More proof that the Election Rigging is Internal, not External.

Exhibit No 1: The US Presidential Debates.

Here is a quote from one of the many articles I found when I went looking for the statement from the League of Women Voters about why they stopped hosting the Presidential debates (do a search on "League of Women Voters Presidential debates" for some interesting reading).

The Commission on Presidential Debates, a non-profit institution, is organizing the debates this year, as it has since its founding in 1987. Led by a board of high ranking members of the two major parties, the Commission largely operates behind closed doors, where it pre-screens questions and vets moderators. Though opaque, this week audiences caught a glimpse into how the body makes decisions. Its chief, Janet Brown, said it was the duty of the candidates, not of the moderator, to fact check each other.

Here is the video I was looking for:

The takeaway line from the speech is:

The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates … because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.

The League made sure that the debates were run in a truly impartial manner before the two parties created The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which is a non-profit corporation established in 1987 under the joint sponsorship of the Democratic and Republican political parties in the United States.

If that doesn't stink to you, then you probably should go back to believing the Russians rigged the election. This commenter pretty much sums up what the debates have become:

Instead of any substantive exploration of the candidates' proposals, we will be treated to a mélange of showmanship and complaining, obstinacy and irrelevance, petty quibbles, grandstanding, pandering, half-truths, and punchlines. The candidates will be rehearsed, the moderators timid, the questions calculated, and the answers at once too short and too long. We will learn little to nothing that could not be discovered at this very moment by any Google user of modest skill. And inevitably, we will drink — a shot for every boast, a chug for every lie — because drinking games have become as guaranteed a fixture of our presidential debates as the candidates themselves. Is it any wonder debate viewership has been on a steady decline for decades?

The bottom line is that the CPD has made it hard for third parties to get involved in the debates. Toss in that the debates have no real substance. That's because they are a pointless exercise in duopoly PR.

There is a reason that Climate Change got short shrift  no attention whatsoever in the 2016 debates. It is impossible for third parties to get the 15% share of the voting public without any publicity.

The CPD is one of many examples of how the US elections are not "free and fair".

On the other hand, isn't having a president who wasn't popularly elected enough to persuade you of that?

See Also:

• Presidential Debates under the League of Women Voters
• The secretive commission that controls the presidential debates
• How Presidential Debates Became ‘a Fraud on the American Voter’
• How Third Parties Are Kept Out Of Presidential Debates
• End the presidential debate cartel 
• How the Hillary Clinton campaign deliberately "elevated" Donald Trump with its "pied piper" strategy

I don't get why Russiagate is a thing.

OK, the Mueller report is out: where are the indictments? For that matter why isn't everybody talking about it?

crickets chirp.

Let's toss in that James Clapper is alleged to be a perjurer. But like Hillary Clinton and the insider trading thing we can't talk about it since the statute of limitations has tolled. No matter how much both of those things stink.

Anyway, lots of talk about nothing which resulted in all the same issues still being around to cause trouble.

I am betting that Trump gets a second term because of the failure to address the problems that plagued the 2016 election.  His victory will be from a failure to learn from those mistakes.

See also:

• Why 2020 Democrats Are Nervous About the Mueller Report 
• The Mueller report no one's talking about - POLITICO

Reasonable Doubt

Ok, the presupposition is that Russians somehow interfered in the US election. Question would be how?

Were they responsible for Hillary Clinton being the Democratic Party Nominee?
Were they responsible for Trump being the Republican one?
Were they responsible for Bernie Sanders?
Given the Democrats made it clear that the e-mails weren't an issue during the election: why would their revealing them have rigged the election?

Since I mentioned "attempt", there is another legal issue here called "reasonable doubt", which is the standard in a criminal prosecution. The evidence must be so convincing that no reasonable person would ever question the defendant’s guilt. The standard requires that the evidence offer no logical explanation or conclusion other than that the defendant committed the crime. The doubt doesn't need to be absolute, only reasonable.

“Beyond a reasonable doubt” doesn’t mean, however, that the prosecution must eliminate all unreasonable doubts a jury could possibly have. Nor must the prosecution prove the case beyond a shadow of a doubt or to an absolute certainty. These would be impossible burdens because only witnesses to an alleged crime can be certain—and even then, not all witnesses can be certain. Rather, this highest of standards requires—after consideration of all facts—only one logical conclusion: that the defendant is indeed guilty.

So, if there is another explanation, which is far more plausible, then we have reasonable doubt. Anyone pushing Russiagate has to address the fact that Hillary Clinton was an unpopular candidate who ran a poor campaign that lost in the electoral college.

That means we can have something which is a far more obvious and better explanation, then we have reasonable doubt. Anything that makes the allegations questionable is reasonable doubt.

In my case, I have yet to see how the Russians did anything beyond point out the flaws in the system. What happened was more like someone witnessing a crime and then reporting it.

See also:

• Critical Cybersecurity Takeaways From Hillary’s Email Debacle
•  Hillary Clinton’s emails: What you need to know

Heckler & Koch ceases US sales

Heckler & Koch announced today that it has adopted a more ethical export control policy than the German government's. H&K announced that will no longer to sell arms into warzones or to countries that violate corruption and democracy standards.

Heckler & Koch – sometimes called Germany’s deadliest company by activists – said it would now sell only to “green countries,” which it defined according to three criteria: membership of Nato or “Nato-equivalent” (Japan, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand); Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index; and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index.

 The US fails in two categories and Trump is talking about removing the US from NATO.

I applaud Heckler & Koch for being a corporate good citizen and realising that the US is one place where arms do not belong.

If the US isn't a "crisis region", I don't know what is!

See also:

• Germany's 'deadliest company' pledges to stop selling guns to crisis regions
• America falls short of being a full democracy for second year running, report finds
• Is the U.S. No Longer One of the Top 20 Most Democratic Countries in the World?
• U.S. Is a Rich Country With Symptoms of a Developing Nation

Why isn't stuff like this being discussed in USMSM when they mention Russiagate?

More evidence that any rigging or corruption in the 2016 Presidential Election was home grown.

I'm sorry, but you have a fuck of a lot of explaining about the suppression of Bernie Sanders and his supporters during the primary to address before anyone even thinks of mentioning Russians.

Let's toss this in for good measure.

Attempt in law.

Now people are telling me that the Russians attempted to rig the US election.

OK, Black letter: Attempt is comprised of three elements: (1) intent to commit a crime; (2) conduct that constitutes a substantial step toward completing the crime and (3) a failure to complete the crime.

