The Frankish Reich

I'd say next to zero percent. Dude is 81 years old. For the first 79 or so years of his life nobody ever said anything about him being a pedophile or being sexually attracted to children. And now we have only ambiguous ponderings by a grown woman in drug rehab in response to questions about any childhood trauma that might explain those addictions. And even then she's clearly thinking that in retrospect maybe something was inappropriate. So if 1% of the adult male population is sexually attracted to children, then ... 1% I sincerely hope and pray that you don't have a drug-addicted adult daughter in therapy sessions being pressed to think of anything in her childhood that could have caused her to grow into an addict ...

JK Rowling takes the bait on that whole "define a woman" thing. In the old print days, the saying was "don't pick an argument with someone who buys ink by the gallon." The modern-day equivalent: "don't expect to win a written argument against the most successful writer of our age." Burn baby, burn!

OK, people are just making this up. I've seen people say she said she was 11 when this happened, 8 when this happened, 13 when this happened, whatever. If she meant that she was 11 or 13, she wouldn't be saying "possibly inappropriate." Wishful thinking. Some people so desperately want to cancel out Trump's obvious creepery ...

I believe this fool is referring to me. So I'll oblige him by doing his childish game-of-telephone dialog (but I'm IGNORING you!) No. From what I've seen of the evidence, I don't believe E. Jean Carroll's allegations. But no one cares what I believe. A jury believed her. Done. I'll also note that Carroll told a friend (that old Prep School Handbook writer) that Trump had done something like this around the time that it happened. Ashley Biden apparently didn't tell anyone about something untoward happening with her dad until some three decades had passed. And the key distinction: Ashley Biden is not now accusing her dad of doing anything illegal or that would amount to sexual assault. I only saw those two diary pages, in which she doesn't talk about her age at the time of those showers with dad, and ponders whether, in retrospect, there was something inappropriate (not immoral or illegal) about it. It reads like she was a little kid at the time and that the "memory" was only "recovered" upon prompting from her therapists. In other words: keep trying. It ain't sticking because, well, it's a stupid "My guy may be a creep but your guy is worse" right-wing talking point. There. It's called a rational response. Quote me and maybe Tarheel will learn a thing or two about the art of argument. [Yeah, right.]

Who claimed that the diary was fake? I first heard of it - probably here - maybe a couple years ago. And I remember commenting that it seems real. And that it also seems really low and sick for someone to steal it and sell it to anti-Joe Biden people for the purposes of publicizing it. Now we know who these people were, and it's good that they are being given sharp slaps on their wrists for doing it.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that Youtube (Google) pushed out that ad to the kid because he previously entered the exact same query in the search bar yesterday. Kind of like how BillsFanNC inexplicably keeps getting those ads for Depends and The American Society for Xenophobic Arse holes Exactly. And don't forget that a whole lot of those Christmas carolers are gay theater kids.

Not really fair to compare the Final Four to the Super Bowl since the Final Four is three different games with four different fan bases taking at least 8 hours over the course of three days. It's different. My top sporting events/tournaments: 1. NFL playoffs (particularly conference championships + Super Bowl to do an apples-to-apples comparison) 2. NBA playoffs. The intensity rises exponentially over the regular season. The COVID "bubble playoffs" was my favorite event in recent memory - Tremendous basketball with nothing else going on. 3. MLB. League championships/World Series. Used to be my favorite. Now? Slipping. 4. World Cup. Casual soccer fan, but again ... the intensity. Baseball someday will get it right with the World Baseball Classic. Playing for your country is still special in a way that playing for a team in a league just isn't in these days of free agency. 5. NHL playoffs. Same as soccer for me. Casual fan who starts watching a lot as the intensity rises. 6. Men's (and yes, starting this year women's) final four. Like a lot of other guys I started watching the women's games the last couple years and was stunned by how much the level of play has improved. Some classic games there, helped by the fact that the one-and-dones aren't a factor. Teams develop personalities the way the don't anymore in men's NCAAB. That's more than enough.

No. One. Cares. Scroll (quickly, no reason to linger here) through the posts here. Mostly by one fool obsessed with minimizing the nature of the January 6 attack and conspiracy to overturn a valid election.

