Kavanaugh says no one has too much power in US system. Critics see Supreme Court bowing to Trump
flip.it/BVkaPv
LOL— Greed Apocalypse (@juanmunoz.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 1:26 PM
There’s a club, and we’re not in it…
WACO, Texas (AP) — Justice Brett Kavanaugh says the genius of the American system of government is that no one should have too much power, even as he and other conservatives on the Supreme Court are facing criticism for deferring repeatedly to President Donald Trump.
Invoking the list of grievances against King George III that the nation’s founders included in the Declaration of Independence, Kavanaugh said Thursday the framers of the Constitution were set on avoiding the concentration of power.
“And the framers recognized in a way that I think is brilliant, that preserving liberty requires separating the power. No one person or group of people should have too much power in our system,” Kavanaugh said at an event honoring his onetime boss, Kenneth Starr, a former federal judge and solicitor general celebrated by conservatives who died in 2022.
Trump’s aggressive effort to remake the federal government did not come up inside a gymnasium on the campus of McLennan Community College in Waco…
Kavanaugh’s appearance in Waco highlighted Kavanaugh’s long history with Starr, most notably his stint as a prosecutor in Starr’s independent counsel investigation of President Bill Clinton.
Starr became a household name in the late 1990s because of his investigation of Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Kavanaugh pushed Starr to ask Clinton in graphic detail about phone sex and specific sexual acts, according to a 1998 memo…
Starr followed Kavanaugh’s advice and his report, filled with the salacious details, was released in full by House Republicans, who ultimately impeached Clinton for lying under oath. The Senate acquitted him…
In 2018, Starr was among those who publicly defended Kavanaugh, then a Supreme Court nominee, as he faced sexual misconduct allegations, including from Christine Blasey Ford, who said he groped her at a party when they were teenagers and tried to remove her clothes…
Ken Starr did varied work after the Whitewater investigation. He represented Jeffrey Epstein when the financier was first accused of having sex with underage girls. Epstein pleaded guilty to minor charges and accepted a light sentence in Florida in 2008, in a deal that avoided a more serious federal prosecution.
Starr served as dean of the Pepperdine University law school in the Los Angeles area and then as president of Baylor University, also in Waco. But he was forced out of the Baylor job in 2016 in the midst of a sexual assault scandal involving players on the school’s football team. A school-commissioned report found that under Starr’s leadership, Baylor did little to respond to the allegations.
Then in 2020, Starr joined Trump’s defense team that won Senate acquittal of the president after his first impeachment.
John Roberts:
— Nied ?? (@nied.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Andrew Perez and Ryan Bort, at Rolling Stone — The Supreme Court Is Trump’s Partner in Crimes Against America:
Donald Trump inflicted plenty of damage on the United States over the course of his first four years in office, but the most enduring blow may have been his radicalization of the Supreme Court. He appointed not one, not two, but three conservative justices, all of whom were hand-selected by right-wing activists.
The remade court quickly paid dividends, issuing decisions overturning Roe v. Wade and granting Trump immunity from prosecution for acts committed while president. Now, it’s actively enabling the restored president’s fascist regime.
The conservative justices have already made it harder for judges to shut down Trump’s lawlessness and overtly unconstitutional orders — such as his effort to eliminate the constitutional guarantee to birthright citizenship — and keeps allowing him to fire ostensibly independent regulators and government workers en masse without any basis. Worse yet, the court has decided that Trump can arbitrarily deport immigrants to third-party countries to which they have no ties, even to exceedingly dangerous countries like South Sudan, with little opportunity to challenge the government’s decisions.
On Monday, the Supreme Court issued perhaps its most profoundly un-American ruling yet, allowing Trump’s masked immigration thugs to indiscriminately stop people on the streets because they are speaking Spanish or working as day laborers in the construction industry, so Trump officials can check their citizenship status and add more victims to the administration’s churning deportation machine.