The question is were elements (1) and (2) present?

Now, maybe the Russians DID intend to rig the election, did they do anything substantial to complete that crime?

On the other hand, we have internal DNC memos where they talk about having Trump be the "Pied Piper Candidate"?

Now, it's a totally different kettle of fish if the people who actually DID the crime were US citizens and the Russians were the ones who reported it.

There is a difference between and attempt and reporting a crime. I think the Russians reported what was going on.

The Russians didn't instigate it. The DNC did.

See also:

• Wikileaks: Podesta e-mails Pied Piper
• 5 Missteps That May Have Doomed the Clinton Campaign
• The Podesta Pied Piper Plan is not a conspiracy, it’s the truth.

The proper Originalist interpretation of the Second Amendment

I can go into a long analysis of why the Heller and McDonald decisions are bullshit, but here is the simple take down using the Originalists' own description of their school of interpretation. That is:

"Constitutional interpretation should remain anchored in the original meaning of the Constitution’s text, which is the source of the Court’s authority and legitimacy."

 OK, it's not popular to use the preamble. Most people miss that it says more than just "We the people". Instead it says:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Let's take these words as the original intent of the founders for what the Constitution is supposed to be about. How do the Heller and McDonald decisions address these issues? They don't: they expand the Constitution to include matters of self-defence.

On the other hand, the Constitution makes it clear that it addresses matters of the common defence. One can look at the transcripts of the debates relating to the adoption of the Constitution to see that the intent of the founders was to address the common defence. While the people who try to promote a concept of gun rights use the Patrick Henry's "The great object is, that every man be armed" to support that, the actual quotation was made in relationship to Article I, Section 8, Clause 16.

Henry makes that clear in the paragraph before the above misquotation comes from. In fact the complete paragraph takes a different meaning when it is read in its complete form:

May we not discipline and arm them, as well as Congress, if the power be concurrent? so that our militia shall have two sets of arms, double sets of regimentals, &c.; and thus, at a very great cost, we shall be doubly armed. The great object is, that every man be armed. But can the people afford to pay for double sets of arms, &c.? Every one who is able may have a gun. But we have learned, by experience, that, necessary as it is to have arms, and though our Assembly has, by a succession of laws for many years, endeavored to have the militia completely armed, it is still far from being the case. When this power is given up to Congress without limitation or bounds, how will your militia be armed? You trust to chance; for sure I am that that nation which shall trust its liberties in other hands cannot long exist. If gentlemen are serious when they suppose a concurrent power, where can be the impolicy to amend it? Or, in other words, to say that Congress shall not arm or discipline them, till the states shall have refused or neglected to do it? This is my object. I only wish to bring it to what they themselves say is implied. Implication is to be the foundation of our civil liberties; and when you speak of arming the militia by a concurrence of power, you use implication. But implication will not save you, when a strong army of veterans comes upon you. You would be laughed at by the whole world, for trusting your safety implicitly to implication.

That takes us to the real concern of the founders, which wasn't private guns. The concern was the militia. It was that Congress would indeed arm the militia as required by Article I, Section 8, Clause 16.

Had the authors of Heller and McDonald done some source checking, they would have seen the quotations used were taken out of context. Toss in that their cases were not cases of first impression: although US v Miller, is indeed not helpful since it contradicts the assertions made in the later cases.

This is a topic I've gone over before, but one doesn't need to go beyond the four corners of the US Constitution to see that Heller and McDonald are bullshit.

The authors were bound by precedent: even if they disagreed with that precedent.

Likewise, they were bound by their own claimed theory of interpretation to stick to the text and not engage in mental masturbation. And here is the text of the Second Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The text explicitly says militia. It also says "provide for the common defence."

There is no mention of self-defence in the US Constitution. Even more importantly: there is no mention of keeping handguns in the home for defence.

If one wants to go to basic statutory interpretation as used by the founders: "expressio unius est exclusio alterius."  That is when one or more things of a class are expressly mentioned others of the same class are excluded. In other words, you can't read shit into the text which isn't there.

That is called legislation, which is a no no for judges.

Judges interpret the law as written, they don't make it. And they sure as fuck don't amend the constitution if they believe that is the source of their authority.

It says fuck all about self-defence. As Presser v. Illinois said:

The Constitution and laws of the United States will be searched in vain for any support to the view that these rights are privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States independent of some specific legislation on the subject.

And while Presser was more along the lines of the "unorganised militia" argument. I would say that its holding would be even stronger had the issue been solely the possession of arms by civilians. That's because promoting the general welfare makes regulation of firearms a no brainer.

And the Second Amendment only relates to Congress' power under Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 to arm the militia.

So, let's cut the silly buggers. US v Miller said:

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158.

And Aymette said:

Suppose it were to suit the whim of a set of ruffians to enter the theatre in the midst of the performance, with drawn swords, guns and fixed bayonets, or to enter the church in the same manner, during service, to the terror of the audience; and this were to become habitual; can it be, that it would be beyond the power of the legislature to pass laws to remedy such an evil? Surely not. If the use of arms in this way cannot be prohibited, it is in the power of fifty armed ruffians to break up the churches, and all other public assemblages, where they might lawfully come, and there would be no remedy. But we are perfectly satisfied that a remedy might be applied.

And

To make this view of the case still more clear, we may remark, that the phrase, "bear arms," is used in the Kentucky constitution as well as in our own, and implies, as has already been suggested, their military use. The 28th section of our bill of rights provides, "that no citizen of this State shall be compelled to bear arms, provided he will pay in equivalent, to be ascertained by law." Here we know that the phrase has a military sense, and no other; and we must infer that it is used in the same sense in the 26th section, which secures to the citizen the right to bear arms. A man in the pursuit of deer, elk and buffaloes, might carry his rifle every day, for forty years, and, yet, it would never be said of him, that he had borne arms, much less could it be said, that a private citizen bears arms, because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane. So that, with deference, we think the argument of the court in the case referred to, even upon the question it has debated, is defective and inconclusive.

Sorry, but the Second Amendment relates to the military, not private arms.


Bottom line: the US Constitution addresses matters of the common defence, not self-defence. A judge cannot change that by fiat.

Especially if they believe in the Constitution as written.

Voting for something, rather than against something

OK, one of the Main Stream Media narratives is that people who voted for third parties were doing it as a protest vote. But that couldn't be more inaccurate.

I was voting for things I believed in when I voted Green. Toss in a vote for Clinton would have been truly a waste of a vote since she won the popular vote, yet still lost the election. My one vote wouldn't have changed that, and I doubt the votes of others who also voted for third parties would have changed the election either. But I've gone on about how the Electoral College distorts the vote ad nauseum.