The concept is it isn't Alabama's money. It's the kid's money. He is selling the rights to use his name/image/likeness. What bothers you is that the people paying him that money for the right to use his NIL aren't really interested in that. They're interested in paying him to play for Alabama an no one else. I suppose the boosters/car dealerships/whatever could write it into a contract that they'll pay a kid $200,000 with the contract to terminate if he no longer plays football for the University of Alabama. Which is just one more step toward making it clear that he is paid to play football, and not to lend his NIL to some advertiser. No one really cares if Caitlin Clark goes to Iowa instead of, say, UConn. She's a celebrity now. She's doing national ads. No one cares if Bronny James leaves USC. He'll do ads with his dad even if he goes to Northwest Podunk State. Kadyn Proctor is not marketable if he isn't at Alabama, at least not to Alabama boosters. He is not promoting his own name, image, and likeness. He is being paid to play for Alabama. Sorry, Tide, I can't feel real sorry for you because you are breaking the spirit of the rules and demand loyalty from those kids benefiting from that.

You forgot Obama. That "I have a pen and I have a phone" moment opened the floodgates. Oh, those gates had creeped open before, but after that it was "anything goes that I can get away with." And it continued under Trump and now Biden, and there's really no reason to think it will stop under a future administration, whichever one that may be.

Very good. It is the second type - no one really cares as long as it's their guy breaking the law. In other words, as long as it fits their agenda. The last two types are quite different, and you know it. For example: a court (maybe even the Supreme one!) tells you to do something, or refrain from doing something, and you say "you and whose army."

Still illegal. But who has standing to challenge it? The WSJ nails it. https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-student-loan-forgiveness-karine-jean-pierre-supreme-court-7e74383f?mod=hp_opin_pos_1 Mr. Biden’s new loan forgiveness is still illegal. The High Court stressed that student loan forgiveness is a major question that requires clear authorization from Congress. But Mr. Biden seems to believe he can jam the courts by automatically forgiving debt before a judge has time to stop him. The White House says most borrowers won’t even have to apply for loan relief. Sometime before the November election, Mr. Biden will simply declare their debt forgiven. That means a future Congress and a President Trump might be unable to undo the lawless act. Where are the press scolds who warn about a President who threatens democracy? Mr. Biden is setting an awful precedent that Donald Trump will no doubt exploit. If courts say he can’t re-purpose defense money to build a wall on the southern border, he could simply use another means to do so. The right will cheer him on as the left is Mr. Biden. The rule of law and taxpayers are the losers. By the way, this would cancel student loan debt for borrowers who have been in repayment for 20+ years. It took me more than that to pay off my student loans, but I knew that when I consolidated them into a 30-year repayment plan. That was the point! To make my debt manageable. Which it was, until I decided that it made financial sense to pay off what remained (only about 6K by then) in a lump sum after about 24 years. I was one of the suckers who took my obligations seriously ....

A rare case in which Big Mollie is correct. The one-sentence summary is simply not correct. Dobbs didn't purport to ban states from doing what their elected representatives or voters think is right. Larger picture: why did Trump's statement - otherwise clear about the federal government not getting involved - end with a comment about "but we've got to win elections?" That suggests a public opinion driven position, not a clear issue of constitutional law and the separation of state/federal powers. Hence ... skepticism.

No, they're not Trump. But a lot of Republican Senators are on the record as supporting a 20-week federal abortion ban. And that includes Ted Cruz, supposedly a strict constitutionalist and constitutional lawyer. So he apparently believes there is some federal constitutional authority allowing Congress to legislate abortion bans. https://www.cruz.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sens-cruz-graham-colleagues-introduce-20-week-abortion-ban By the way, this is, of course, Trump tacking toward the center after wrapping up the nomination early. I usually think that's a good thing, and it is a good thing here. But ... I thought that was happening in the 2016 general election as well, and then Trump went all, well, Trumpy once he was in office, firing his "my generals" and his Reince Priebuses etc. If he wins and sees his popularity slipping (he'll never have a majority), watch him try to shore up the base by once again moving right on abortion.

Thanks. That's what I thought. Same thing, different name. Maybe I'll live long enough to see it change again!