The court continued to allow Trump to ax independent regulators on Monday, as well, with Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily greenlighting the president’s ability to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a member of the Federal Trade Commission. Slaughter’s lawsuit over her termination will continue. On Tuesday, the court allowed Trump to temporarily withhold $4 billion of congressionally appropriated foreign aid spending, and agreed to speed up a hearing over the legality of Trump’s tariff regime…
I think we should all just assume John Roberts is compromised. Maybe he isn’t, but everything he’s done since 2023 or so is what you’d expect from someone who’s compromised.
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 5:52 PM
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Nice judiciary you’ve got there. Shame if something happened to it.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) September 4, 2025 at 2:21 PM
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The new John Roberts portrait just dropped
— Jen Taub (@jennifertaub.com) September 9, 2025 at 5:46 PM
(Roger B. Taney, of Dred Scott infamy)
===
My hat is off to the lower courts. Who would ever think that the lower courts would have to call the Supreme Court.
Appeals court judges publicly admonish Supreme Court justices: ‘We’re out here flailing’ – POLITICO share.google/QsiXTzCb6dva…— Mike Lowe (@mike-lowe.bsky.social) September 13, 2025 at 1:10 PM
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"Three times in the past few months, the majority knowingly and summarily disregarded a major Supreme Court precedent that had constrained another president." www.thebulwark.com/p/supreme-co…
— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) September 12, 2025 at 1:00 PM
===
that is precisely the message of Trump v. Slaughter
the Supreme Court keeps telling lower court judges not to do as the Court does, or to do as the Court has said, but to do what everyone knows the Court wants to say: “Whatever Trump wants goes”
ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/trump…— Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie (@audrelawdamercy.bsky.social) September 8, 2025 at 4:34 PM
===
iKropoclast
Which is why Kavanaugh had to help undermine the US system.
Baud
Whatcha gonna do? Blackmailing the voters is off the table.
Betty Cracker
Wait, Kenneth Starr died in 2022?!? If I heard about it, somehow I’d forgotten. I had the vague impression he’d slunk off in disgrace after ignoring a horrifying sex abuse scandal at a Texas university.
Thanks for brightening my morning. Each terrible person outlived is a victory!
p.a.
How dare you accurately describe what we do and say!- SUCOSIX, The Ghost of Kirk via the MSM, Groypers, tRump, yadda yadda…
mrmoshpotato
This posts seems like a good home for this story.
New E-Toilet To Revolutionize Online Shitting
Michael Bersin
More images and some audio from yesterday’s “Rally Against Truth Decay” in Warrensburg, Missouri.
Rally Against Truth Decay – Johnson County Courthouse – Warrensburg, Missouri – September 13, 2025
Rally Against Truth Decay – Johnson County Courthouse – Warrensburg, Missouri – September 13, 2025 – part 2
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Worst timeline? How about best timeline!
Baud
@Michael Bersin:
Hey hey RFK!
How many teeth did you rot today!
satby
Look at Kavanaugh’s face in that picture. That fucker is still drinking heavily.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker:
Yup. D-E-A-D. Dead.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: “with real-time point, click and shit capability”
mrmoshpotato
@satby: Wonder if he and Secretary of WAR! 🙄 Kegsbreath are drinking buddies.
Viva BrisVegas
@mrmoshpotato: That’s a shame, otherwise we could ask him how Epstein got such a sweetheart sentencing deal in Florida.
Ramalama
@satby: He has not hit rock bottom yet. Or The Rock’s Bottom.
Ramalama
@Betty Cracker: We were all busy in 2022.
Betty Cracker
@Viva BrisVegas: We can still ask Alex Acosta!
Jackie
That portrait of Justice Roger Taney eerily resembles McTurtle – and that’s oddly fitting…
Deputinize America
@Baud: The contradictions will be heightened.
satby
@Ramalama: He’s well positioned never to, with enablers all around. So I’m rooting for cirrhosis
I mean, dude’s 60 and could pass for 80.
