultimately, it depends on people staying within the lines voluntarily, and part of what makes people do it voluntarily is seeing examples of swift and sure punishment when they don’t.  Making the system more complex is usually counter-productive.

    (Insert memory of boring old story about how PACs were going to democratize political fundraising and equalize the playing field…)

    All that said, things like options in Martin’s example are weird.  Maybe the tax should be built into the contract, somehow.  Dunno.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  264. 264.

    Manyakitty

    @Elizabelle: I cancelled my Washington Post subscription a few weeks back, because of the “Time for American voters to choose who will harm the country less” headlines on a Dan Balz article. JFC. NOPE.

  265. 265.

    Miki

    @RaflW: Coleman’s a self-serving dick. As an Asst AG he represented a Ramsey County judge I clerked for on a freedom of press issue during the high profile Lois Jurgens trial. The law was clear – the judge needed to have a hearing, but Norm nixed it and the press took the issue to the state Supreme Court who promptly smacked him and the judge down.

    Coleman was in it for the publicity and did not represent the judge well at all.

    Wow. I’d forgotten how pissed I was at Coleman for his shitty lawyering 37 years ago – before he became a Republican (no surprise there).

    And Pawlenty? Don’t get me started. There’s a real good reason we kicked him and the Rethugs out.

    Back to regular programming ….

  267. 267.

    RaflW

    @Miki: Not gonna disagree with you on any of this righteous rant. And, they’re extra horrible because they’re keeping their heads mostly down during Trumpism, if as this endorsement suggests, they have a notion that it should not be the driver in GOP politics.

  268. 268.

    Geminid

    @Miki: Fun Norm Coleman fact: Coleman graduated from James Madison High School in Brooklyn. So did Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

  269. 269.

    TBone

    @Raven: I’m watching FTA right now.  They. Were. SO. Young!

    Thank you for hipping me to this wonderful window into the past 💞 as it really was.

  271. 271.

    Ksmiami

    Hmm, just returned from Norway and I think a billionaire forced funded sovereign wealth fund that will ultimately reinvest in the country’s infrastructure and people could work to claw back some of the grotesque inequality that has been festering and immiserating our general population. Basically, our systems and institutions have enabled ppl to become billionaires- “mining” them to pay into a fund for America is the least they can do.

  272. 272.

    Miki

    @Geminid: Yep. He was an anti-war long-haired faux hippie for a short time, too. Phoney as a 3 dollar bill. If it hadn’t been politics, it would have been cheap pillows.

  274. 274.

    Dan B

    @TBone: I was part of that.  It is mind boggling that this recent history is being discovered.  There were so many things I and my acquaintances experienced in such rapidity.  We were making up a great deal of the actions we took.  I believe I met Jane Fonda when she was 27 and I was 22.  She seemed so much older and more experienced.

  275. 275.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: Right, but the real problem is that ‘value’ is subjective, and trying to make it objective requires careful administration. People that hold valuable assets are motivated to seek that valuation – if only for insurance purposes, and that can be exploited if you can get congress and courts to agree to let that happen. Trump property valuation got him in legal trouble because he was telling the IRS one thing and his bank another. That’s not a difficult technical problem to solve – just compare answers. But legally it could be extremely difficult to get that implemented, especially if the bank is in the Caymans.

  276. 276.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: The problem is once you declare a financial mechanism to be weird and hard to deal with for taxation purposes, you’ll find people seek that vehicle out to exploit it for it’s tax benefits. It can rapidly go from obscure to common.

    Mind you, there’s a lot of these mechanisms that really should be straight up illegal as they provide no social benefit, but that’s a different matter.

    But it leaves a problem of how you handle short-term investment that happen to cross the arbitrary evaluation date for wealth, and how that might also cause manipulation of the underlying securities.

    As an example here, one trading strategy I used for a while involved buying straddles expiring at a strategic date. A straddle is both a call option at a given price (it’s an option to buy the security at a pre-determined price, regardless of the current market price) and a put option (an option to sell at a pre-determined price) but both at the same price on the same expiration. It’s a hedge so that if the security changes in value a LOT, you’ll make more on one side than you lose on the other. Think of a small drugmaker announcing their FDA trials before expiry – either the trials succeed and the price probably shoots up, or they fail and the price probably tanks. But you can also use them if you think the security will do both between when you buy the options and they expire – which I used to do for certain securities that would pretty predictably run up in anticipation of an event and then tank after the event. I could sell the calls at the top of the run-up and sell the puts after it tanked and make money on both sides. How then do you build in the tax to the contract when on one side I have a seller who is convinced the underlying security will go down in value, and on the other side a buyer who is equally convinced it’ll go up, and I’m sheepishly saying ‘what if it did both?’. Arbitrage falls in this category where you might hold a contract for weeks and then sell it. And such a tax would wipe out a decent bit of that market because your gains are so slight it wouldn’t pay for the tax, but that might be a benefit in the end as it’s a form of wealth creation that is only available to the very wealthy. You and I aren’t invited.

    The solution in every other context would be to integrate – take the value every day, add that up, divide by the number of days to give you a mean value over the period of taxation. But that only works for things that have markets where they are being continually valued. It doesn’t help you for things that aren’t.

    This shit is hard.

  277. 277.

    TBone

    @raven:

    @Dan B:

    Thank you both for letting me know about this film that I didn’t know existed, the people who supported the FTA shows, what you guys were doing and seeing at the time, etc.  I just watched Donald Sutherland explaining about the guy who had his arms, legs, eyes and hearing taken by war (the New Jesus) and his response to the right wing hecklers there.  That’s the Donald Sutherland I will always remember.  And I treasure seeing Jane Fonda on that stage, and Beverly Grant, et al.  Hearing firsthand from the grunts and indigenous people.  Priceless.

    I can’t believe you got to meet Jane, how I wish it were under better circumstances.  She’s been my shero since forever.

    I’m so glad you all survived it.

  279. 279.

    wjca

    @TBone: My Dad was a Ross’ Rice Runner.  He taught me that war is always wrong. It is a pathetic last resort.

    Tell it to the Ukranians.

  280. 280.

    TBone

    @wjca: they didn’t start a war, last time I checked. They were invaded and forced to defend themselves, a nuance that must’ve gone over your head.

    I can’t believe I have to defend myself here on what I was taught by my stepfather, a war veteran. Unfuckingbelievable.

  281. 281.

    wjca

    @TBone: That’s what comes of saying “War is always wrong” rather than “Starting a war is always wrong.”  People assume you meant what you actually said.

    (Perhaps because some of us know people who are devout pacifists, and who do believe that “War is always wrong.”  Somehow they avoid noticing that they are free-riding on the rest of us.)

  283. 283.

    TBone

    @wjca: listen up, bumptious feist.  My war veteran stepfather was a true pacifist after having lived through the horror of war.  So yes, “some of us” actually do know true pacifists.  I used to be one. My stating what I was taught by my stepdad in reference to the FTA movie doesn’t mean I haven’t evolved proportionate to the threat of fascism that we currently face.  Dad didn’t teach me how to shoot a long gun for nothing.  Just in case, he said.

    The constant need to pick on women around here is frustrating and tiresome.  Parse your own need to be dominant – why do you need to foist your annoyance about my words and memories on others?

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