There were two issues which were conspicuously absent for me in the 2016 presidential election: the environment and the political process. The Green Party addressed both of those issues. Toss in that the Green Party was pretty much where my politics lay.

Number on in the Green Party's Ten key Values are "Grassroots Democracy", which is something that starts with political reform. The points listed there are pretty much something which needs to be brought into the public forum. Yet they are neglected in the media discussion of how the 2016 election went wrong.

The bottom line in the "Russian interference" narrative is that the Russians used the US political system against itself.  Election security depends on ridding the system of the flaws that enabled an election like that in 2016.

The reality is that I was disillusioned with the two party system and wanted an alternative. I was voting for that alternative in the hope that it would gain enough support to be noticed by the media and the political parties.

I wasn't voting for an evil. I was voting for a better future.

Who needs Russians when you have Hillary?

Take a candidate with a reputation for saying anything and doing nothing. Toss in her credibility problem. Then let her go out without handlers and unscripted...

As I have said, the standard for a criminal conviction is beyond a reasonable doubt. You can provide reasonable doubt by providing evidence that there might be another, more plausible, reason for something.

Toss in that the only thing the Russians are supposed to have done was use internal Democratic National Committee documents to throw the election.

Maybe the Russians are responsible for Hillary Clinton being the candidate as well.

See also:

• How Hillary Clinton’s State Department Sold Fracking to the World
• New Details of Hillary Clinton's Global Fracking Initiative
• Hillary Clinton's Mistake On Fracking For Natural Gas

Close election, or bad campaign?

OK, I strongly believe that Sanders would have won the 2016 Election had he been allowed to run. He was the people's candidate in that he ran on small donations. He also got people energised.

Whatever the case, that is moot since the Democrats made it clear they preferred to lose with Clinton than Win with Sanders.

I don't need anyone to tell me what I saw was due to Russian Influence: there is more than enough documentation of how the Democrats tried to silence dissent throughout the election.

Anyway, I make it obvious I like to play with the interactive maps at 270towin because one of the underlying assumptions of the "Russian Influence" argument is that the popular vote mattered (it didn't).

Take the actual results of the Electoral votes:

Now superimpose this map of where the results were considered close:

it puts paid to the argument that Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were the three states that somehow "mattered" in the election. It also shows why the pundits were saying that Clinton would win in a landslide in the electoral college (remember, most states are winner take all no matter what the actual result would be).

On the other hand, it show how silly the "Russian Influence" and "Third Party voter" arguments are to the actual results in the Electoral College. Clinton could have won with a couple of the close states.

Yet she didn't.

Also, this shows that the Electoral College leads to a national race and protects smaller states arguments are wrong.

Fair Vote pointed out that two-thirds (273 of 399) of the general-election

campaign events in the 2016 presidential race were in just 6 states (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan).


94% of the 2016 events (375 of the 399) were in 12 states (the 11 states identified in early 2016 as "battleground" states by Politico and The Hill plus Arizona). This fact validates the statement by former presidential candidate and Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin on September 2, 2015, that “The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next president.

BTW, Clinton could have won the election if she had Electoral College wins in North Carolina and Florida, the two states with the most campaign events.

Any attempts at influencing the elections by a foreign power would be difficult given the distortions of popular vote by the Electoral College.

Anyway, the bottom line is that Clinton was a poor candidate who ran a bad campaign.

You can't blame the Russians for that. Unless you want to tell me that the DNC is somehow part of the Russian Plot.

See also:
Two-thirds of Presidential Campaign Is in Just 6 States
FairVote: The Electoral College
Electoral College Distortions: "Winner" could lose popular vote by a landslide

What do I say to liberals to get them to understand we did not vote for Trump, we voted against Hillary and everything she represents?

Wow! what a loaded question from Quora. I would love to answer it there, but it seems a bit pointless for a few reasons.

The first is that the first answer is pretty good for someone unfamiliar with the US political process. The second is that any answer would be buried in the abusive answers he received.

Anyway, I'm guessing this person has voter's remorse, which happens in a system where someone has to pick a "lesser evil" (or a Scylla and Charybdis election).

First off, I would point out that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with one of the largest margins ever. Or conversely that Trump lost it with one of the largest margins ever. The US is unique in having something called the Electoral College, which means the popular vote is pretty much meaningless. Clinton would have had to win the popular vote in at least Florida and one of the following states: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin (i.e., win the popular vote in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) to have won in the Electoral College.

The Electoral College is something that truly needs to be abolished.

But you can feel easy that your one vote isn't what cost Clinton the election. That's because unless your vote wouldn't have changed too much unless you  happened to live in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. Even then, one vote seriously wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election. But that is an oversimplification based on possibilities of Clinton winning any of those States.

Also, how did the election turn out in your state in regard to the Electoral College votes? You are in the clear if you lived in one of the States where Clinton won the Electoral College votes ("Blue State") since your vote didn't count: Clinton won those anyway.

Likewise, your vote didn't really mean much if you were in a "Red State". It wouldn't matter who you voted for in that case: Clinton lost.


Still, your problem is an example of why it is wrong to vote against a candidate instead of for someone you believe in. But basing an election on lesser evils means you have to vote for evil.

Sure, you could do what I did and vote for a third party because that party held values you share (or was most representative of your beliefs). The Greens were pretty much what Bernie was promoting: and I had no idea what Clinton was actually for (other than herself).

Did you consider voting for Gary Johnson if you believe in libertarian values?

One nice thing about voting for third parties is that can automatically get on the ballot and in the debates if they get enough percentage of the vote.

Anyway, you should make it clear that the popular vote is meaningless for President in the United States. Also, you should point out that you voted for the candidate you considered the lesser evil. That means an evil candidate still wins.

I voted Green because I don't vote for evil: lesser or otherwise. I also voted for a candidate and party which represents the values I believe in.

So, maybe you might want to look into a third party candidate next time.

Why just Conservatives? How about Establishment Democrats?

You know the people who preferred to lose with Clinton than win with Sanders.

They're coming for your party!

Netherlandish Proverbs

I love Bernie Sanders: don't get me wrong.

I was one of his early supporters in 2016 since I couldn't see Hillary Clinton run unopposed for President.

I am firmly of the belief he would have won and been a much better president than anyone else if he had a chance to win.

Unfortunately, the "Democratic Party" has been biased against truly progressive candidates: as Henry Wallace and Bernie Sanders have shown. Those are the most obvious examples of the "Democratic Party" not being truly democratic.