WereBear
All I know about the law is, back in the day, a good performance on a snap aptitude test.
But I think that’s enough to say these MAGA judges are lousy lawyers. Word play and outright lies in their legal documents!
Where is the Bar Association? And why aren’t they as mad as I am?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
This SCOTUS is going to be a major problem for the next Dem administration and Congress, just as they were for the Biden admin. They will do everything in their power to undermine and undercut anything they do
Mai Naem mobile
@Betty Cracker: Ollie North and Fawn Hall got married in a secret ceremony a couple of weeks ago. She thought Jan 6th was a false flag event so she’s as stupid as ever. Also the wedding was so super secret none of his kids attended.
Anyway
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): yep, and if any one of the Evil six retire/kick the bucket we’ll see more young extremists that will be on the court for decades. Ex. ABC. Sigh
ETA writing the mal-admin a blank check is on point
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile:
Holy cow. Worst Hallmark made for TV romance story ever.
Mai Naem mobile
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): if the Dems get the trifecta in 2028 I actually think they’ll do something about SCOTUS and SCOTUS themselves will have set it up giving POTUS immunity. I’m more concerned with Orange Dickwad replacing Thomas and Alito with some bigger but younger rwnjs. Thomas is easily bribed. Alito would probably be happy with some prestigious law school being named after him.
jonas
JFC, that sumbitch owes me one coffee and a new keyboard. Are you fucking kidding me? No one should have too much power… except for Republican presidents who are legally-immunized dictators with unlimited power to do whatever they want. Oh, except forgive student loans. Only God can do that, apparently.
mrmoshpotato
@Mai Naem mobile:
HA! That’s putting it nicely.
Mai Naem mobile
@Baud: i really thought Ollie North had died. I vaguely remember him being involved with the NRA and then I thought he had died.
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile:
I’ll be surprised if that doesn’t happen. I expected it during Trump 1.0.
jonas
Alina Habba is tanned, rested, and ready.
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile:
IIRC he actually was honorable at the NRA in that he exposed some internal corruption.
Another Scott
@Mai Naem mobile: @Baud:
The Senate will just hold the seat vacant until after the next election.
Right? Right??
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
Mai Naem mobile
The 2000 election was just such a turning point. Not sure if this country will ever get over the consequences of it. All the awful people who got their bonafides either from the election fight or Bush’s first term.
Spanky
Wikipedia tells me that that Taney photo was by Matthew Brady somewhere between 1855 and 1860. Dude didn’t die until 1864. It sure looks like he wasn’t enjoying his last decade, the fucker.
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile:
Obama and then Biden gave us two chances to move forward. I’m not sure we’ll get a third.
I’m not even sure enough people want a third.
Lapassionara
@Mai Naem mobile: We had our chance in 2016, when Hillary should have won easily, but did not. What a nightmare.
Librettist
@jonas:
I -think- Kash Patel is some sort of lawyer, and Trump wants him gone from the FBI.
Win-win!
Jackie
@Mai Naem mobile:
I read North’s first wife had only been buried a few short months ago. The kids seemed offended that their dad married so soon following their mother’s death.
MazeDancer
Governor Cox of Utah went on CNN with Dana Bash and reported Tyler the Killer was in a romantic relationship with a trans roommate.
And that Tyler was “deeply indoctrinated” by “leftist” theories.
They want Civil War. They will do whatever it takes. Governor will lie. They are determined.
Trans people take whatever cover you can.
My heart is breaking for you, for our country, for our planet.
Here’s the vid on Twitter.
hueyplong
As my compromise with the Bible thumpers, I now believe in hell and am eternally grateful for being reminded that Starr is almost certainly in it. With any luck, he’s anxiously awaiting his emailing servant’s arrival to join him in eternal misery.
mrmoshpotato
@MazeDancer: And how little pushback was their from Bash? Or did she just completely let that bullshit slide?