I'm kinda old. When did the X, Y, Z nomenclature take over? WR1, TE, Slot Or from my early days: Split End, Tight End, Flanker (that one was before my time, but I knew what it meant) Isn't it all the same thing, different name? Or am I missing some subtlety here?

Well, you either have constitutional authority to legislate or you don't. You see my basis for skepticism about Trump's latest position? Obviously as the campaign continues he'll be asked those questions, the ones like "if Congress presents you with legislation protecting the right to abortion through 15 weeks, will you sign it?"

Partially correct. They ruled that the right to have an abortion was not something deeply rooted in American history and tradition. In other words, it is not a substantive due process right. They didn't rule on whether the federal government may have some constitutional basis (the commerce clause, etc.) to regulate abortion, and they certainly didn't rule on whether things like medication abortion can be controlled by the federal government through statutory authority (the FDA's enabling statute, etc.) Well, yes. Look, strong 2nd Amendment advocates would be right to be suspicious of a Presidential candidate who campaigns on a platform that the states and federal government have no authority to restrict gun ownership, but who had previously expressed interest in federal legislation restricting that right.

But more to the point: why should we trust that Trump's latest "completely a matter for the states to decide" will be his position as President? What if Republicans take the Senate and keep the House, and send Trump a bill outlawing abortion nationally after 15 weeks? Would he sign it? He previously suggested he would.

I don't know. I didn't hijack the thread. I'm just responding to a clearly false claim. To return to the point of the thread: Trump's latest position is consistent with the arguments put forth by the anti-Roe litigants in Dobbs: it is an issue for the states. The problem is that his earlier position - voiced out loud, and often - was that there should be some kind of national compromise, enforced by federal law, guaranteeing the right of women to have an abortion up to 15 weeks, and outlawing it after hat. In other words, some theory that the federal government ultimately can (under delegated constitutional powers) and should impose standardized rules on the 50 states. So when liberals say they're suspicious of Trump's motives here, they're not exactly just making it up. If you are a strict constitutionalist - the federal government only has powers that is has been expressly assigned by the constitution - you never, ever, ever would have suggested that the federal government can and should step into the fray. So either he's not a strict constitutionalist or he's just trying whatever to get elected, implicitly reserving his right to change his mind again.

No, I haven't seen any credible reports of that. In fact, I've seen Dominion settle libel claims against Fox News for nearly a billion dollars.

The reference was to the "rigged election" being proved in court. So ... where? When?

Where? When?

Another thread in which we discover that socialist Glenn Greenwald really, really likes that he can make money off feeding the right-wing media what it wants. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/26/bolsonaro-accused-of-inciting-hatred-with-gay-paradise-comment “If you want to come here and have sex with a woman, go for your life,” Bolsonaro reportedly told journalists in the capital, Brasília. “But we can’t let this place become known as a gay tourism paradise. Brazil can’t be a country of the gay world, of gay tourism. We have families,” Bolsonaro added, according to the Brazilian magazine Exame. The comments – made during a breakfast meeting with Brazilian reporters – sparked an immediate reaction from LGBT campaigners. “This is not a head of state – this is a national disgrace,” said David Miranda, a leftist congressman and LGBT activist. Miranda said the president’s remarks simultaneously endangered members of Brazil’s LGBT community by “putting a target on their backs” and promoted the sexual exploitation of Brazilian women. “He is staining the image of our country in every imaginable way,” Miranda said. Hmm, David Miranda. Where have I heard that name before? https://www.queermajority.com/illustration/glennanddavidstory For my entire career, I have always been a leftist in people’s eyes. It is only a fairly recent thing that some Americans accuse me of being a Republican mouthpiece or a pro-Trump journalist. J'accuse.

You are generally a pretty reasonable commenter here, and I understand what you're saying. But let's say you are a public figure. You're All Pro Bills, and you really are a retired former All-Pro football player. You have an adult daughter; she herself is not a public figure, and has never sought out media attention. She has had a troubled history and has kept a diary on the advice of her rehab counselors. She puts her trust in a guy also in rehab; he abuses that trust by stealing her diary and selling it for personal gain, presumably to embarrass you. Should he be prosecuted? I think you'd say yes. I would say yes too if my daughter were in that situation.