Sanders was the people's candidate in that he ran his campaign on small donations. He was like "the people's millionaire" who had one million people send him a dollar each. Yet the "Democratic Party" chose to run Hillary Clinton with the obvious result that she lost.

And she lost in such a way that she should never think of running for office. Also that her supporters should accept that they are pretty much responsible for the Trump presidency. I say this because Clinton could not understand that the electoral college was where the election would really be won.

And while Clinton had one of the largest popular victories ever, that means fuck all.

The system is corrupt in that it is rigged against the popular candidate, whether in the primary process or the actual election being thwarted by the Electoral College.

There is an irony that someone who "won" the nomination (Clinton) did do in a way that a popular candidate (Sanders) would lose. But the system is rigged so that the popular vote is meaningless and her victory is without significance. Even more importantly her campaign was clueless to that aspect of the election.

Where do Netherlandish Proverbs come into all of this? At the bottom of the painting is a man filling in a hole where the calf has drowned ("Als het kalf verdronken is, dempt men de put").  This is the Dutch equivalent of "shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted". This saying is quite widespread in the Dutch language. It is used in many occasions where something should have been done before, but nothing has been done.

The "Democratic Party" has already demonstrated that it isn't democratic in any way. Likewise, it will look for every excuse and issue except for what has actually led to this mess. That requires too much self-examination for the establishment parties.

So, while I was hopeful that a Sanders candidacy could have been meaningful in 2016: that election demonstrated that the popular vote is meaningless.  I have happily left the two party system to once again be an independent.

Oh, Dear! Puhhlleeezzee drop the Russian Troll Thing.

OK, the first question you need to get around is why did Hillary Clinton lose the election? She won the popular vote by one of the largest margins EVER in an election. That is nearly 3 million votes.

Where she lost the election was in the electoral college, which is an institution found in the US Constitution. You can find it in USC Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2-4 along with the 12th Amendment. The fact that this institution was changed early on in the republic (1803-1804) demonstrates its problematic nature.

Any Russian influence in creating the electoral college would have to date back to the founding of the US given that Electoral College was the body that actually made Trump President. You can read about how the electoral college works here.

I should add that the Electoral College's main purpose is to thwart the popular vote, which it actually has done in 5 elections. The elections of 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 produced an Electoral College winner who did not receive at least a plurality of the nationwide popular vote. In 1824, there were six states in which electors were legislatively appointed, rather than popularly elected, so it is uncertain what the national popular vote would have been if all presidential electors had been popularly elected. There have been five United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote including the 1824 election, which was the first U.S. presidential election where the popular vote was recorded.

Toss in that Clinton could have gotten enough votes in the electoral college by:

1) Winning the popular vote in all three states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
2) Winning the popular vote in Florida and at least one of the following states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

The 2000 Election focused on Florida, but a popular vote win for Gore in Ohio could have also led to his victory (see https://www.270towin.com/2000_Election/interactive_map). The 2016 narrative focuses on Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, but is flawed since none of those states were solidly for Clinton. Michigan and Wisconsin went for Sanders in the primaries. I would toss in the result of the 2008 Michigan primary where:

"In Michigan, where Obama and other candidates removed their name from the ballot, Clinton won against "Uncommitted" (i.e., a vote for nobody) 55-40%. Exit poll respondents said that if all candidates had been on the ballot, they would have voted 46% Clinton, 35% Obama, 12% Edwards, 3% other."

I definitely would not call Michigan solid for Clinton in 2008 and 2016. But the Dems made it clear they preferred to lose with Clinton than possibly win with Sanders. But that's another post.

The bottom line here is that no one state's popular vote would have gotten Clinton the presidency. Additionally, it was a chance to expect Michigan and Wisconsin to vote for Clinton.

Next we get to the Clinton supporters who made it clear that Donald trump would not be President:

I would also add the Clinton Supporters who said things like:

Next we have allegations that the Democratic National Committee rigged the Election against Sanders. And from what I get, the e-mails which have been alleged to have been provided by Russia were internal Democratic Party messages. These messages were not new revelations, but pretty much a confirmation of what was being said about the DNC being biased for Clinton.


If anything, the "Russian Bots", or whatever the fuck you want to call them, were basically using the failings of the US system of elections against itself.

So, maybe there were Russian bots, but nothing a foreign power could do would have screwed up the 2016 elections worse than what internal US forces did. And the really sad thing is that a lot of these things could have been avoided have the election been run with fairness principles which have disappeared over the last 40 years.

So, the real joke is on the comedians who gave Trump far more publicity than he deserved because of ratings.  Are those people Russian bots?

Anyway, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Russians did indeed cause a Trump win.  Using that standard, you've lost the game before you've even started.

See also:

• Fact Check: Did the DNC Illegally Steal the 2016 Primary from Bernie Sanders?

Why progressives and "Democrats" will never mix

I am amazed at the people who tried to persuade me that the "Democratic Party" was somehow a "coalition".

Especially if they made comments like this!

And the Clinton Supporters wonder why they lost the election.

Anyway, there is a long history of disdain for real progressivism in the "Democratic Party". Its treatment of Henry Wallace being one of many instances of which the Sanders Campaign was one the latest example (along with ambivalence toward Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). Sure, the "Democratic Party" are hoping that an embrace of "A Green New Deal" in name might attract people.

Toss in the progressives lite candidates that are being mentioned in the press: many of which don't stand the scrutiny of being truly progressive. This is made worse since the environment is the most important issue now facing the US world.

There is a laundry list I had with Clinton, but her inability to give a solid stance on the environment and climate change was a real biggie for me. The difference from Trump, a climate change denier, and Clinton, someone likely to do fuck all, was non-existent in that regard.

So, I will take the advice of the "Democrat" who doesn't want my vote and move to a party more in line with my political beliefs.

Just don't try and blame me for your mistakes.

See also:
Bernie is not even a Democrat, so why is he ripping our party apart?
The real secret to Bernie Sanders’ success
2020 Is Already Shaping Up to Be Another Festival of Stupid
Opinion | The Democratic Party left me — and I'm not alone
NYT: Don’t Be Progressive, Be a ‘Liberal’
Yes, let's wipe out Trump. But take neoliberal Democrats with him, too
Henry Wallace, America’s Forgotten Visionary
Untold History: The Rise and Fall of a Progressive Vice-President of the USA
On climate change, the difference between Trump and Clinton is really quite simple
The Democratic Party Has a Climate Change Problem

More Electoral Colege, or ONCE AGAIN: No, the Green Party, or any other third party, did not cost Clinton the election

Another point the "Greens cost Clinton the election" crowd miss in their fixation with the three states Clinton thought were safe (Michigan, Pennsylvania,and Wisconsin) miss is that Clinton could also have won with just the votes from Florida and any one of the three "safe states".