Another Scott
Fight for 15!!
Meanwhile, moar drones and moar private surveillance is obviously the answer.
NotebookCheck.net:
Because of course.
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: Drones over guns! Yeah, baby!
hueyplong
@Spanky: The number of people who look happy in Brady photos is pretty low. Probably the nearly infinite posing period.
In any event, you’re definitely correct that he looks like the miserable rat he was.
jonas
POTUS already does have nearly unlimited immunity, accd. to SCOTUS. I do think Dems should run hard — balls to the walls hard — on creating a new SCOTUS that will 1. overturn Citizens United 2. overturn Dobbs and 3. overturn these “the president is an elected dictator” rulings of the past couple of years.
hueyplong
@WereBear: You could persuasively argue that the ABA is yet another American “institution” that operates just fine unless subjected to the slightest stress.
dnfree
@WereBear: Here is one group of lawyers that is working on the angle of going after the lawyers involved in overturning democracy. I have a relative who is involved.
https://ldad.org
Glory b
@satby: Yep, I didn’t recognize him at all.
NotMax
Weekend watch.
Murder on the high seas? Couid be.
Baud
Blue sky Truth, via Reddit
schrodingers_cat
Democrats need their own media apparatus. MSNBC or whatever it is called now is not it.
lowtechcyclist
Thanks, Politico, for my first laugh of the day.
m.j.
Doesn’t there need to become a time when the court has given away enough that they are seen as unnecessary?
Why keep you around when you are useless?
Matt McIrvin
@Mai Naem mobile: I currently have a hard time believing that any federal-level Democrats will be alive and out of jail in 2028.
sab
@satby: Yes. Emphasis on heavily.
lowtechcyclist
@mrmoshpotato:
From the link:
😁
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I have been defending MSNBC for years in rhese comments. Never again.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: There is a black woman I follow on Twitter, who had an astute observation to make, that Obama’s team did not take the threat of Putin seriously in the early to mid teens. She said they were arrogant
Basically we are playing catch up in the information war against Kremlin. Putin has infiltrated both the ends of the horseshoe.
eclare
I can’t even. I just have to do what I can control. The pets are fed and snoozing, and my appt for the covid and flu vaccines is on Tuesday. It is so dispiriting, which I know is what they want, but dammit, it works.
eclare
Pretty photo today.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
I will say that is one thing Romney got right in one of his debates against Obama. When asked who the greatest threat was, he said Russia. I can’t remember who Obama said, but it wasn’t Russia.
Baud
@eclare:
I think Obama thought the American people were better than they are.
schrodingers_cat
@eclare: IIRC he was quite dismissive of the idea. And I am sad to say that I agreed with Obama then and laughed at Romney for not being able to get out of the Cold War mindset.
But unlike me, Obama was the President then and must have had access to more info than I did.
p.a
@schrodingers_cat: Bet they looked at the trash economy & figured: no military (as opposed to nuclear) threat. Putin’s genius is using (creating?) another type of asymmetrical war besides geurilla war.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Obama FP team was caught flatfooted when Putin waltzed in Ukraine to and took over Crimea, that I do remember.
schrodingers_cat
@p.a: Yep.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Both Obama and Biden were dealing with war fatigue, especially among Democrats.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
I have the same memory. But wow, Mitt was right.
zhena gogolia
We had a sermon this morning based on Ezra Klein, lecturing us to settle our differences peacefully, as if a Democrat or a leftist had killed CK. And they were holding extra time in the sanctuary for those who wanted to pray. They didn’t do this for the MN legislators, they never do it for shootings of innocent schoolchildren. I am LIVID.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: You should be. Give them a piece of your mind when you cool down.
eclare
@zhena gogolia:
Wow.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: That’s true. Even so that proved a fatal oversight. Biden was an old foreign policy hand. I wonder how did he miss
The whole Oct7 attacks in Israel also have strong indicators of being a Russian op. And no one is an expert in deploying antisemitic tactics more than the Russians. Case in point, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I’m sorry. Goes to show that “we” are a much smaller group of people than we realize.
sab
@zhena gogolia: Am I remembering correctly that you are Episcopalian?
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
I think, like Obama, he believed too much in the American people.
And to be fair, that worked in 2020.
schrodingers_cat
@eclare: American people are not immune to propaganda that tells them what they want to hear. It did work in 2020 but the Oct 7 attacks changed that dynamic.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Russia didn’t seem the least bit powerful at the time. Militarily they still aren’t compared to us (before Trump fired all the generals and admirals).
We under-rated the power of propaganda on the internet. Russians have much more experience at propaganda than we do.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: We are not normies. Normies are always going to outnumber us.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: Skillfully employing propaganda has always been Russia’s strong suit. Not just within the US. You might be surprised to know that many normie physicians in India think that AIDS was a CIA creation. To give you but one example. And this is before the internet era.
So overlooking that propaganda aspect and Putin’s expansionist plans together was a fatal mistake.
Anyway
RW has figured out the engagement economy/ propaganda. All these tweets that AL, WG, rikyrah share here all make great points but don’t seem to be penetrating beyond the already on the D side. Whereas RWers have figured out how to reach the tepid, not heavily engaged folk.
Even the much touted followers of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift didn’t seem to move the needle much in terms of spreading KH’ message.
Anyway
@zhena gogolia: OMG I hope you bring it up with the PTB. How awful.
tobie
@jonas: This post has been a welcome reminder to make a sign about the corrupt half dozen on SCOTUS for the next No Kings March. I’m thinking of something like
IMPEACH
(Pictures of the 6 conservatives in the court.)
We Need Justices, Not Hacks.
Anyway
@eclare: the other thing that I remember Mitt bringing up was “self-deportation “. New concept to me at the time and one that seems to be relevant now. Again long play by RThugs.
tobie
@zhena gogolia: How awful to go to church only to be enraged. Are there any other congregants you can talk to? You need to go en masse to the minister to complain about his sermon.
Another Scott
@Baud: +1
Obama was dealing with ISIS/ISIL in Iraq and Syria, and Afghanistan. The US wasn’t in a position to start another big military operation anywhere else.
Angela Stent at Brookings has a decent summary of US / Russia issues (as of December 2012):
The world is complicated.
Best wishes,
Scott.
NotMax
@tobie
Black Robes Yes
Brown Noses No
//
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: So if the world is complicated does that mean we never question the decisions taken by leaders we elected. Or our own biases.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: No.
I just don’t think that “Romney was right” is a useful meme. I see no value in giving him credit for that. For example, I don’t think that Ukraine would be in a better place now had he won in 2012.
YMMV.
Best wishes,
Scott.
sab
I was reading Lawyers Guns and Money blog this morning.
Apparently Kirk’s religiosity was newish. His basic thing was racism and homophobia. When that didn’t sell enough, and following MAGA he adopted Christian Nationalism.
tobie
@NotMax: Bravo! That’s much more succinct than anything I’ve come up with.
MazeDancer
@mrmoshpotato: B-/C+ for Dana.
She asked what does a romantic partner have to do with motive? Twice.
Cox was, basically, trans! trans! trans! in a calm, gosh, who knows tone.
Not to be all lump ’em by manner, but Cox, to me, always comes across as the same persuasion as Mike Johnson. Which would be wonderful, if they were living their truth.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat:
Remember BiP?
MagdaInBlack
@sab: Mmmhm. He saw it as just another tool
That’s all it if for any of them. Cos-play.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott:
I was not thinking in terms of memes but trying to figure out how we ended up here in 2025. Also if we want to get out of our current dilemma we are going to need help from Rs or former Rs who are/were Cold Warriors. So throwing them a bone might not be such a bad idea if it gains us an ally/allies.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Oh I remember him. He accused me of being CIA. From the time before I was even born. LOL.