The Florida scenario would also mean that she would have won with 21 States and the District of Columbia (see the atttached pic for how this all would have worked out).

If anything, the fact that the popular vote is meaningless is one of the more significant reasons for voting Green (toss in the Environment is far more my "single issue" if we are going there). 

While people may try to shame people who vote third party, the fact is that the popular vote is meaningless as long as the Electoral College is in effect.

Additionally, the Electoral College protecting the small states argument is also fallactious.

If anything, the 2000 and 2016 Elections have demonstrated that the Electoral College is another relic from the US Constitution that needs to be purged.

See Also

• Did Jill Stein voters deliver Donald Trump the presidency?
• No, Jill Stein Did Not Cost Hillary Clinton the White House
• Did third-party candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson lose Clinton the election? 
• Jill Stein: Democratic Spoiler Or Scapegoat? | FiveThirtyEight
• The Electoral College Was Meant to Stop Men Like Trump From Being President
• The Electoral College is Profoundly Undemocratic By Design 
• Trump owes his victory to America’s unique Electoral College system
• How the Electoral College Rigged the Election for Donald Trump
• The Electoral College effect — in 3 cool charts
• America's Unique and Controversial Electoral College  
• 9 Things You May Not Know About the Electoral College
• Hillary Clinton’s Popular-Vote Victory Is Unprecedented—and Still Growing
• Why Electoral College wins are bigger than popular vote ones
• Hillary Clinton's Lead Is Greater Than Multiple Former Presidents'

No, the Green Party, or any other third party, did not cost Clinton the election

The Fact is Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with 65,853,516 (48.5% votes) to Trump's 62,984,825 (46.4% votes), but lost in the electoral college by receiving 232 (43.1%) of the electoral votes to Trump's 306 (56.8%) votes.

But some people don't want to admit that the Electoral College is pretty much what put Trump in place. Probably because most people have no idea what the fuck the Electoral College does.

Quite simply it invalidates the popular vote.

Anyway, somebody was trying to tell me that Clinton would have won if Green voters in  Michigan and Pennsylvania had voted for her. That argument is obviously fallacious, but It’s easy to see why people point the finger at third-party votes. In Michigan, where the election was so close that the Associated Press still hadn’t called the result until some time after the election. Trump was ahead by about 12,000 votes at that time. That was significantly less than the 242,867 votes that went to third-party candidates in Michigan

On the other hand, Clinton would have still lost even if she had managed to win the popular vote in either Michigan or Pennsylvania.

That's because of how the Electoral College works. Clinton would have won 248 Electoral College votes if the 232 Votes had been supplemented only with Michigan's Electoral votes. She would have had 252 Electoral votes if she have won only Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes.  Even with winning Michigan's and Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes, she would have fallen short of the 270 electoral College votes by 2 votes (268). Trump still wins in any of those three possible outcomes.

Clinton needed to win all three states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, to get the 270 Electoral Votes needed to win.

There's a reason why the Interactive Electoral College map site is called https://www.270towin.com/. As they point out:

Since electoral votes are generally allocated on an "all or none" basis by state, the election of a U.S President is about winning the popular vote in enough states to achieve 270 electoral votes, a majority of the 538 that are available. Receiving the most votes nationwide is irrelevant, as we have seen in two of the most recent five presidential elections where the electoral vote winner and the popular vote winner were different.

There are a lot of other problems with trying to blame the Third Parties for Clinton's loss (especially since Gary Johnson received a larger percentage of the vote than Jill Stein).

One of the major reasons I left the Democratic Party, and the duopoly, is that Election Reform is a really big issue in US politics. Only the Third parties were discussing this.

The 2016 Election also demonstrated that voting was pretty much meaningless. The primaries are a sham and rigged to eliminate candidates from running (cost). And the Presidential Election is really a sham with the Electoral College in Place.

The Electoral College is one of the glaring flaws in US politics, but people want to blame everything but the flawed system for the problems we see.


See Also

• Did Jill Stein voters deliver Donald Trump the presidency?
• No, Jill Stein Did Not Cost Hillary Clinton the White House
• Did third-party candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson lose Clinton the election? 
• Jill Stein: Democratic Spoiler Or Scapegoat? | FiveThirtyEight
• The Electoral College Was Meant to Stop Men Like Trump From Being President
• The Electoral College is Profoundly Undemocratic By Design 
• Trump owes his victory to America’s unique Electoral College system
• How the Electoral College Rigged the Election for Donald Trump
• The Electoral College effect — in 3 cool charts
• America's Unique and Controversial Electoral College  
• 9 Things You May Not Know About the Electoral College
• Hillary Clinton’s Popular-Vote Victory Is Unprecedented—and Still Growing
• Why Electoral College wins are bigger than popular vote ones
• Hillary Clinton's Lead Is Greater Than Multiple Former Presidents'

The Twelve Days of Christmas or Happy Holidays!

This may seem late for those who aren't familiar with the liturgical calendar,  the old celebration of Christmas, or what exactly the Twelve Days of Christmas happen to be.

 The 12 days of Christmas is the period that in Christian theology marks the span between the birth of Christ and the coming of the Magi, the three wise men. It begins on December 25 (Christmas) and runs through January 6 (the Epiphany, sometimes also called Three Kings' Day). The four weeks preceding Christmas are collectively known as Advent, which begins four Sundays before Christmas and ends on December 24.

The 12 Days have been celebrated in Europe since before the middle ages and are a time of celebration. 

So, my comment about taking the whole month of December off isn't too outrageous if we add the four weeks prior to 25th December to the time to Ephiphany (6 January). Christmas day is only beginning,  yet few families choose to mark the 12-day period by observing the feast days of various saints (including St. Stephen on December 26) and planning daily Christmas-related activities. Things go back to business as usual after December 25 for most people.