But what does that have to do with my anecdote?
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: He got his start on here peddling the CIA/AIDS conspiracy, back when he was Bob in Pacifica, before he moved and became Bob in Portland.
ETA: Give Another Scott five minutes and he’ll dig up one of those old threads.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Ahh I did not know that. This was before my time on BJ I guess.
MazeDancer
@zhena gogolia: Hope you get to scream at, uh, have a productive discussion with, the ministry.
Take Kirk quotes with you.
hueyplong
I wouldn’t have walked out on the sermon, but neither would I have returned. I’ve had my fill of one goyper kills another GOPer so all librulz need to shut up and tread lightly because they own this.
sab
I have no news source since I am so rabidly furiously angry at my usual sources doing hagiographies for Charlie (spit) Kirk.
So I am going back to re-reading aithors from Ali Velshi’s (he is still on MSNBC) banned book club.
Books banned in US public libraries. Wonderful stuff there. I am currently re-reading Jodi Picoult. I love her books. She writes so well she could have been an important novelist, but instead she has chosen to write books normal people want to read about normal families facing serious problems. But she is a seriously good writer so it reads like literature not just pop fiction.
Miss Bianca
@sab: Which Jodi Picoult are you reading right now?
schrodingers_cat
@sab: Black Twitter is the best source for political analysis. They got this right from the get go.
Citizen Alan
@eclare: in Obama’s defense, i think at the time of that debate, obama realized that russia was a threat but thought there were other threats that were more dangerous at that moment in time. His mistake was in failing to anticipate that within four years, the entire republican party would choose to become a russian asset once that became the best way to preserve white supremacy.
schrodingers_cat
@Citizen Alan: Agreed.
jonas
Casual Instagram follower =/= engaged voter. Sure these celebrities have gazillions of “followers” on whatever platform, but it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily paying attention to anything.
sab
I have a trans niece. Sweeteist, kindest, gentleist person ever. Just a sweetheart. All this vitriol about people like her just makes me physically ill. What is wrong with people?
Anyway
@schrodingers_cat: comments here echo Adam Silverman’s posts about US and the west not responding strongly to Putin and his threats/actions…always too little too late. That quote about probing with bayonets come to mind …
sab
@Miss Bianca: Right now I am in Keeping Faith. I tend to reread authors by publication dates. The Pact just broke my heart.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: Yes, we need every (reasonably) gettable vote.
Made me look.
YouGov.com – Reppublican politicians popularity:
[ Rank, Name, “Fame”, Popularity]
McCain isn’t even on the list through 165 – he seems to have been erased.
Rmoney is 2 points above Kissinger??
;-)
Republicans are weird.
Best wishes,
Scott.
hueyplong
@Another Scott: If I’m reading that correctly, the only Republican not under water on popularity (Arnold) is kind of anti-Trump. Should we be encouraged by that?
Silly even to ask. I withdraw the question.
Elizabelle
@Jackie: Heh heh. The FTF NY Times, 4 days ago.
Oliver North is 81. Fawn Hall is 65. His wife of 56 years died last November from a degenerative disease.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: I don’t blame you.
sab
OT Men are idiots: husband has a MAJOR toothache this weekend. Has been a problem for quite He didn’t want to bother me because fixing it would be expensive and he didn’t want to ask me for the money that I would have willingly paid.
So instead I get to hear him moaning in pain all phucking weekend. Can I be sympathetic and also furious at once? Of course I can. I can do anything! I I need to, married to this nitwit.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: Maybe chat with the minister about bearing false witness? Cuz that is what you were subjected to.