For those who are into the liturgical 12 days, each traditionally celebrate a feast day for a saint and/or have different celebrations:

• Day 1 (25th December): Christmas Day - celebrating the Birth of Jesus
• Day 2 (26th December also known as Boxing Day): St Stephen’s Day. He was the first Christian martyr (someone who dies for their faith). It's also the day when the Christmas Carol 'Good King Wenceslas' takes place.
• Day 3 (27th December): St John the Apostle (One of Jesus's Disciples and friends)
• Day 4 (28th December): The Feast of the Holy Innocents - when people remember the baby boys which King Herod killed when he was trying to find and kill the Baby Jesus.
• Day 5 (29th December): St Thomas Becket. He was Archbishop of Canterbury in the 12th century and was murdered on 29th December 1170 for challenging the King’s authority over the Church.
• Day 6 (30th December): St Egwin of Worcester.
• Day 7 (31st December): New Year's Eve (known as Hogmanay in Scotland). Pope Sylvester I is traditionally celebrated on this day. He was one of the earliest popes (in the 4th Century). In many central and eastern European countries (including Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland and Slovenia) New Year's Eve is still sometimes called 'Silvester'. In the UK, New Year's Eve was a traditional day for ‘games’ and sporting competitions. Archery was a very popular sport and during the middle ages it was the law that it had to be practised by all men between ages 17-60 on Sunday after Church! This was so the King had lots of very good archers ready in case he need to go to war!
• Day 8 (1st January): 1st January - Mary, the Mother of Jesus
• Day 9 (2nd January): St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen, two important 4th century Christians.
• Day 10 (3rd January): Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. This remembers when Jesus was officially 'named' in the Jewish Temple. It's celebrated by different churches on a wide number of different dates!
• Day 11 (4th January): St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American saint, who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the past it also celebrated the feast of Saint Simon Stylites (who lives on a small platform on the top of a pillar for 37 years!).
• Day 12 (5th January also known as Epiphany Eve): St. John Neumann who was the first Bishop in American. He lived in the 19th century.

Even if you are like me and are more pagan/Tudor about it all and just want to celebrate the season, you have Boxing Day, New Year's Eve (Hogmanay), New Years Day, and Twelfth Night.

Let's toss in that the Puritans pretty much wiped out the extended Christmas celebration. After all, it's not too far out to start preparing in November if your Christmas begins four weeks before the 25th of December.

But the bottom line is that the Solstice/Christmas Celebration tend to be long because it is intended to "drive the cold winter away". It is something to keep seasonal affective disorder at bay and seems really weird when celebrated in the Southern Hemisphere where the days are long.

Voting Green

Yes, I voted for Jill Stein and the Green Party in the 2016 election.

This is one of the many reasons I am skeptical about "Russian Influence". The other one was that Trump won in the Electoral College, not the popular vote. 

Of course, you won't hear from the likes of me in the Media. And I won't even let off supposedly unbiased sources like the Guardian or the BBC in this rant. Neither of these news sources has paid attention to the US third parties. This is sad since any truly unbiased new source should be interviewing people like me.

Instead, I see bullshit like this trying to point out how Green voters were duped. Toss in the attempt to make third party voters somehow responsible for the Electoral College fiasco.

Anyway, Jill Stein didn't need any social media help for her campaign. Most of the people who voted for her were so disenchanted by the two party system that we were ready to vote for the Greens, Libertarians, or Roque de la Fuentes. I've said it before, the only way I would have considered voting for Hillary Clinton would be if ranked choice voting existed. In that case, I would have cast my vote something like this:

Jill Stein
Gary Johnson or Roque de la Fuentes for Second or Third
A Write in for Bozo the Clown for fourth
And then I would have voted for Hillary Clinton.

So, the "Russian influence" horseshit tends to neglect that Hillary Clinton was one of the most unpopular candidates to ever run. But, never mind that the DNC and establishment democrats chose her over Bernie Sanders. There is another aspect to all of this which I have covered before and won't bother here about my disenchantment with the two party system.

So, any accusation of "Russian Influence" needs to examine how the two party system works since the bottom line of the whole argument seems to be that the Russians used it against itself.

So, any "Russian support" was pretty much negligible. I think Paul Jay of the Real News Network also does a great analysis of the Russian Influence issue.  As a lawyer, the standard for criminal convictions is "beyond a reasonable doubt" and no one has persuaded me beyond that that their assertion of "Russian Influence" outweighs any of the other issues (such as the Electoral College) for Trump being president.

Remember, persuasion require the person to be somewhat inclined to whatever you are trying to persuade them to do. I wouldn't have voted Green if the Dems had addressed: Climate change, election reform, and all the things Bernie was on record as being for. As Stein pointed out, You will love her if you liked Bernie.Toss in I am disgusted with the Democratic Party and its sham primary elections.

As for social media, pretty much everyone who supported the Green Party did so for the same reasons I did: disgust with the two party system (notice how the Media fail to talk about that Green talking point). The Green Party wasn't on the ballot in every state, which meant that a lot of people voting Green were doing so in the hope of gaining ballot access by getting 5% of the vote.

I'll toss in another reason I voted Green was that Hillary was supposed to win in a landslide, which she did if the popular vote actually mattered.

But the popular vote doesn't matter.

US elections are a sham.

And who better to make the baddie if the US wants to pretend it is the "Great Democracy" (or republic for that matter) than an actual "dictatorship".

In other words, distract the people as the world falls apart.

Sorry, I am one of the many people who isn't buying into the "Russian Influence" thing. And you can read all my posts to see why, but the bottom line is that nothing the Russians, or any other foreign power, have done tops the mess that is US politics.

See also:

• No, Jill Stein Did Not Cost Hillary Clinton the White House

Hey, Right Wingers, Got a tatttoo?

I am going straight to the source since I don't want to be accused of spreading fake news. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is running something called Tatt-C. Here's the link.

https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/tattoo-recognition-technology-challenge-tatt-c

This is a call for development for a pattern recognition program to detect and track people by their tattoos.

NIST's Summary of it is:

The Tattoo Recognition Technology – Challenge (Tatt-C) is being conducted to challenge the commercial and academic community in advancing research and development into automated image-based tattoo matching technology.

Some background on this from the NIST page:

Tattoos have been used for many years to assist law enforcement in the identification of criminals and victims and for investigative research purposes.* Historically, law enforcement agencies have followed the ANSI-NIST-ITL 1-2011 standard to collect and assign keyword labels to tattoos. This keyword labeling approach comes with drawbacks, which include the limitation of ANSI-NIST standard class labels to describe the increasing variety of new tattoo designs, the need for multiple keywords to sufficiently describe some tattoos, and subjectivity in human annotation as the same tattoo can be labeled differently between examiners. As such, the shortcomings of keyword-based tattoo image retrieval have driven the need for automated image-based tattoo recognition capabilities.

IOW, You is out of luck if you've got tatts since the guvment may soon be able to track your movements.

How Kavanaugh (and the legal community) flubbed the Sexual Assault Accusations.

Note: this was written close to when the first post was, but posted later for a few reasons.

Let's start with the facts as stated by the accuser, which I will take as being true ad argumentum:

According to the Post, Ford described how Kavanaugh and a friend – both “stumbling drunk” – corralled her into a bedroom at a house in Montgomery county, Maryland.
The Post reported: “While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth.”
Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern California, told the Post: “I thought he might inadvertently kill me.”
She added: “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”

Aside from the fact that Kavanaugh was under the age of majority, which leads to questions about criminal responsibility in this matter. Various issues regarding juvenile justice had there been an adjudication of delinquency and its ability to be used in this matter. There wasn't any sort of formal process in this matter, which is another problem.

Next, Maryland changed its laws regarding rape in 2017, this incident occurred in the early 1980s. Should Maryland apply the law in effect when this incident occurred or would that make Maryland's current rape statute an ex post facto law, and unconstitutional? Toss in Maryland rape laws require actual penetration, which there wasn't according to the above statement. This might be a fourth degree Sexual Offense (MD code 3-308), but I am not sure there would be proof if I were trying to prosecute the case. It would definitely be some kind of assault (unlawful touching). I would make an offer for assault if I were a prosecutor in this case.

Unlawful sexual contact is one of the most commonly charged sex crimes in Maryland. There are two basic elements to this crime — sexual contact and lack of consent. Under Maryland law, sexual contact includes touching the genitals or some other intimate area, which is often interpreted to include the buttocks and the female breasts. If an individual’s hand, body part or extension of a hand touches a person in any of these areas, that may be classified as sexual contact.

The law is unclear whether the contact needs to be direct to those parts or whether one could make sexual contact with a clothed person. I am of the opinion that the statute requires direct contact. This would be a question of law. But the rape sections of Maryland law require actual penetration.

Saying this is assault is more serious due to the fear of harm or actual harm being inflicted on the victim even if this is not a sexual offence in my opinion. But I do not see any of the specific penetration or other element that would cause this to rise to the level of being specifically a sex crime.

The statute of limitations applies in this case since it wasn't any form of rape because there was no penetration. There is a one year statute of limitations for fourth degree sexual offences (Md. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-106; In re Anthony R., 362 Md. 51, 73, 763 A.2d 136, 148 [2000]) if one wants to continue with an allegation of criminal sexual conduct that might stick.

Maryland does not have a statute of limitation on assault according to Lawrence Tribe (however Maryland lawyers say it is one year. Remember we need to use the law that was in effect when the crime was committed), but the next question if there is no limit to prosecution would be which court would have jurisdiction: juvenile or adult? Again, even if one wants to say that there is no statute of limitation on this case, then does this issue of criminal responsibility based upon age come into the play. After all, the alleged incident happened when Kavanaugh was a juvenile according to the law.

Sorry Prof. Tribe, but Maryland's juvenile act would have been the proper standard to have been used at this time: not adult law. Something about ex post facto laws being an issue, which is a mistake that a noted Constitutional law prof should not be making. Especially since competence to stand trial is a constitutional issue.

That means there would be a statute of limitation based on Maryland's Juvenile Act due to this? The real issue isn't as much a statute of limitations as it is that this incident occurred when Kavanaugh was a juvenile. Juvenile court can retain jurisdiction over youth until age 21, provided that the offense alleged to have been committed occurred before the youth turned 18. (Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 3-8A-01(d) and Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. §§ 3-8A-07(a), (b))

One of reason for statutes of limitation is the fairness of the prosecution in regard to finding evidence, witnesses, and so on. That is important given this would be and 35+ year old allegation. Can she offer proof which would go beyond a reasonable doubt?

Mark Judge, the alleged partner to this, does not remember the event ever happening. So, we have evidentiary problems.

Also, this is one incident. I would be hesitant to use an isolated incident this old as an indicator of Kavanaugh's personality. I would be less hesitant if there were incidents which were more recent to show he has not changed.

Bottom line, there are Constitutional due process issues a plenty here which make this line of attack highly problematic for me. I would have hoped that a judge with a staff would have enumerated them, but he has failed to address this highly important issue.

I feel sorry for the accuser, but legally this shouldn't see the light of day given the length of time from the incident to any public accusation. She wouldn't get a day in court based upon the facts, yet this has shown up in the political arena for whatever reason.

I doubt there is a person who hasn't committed a crime whether intentionally or unintentionally which may or may not have been prosecuted. Likewise, there are defences and mitigations to crimes which must be taken into account. Not to mention constitutionality of this. These matters need to be considered by Kavanaugh's accusers.

Even more importantly, I see the facts of this case being twisted into partisan fodder to try and thwart the confirmation of someone who doesn't have the legal acumen of a first year law student. The lack of legal knowledge to provide a defence to this, especially from a judge with a staff, is troubling to me.

As I said before, this accusation demonstrates that Brett Kavanaugh is not worthy of a seat on the highest court because he lacks a basic knowledge of the law, of which this an exposition. I could probably come up with far more constitutional and criminal defences to this accusation, but that would be more nails in the coffin to his lack of basic legal knowledge.

Sources:

• Findlaw Maryland Rape and Sexual Assault Laws
• Criminal Statutes of Limitations Maryland - RAINN 

See also:

• A Hill to Die On.
• Unforgiven: Those who argue that what Brett Kavanaugh allegedly did is disqualifying ​need to consider the precedent they’re setting.
• The US must settle its constitutional crisis before it confirms Kavanaugh
• Kavanaugh's confirmation would be a victory for Trump – and no one else

More on the founders and republics

Another of the benefits claimed by the founders for having a republic over a democracy is that republics are supposed to be free of factions. That is that partisan bickering that we see in US politics should not be happening.

Boy, were they WRONG on that one with the partisan bullshit beginning long before the ink dried on the Constitution (or they even began debating the thing).

So, this is further evidence that the founders had no fucking idea what they were doing and had basically buried themselves. That means the US has been in constitutional crisis from at least the first Continental Congress.

No wonder the place is a mess.

See also:
The Founding Fathers on Party Strife (Quotes)
The Founding Fathers & Political Parties The Origins of Today's Bitter Partisanship: The Founding Fathers

Don’t quote the Founders on republics

I have serious questions about anyone who venerated the founders, who had no fucking idea what they were doing. That’s pretty much of an understatement for anyone who has any idea of early American history. Patrick Henry had an inkling he was making a mistake when he said:

Whether this (Independence) will prove a blessing or a curse, will depend upon the use our people will make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable.Righteousness alone cannot exalt us as a nation. Reader! Whoever thou art, remember this; and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.