No One of Consequence
@Another Scott: Allow me to preface by saying: this isn’t contrarianism on my part, and no attempt to bait or fight about this. We are more likely than not on the same side with gun violence and regulation. Consider:
Covenant School in Nashville 3/27/2023 — Metro Nashville police received the first 911 call at 10:13 a.m.; by 10:21 two officers had arrived, entered without waiting for backup, and began clearing rooms. By 10:25 the shooter was located and fatally shot. Total response time: just 12 minutes.
That is the best, to my knowledge, response and stand down recorded thus far in the US. Nearly perfect. Better arrival time by the cruiser could be argued, but not with the behavior of the officers. They did not wait, hesitate or deliberate. They pressed because the shooter was still active. Again, best real-world outcome so far, and STILL — six dead (3 children and 3 staff) and two more injured.
So.
Arming teachers? Bad plan. They have enough to worry about and contend with. Teaching them and training them could conceivably be done, but training would need to be maintained, etc. This is a recipe for disaster when the firearm gets out of the teachers’ control, health event in the event, etc. Bad plan from jump.
Best idea would be to do something about the guns in this godsforsaken country, but no no no, we can’t do that. We’re fucking pussies about guns. Other people might have them, and they scare us, so we need MOAR.
So. What CAN be done? Are drones a ridiculous idea? Maybe on the surface, but I could see a couple of very useful roles they MIGHT be able to play. Observation being only one, but perhaps distraction being another. Finally, if one could remotely trigger the dropping of blade guards, I can speak from experience more than a decade ago, even handheld drone operating at full power, can be quite damaging to humans if they come in contact with the blades. Even if a threat were not neutralized in such a fashion, the target is more likely than not going to be in a bad way after the interaction.
If the unit could be tailored to the facilities, maps of all available airspace could be onboarded, as well as hard surfaces. If motion recognition and target recognition were also onboarded, the distraction and observation that the drone MIGHT provide, could also direct fire from the shooter by positioning itself to unoccupied hard surfaces BEHIND it, while flying an evade pattern, drawing fire.
Now, to be clear, I am not advocating for this. I would MUCH MUCH rather do something about all the fucking goddamn guns in the nation. We’re simply not mature enough to handle them. Perhaps as a species, but certainly as a collective nation of high-strung, false-machismo assholes.
That said, I don’t think that the drones as a potential aid should be shitcanned outright. There are plenty of ways such a tool or application could go wrong, of course. But we’ve got guns in schools being leveled against kids and I’m up for anything that keeps more alive.
Crazy thought as a near-after-thought: Anyone else read the Battle Circle series by… I forget. Same author who did the Xanth series. Premise is, in the future after some catastrophe, guns are kind of outlawed, and people resolve differences (after they have reached a point) in the battle circle with melee combat. There are a few main different weapon types, but it is all resolved within that circle. If one steps out, they concede defeat and the point of the argument.
Maybe we should posit such an idea to the Pubs, and they could draw a bunch of circles, standing in them, waving their melee weapons menacingly at each other and passers by. But if we don’t step in the circle, there’s no conflict except by choice. As combat is strictly not allowed outside the circle, and the punishment for that is death, iirc.
At least we’d be done with the guns.
-NOoC
Elizabelle
DUPLICATE. Redis issue. So:
Fuck Trump. And sayonara Charlie Kirk.
FWIW, his widow’s Wiki page just went up yesterday — the one I quoted from, that she entered beauty pageants to support her community.
Wiki editors have locked it until September 18, and are discussing deleting it, because she is not notable enough in her own right.
Yes, I read that on Fox News site, which is whining about it.
Another Scott
@hueyplong: :-)
There are 3 Democrats at 50% or above.
Al Franken is above Gavin Newsom.
John Kerry is above Beto.
Robert Reich is above J.B. Pritzker.
As I infer from your comment, yeah, one shouldn’t build a campaign on such numbers.
Thanks.
Forward!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
No One of Consequence
@jonas: I think it is not only a good idea, but that it is nearly an absolutely MUST DO. The court as it stands is broken and ideologically captured. If we don’t impeach the corrupt ones, and the evidence is clear that there are at least 3 to 4 such individuals whose unethical behaviour would have driven them from previous courts who shed members for considerably less infractions. Since they enjoy lifetime sinecure, our only means of combating this is to diffuse their voices and votes. Structural court reform, at LEAST a justice for each circuit, but rather how about 3 per? More casework could be handled, and recusals and life events would not cripple our ability to keep moving forward as a nation. If the Supremes get in the way of this, cut their funding to zero, until they acquiesce to fundamental reform and restructuring, as well as MOST CRITICALLY, sign on to an ethics standard equivalent to the norm for the rest of the federal employees. Gain the power of the purse and use it. If they hesitate, air quite publicly the ethical missteps and outright corruption in place. Let the billionaires attempt to fund it short-term, and they will quickly lose interest, my guess. It will make them no direct profit.
They set the table we currently find ourselves at. I suggest that the Dems use the opportunity to eat well before this all gets cold.
-NOoC
Timill
@No One of Consequence: Piers Anthony. Sos the Rope / Var the Stick / Neq the Sword, from memory.
schrodingers_cat
Something like Supreme Court expansion would be difficult to do with the Republican media we have. We need to create our own media spaces to get the word out.
Jackie
@Elizabelle: Good ol’ fashioned scandalous gossip. Seems so quaint in today’s world. sigh
Soprano2
@Elizabelle: I can cut him some slack he’s probably been mourning his first wife for awhile. I won’t criticize someone who’s probably been a caregiver for awhile for trying to find happiness.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: I have vague recollections of BiP and such threads, but…
It seems like the WWW really does forget these days. (Google seems to drop stuff older than 10-15 years old.) I can’t find anything useful via the Site Search function here either.
:-(
It’s probably buried in the Wayback Machine, but I’d not had much luck figuring out how to search for specific text there. (But I haven’t had the time to learn more.)
Sorry!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Soprano2
@sab: Mine too, I had to talk him into going with EMS, because I didn’t want them to sedate him. *sigh* We’re in the ER right now, I really hope it’s just that he’s dehydrated.
Jackie
@Soprano2:
Oh, NO! I hope it’s just dehydration, too! Fingers crossed for you and hubby! {hugs}
zhena gogolia
@sab: UCC. Very liberal church. I am completely stunned.
zhena gogolia
@tobie: They’re all clueless.
Most people never heard of CK before last week, and they just lap up what the NYT and MSM serve them.
sab
@Soprano2: Oh no! Hope he is okay.
sab
@zhena gogolia: Yikes. I would not have expected them on board.
zhena gogolia
@sab: I think it’s a combo of liberal self-hatred and reading the NYT.
Anyway
@zhena gogolia: that they did nothing for school shootings and the Minn lawmakers doesn’t speak well of them. Clueless is being kind.
Jackie
@Anyway:
It speaks VOLUMES. Too bad nobody’s listening. 😡
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia: Deplorable.
iKropoclast
@zhena gogolia: Weaponizing our better angels against us is what fascists do.
iKropoclast
Romney has better insight into what his own party was doing than Obama did.
Kayla Rudbek
@Jackie: and probably offended that he married the woman who he had very publicly cheated with
Kayla Rudbek
@schrodingers_cat: yeah, a lot of the GenXers are fairly anti-Russian (sometimes I still have to stop my GenX self from calling them rotten Commies) as we grew up with the Russians being the biggest threat to world peace and not starting nuclear war, see Red Dawn, War Games, Tom Clancy (particularly The Hunt for Red October) etc.
And I know you hate Kipling for deserving reasons, but even Kipling distrusted the Russians back in the day (and I don’t think Russian culture has changed since his time)
No One of Consequence
@Timill:
Indeed. Who was the one who fought with the glockenschpiel?
-NOoC
rikyrah
Absolutely a crook