Not sure how anyone who was paying off the cost of a war would think that having another one would solve any problems. Toss in all the other issues that were left unaddressed because a bunch of hotheads wanted another war.

Anyway, their love for republics was yet another aspect of their ignorance. The Roman republic may have lasted for nearly 500 years but

Unlike the Pax Romana of the Roman Empire, the Republic was in a state of quasi-perpetual war throughout its existence. Its first enemies were its Latin and Etruscan neighbours, as well as the Gauls, who even sacked the city in 387 BC. The Republic nonetheless demonstrated extreme resilience and always managed to overcome its losses, however catastrophic…At home, the Republic similarly experienced a long streak of social and political crises, which ended in several bloody civil wars.

Toss in the French revolution would demonstrate that republics were anything but stable.

So, for all their attempts at trying to show a difference between a republic and a democracy. there probably wasn’t that much of one even in classical times,. But it sounds nice if one is starting on shaky ground.

The accusations against Kavanaugh show he shouldn't be a justice, but not for the harassment aspect.

OK, there was a question using a similar scenario to what Kavanaugh is facing given on a test during my legal education, which means that the legal issues here the should be obvious to a first year law student let alone someone who wants to be a supreme court justice.

The fact that Kavanaugh was 17 when this happened should be sending out shitloads of objections to this, but that would only be the beginning. I am amazed that all the profs who blog on this topic aren't going on about them. Clarence Thomas was Anita Hill's supervisor at the Department of Education and the EEOC, not a teenager: major difference.

I am not going to say what they are, but at least one of them is a constitutional issue. The fact that Kavanaugh isn't talking about it makes me worry about how good of a justice he would be.

The fact that this line of questioning Kavanaugh's ability to be a justice was allowed to see the light of day has me worried about the legal fraternity in the US.

So, while these allegations are serious, I don't think this is a fair line of questioning even if they are true. In fact, it makes me wonder how much of a case Kavanaugh's opponents have against him (other than his not having a basic knowledge of the law).

I think Kavanaugh's inability to address this basic issue of the law along with his poor knowledge of the law would be more than enough to deny him the nomination. But dragging an incident that happened 36 years ago is questionable even if true (hint hint).

This incident makes me worry about how far back opponents might go to destroy someone's political career. No one is going to be without some taint, but there may be a dearth of qualified candidates if the nomination process goes over someone's record with an electron microscope.

But the legal aspects and the defences they afford Kavanaugh in this situation are far more troubling to me in this process. The fact that a supreme court justice is unable to articulate them is even more troubling.

The pro-gun position is bullshit.

Sorry people, but the pro-gun position is based upon lies.

It's pretty much a given that the serious research that was done on this issue has this result:

In 1993, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published an article by Arthur Kellerman and colleagues, “Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home,” which presented the results of research funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study found that keeping a gun in the home was strongly and independently associated with an increased risk of homicide. The article concluded that rather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance. Kellerman was affiliated at the time with the department of internal medicine at the University of Tennessee. He went on to positions at Emory University, and he currently holds the Paul O’Neill Alcoa Chair in Policy Analysis at the RAND Corporation.

The 1993 NEJM article received considerable media attention, and the National Rifle Association (NRA) responded by campaigning for the elimination of the center that had funded the study, the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention. The center itself survived, but Congress included language in the 1996 Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Bill  for Fiscal Year 1997 that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” Referred to as the Dickey amendment after its author, former U.S. House Representative Jay Dickey (R-AR), this language did not explicitly ban research on gun violence. However, Congress also took $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget — the amount the CDC had invested in firearm injury research the previous year — and earmarked the funds for prevention of traumatic brain injury. Dr. Kellerman stated in a December 2012 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “Precisely what was or was not permitted under the clause was unclear. But no federal employee was willing to risk his or her career or the agency's funding to find out. Extramural support for firearm injury prevention research quickly dried up.”

OK, that was probably too complicated for most of the gun nuts reading this, but the summary is that a peer-reviewed study was published that contradicted the belief that guns are good for self-defence. Immediately after, the gun lobby made sure no further studies like this would be published.

 Prob is that Scientific American is publishing articles with headlines like:

More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows

Data Confirm Semiautomatic Rifles Linked to More Deaths, Injuries

But what do you expect when you have an item that causes death or serious bodily injury when used correctly? It's a tool for killing if you want to go down that silly argument.

Anyway, even the Truth About Guns has shown that the guns protect us thing is a lie, but they won't admit it.

Then we get to the revisionist bullshit of the Second Amendment. Hey, you don't need to go beyond the Constitution's text to see that that Amendment relates to the militia and the common defence.

So, sorry, but the facts are in and they are "anti-gun".  You don't have a right to have a deadly weapon unless you are using it for the common defence. Live with it.

See also:

• Charlie Hebdo: Sick gun rights activists re-enact magazine massacre that killed 12

The Originalist's Dilemma

Brett Kavanaugh is exposing a dangerous and silly pretense for Constitutional interpretation: especially after showing that the Second Amendment in no way addresses anything OTHER than the Militia by using this school of interpretation as described. Originalism is supposed to be:

"Constitutional interpretation should remain anchored in the original meaning of the Constitution’s text, which is the source of the Court’s authority and legitimacy."

By that definition, Judicial review is not constitutional as it is not found in the text of the Constitution. Instead, it comes from the case of Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803). Which happens to be the same case that backs up my assertion that the Second Amendment applies to the militia by stating that
“It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect”.

Of course, if one is going to find clauses in the Constitution to not be with effect and ignore precedent, then Marbury should be up there for being ignored.

But, where does that leave us if one ignores Marbury and concedes that judicial review is not a constitutional power of the court?

Heller and McDonald were ultra vires for being judicial legislation. Now, we are on the level where those cases were also ultra vires for being an unconstitutional act of legislation by the bench. Perhaps we should look into why the founders neglected to give the power of judicial review to the courts? Some of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence related to laws being abrogated, which would mean these are tyrannical acts by being both outside the power of the court, but also well beyond the scope of its power.

The rule of law is supposed to keep the law beyond the caprices of a few people. Nine unelected officials should not be able to make or break the will of the majority of the people. Now, the court is becoming a creature of partisan politics, which is even more frightening in light of its inability to grasp its role as a referee, not a player.

Originalism and the Second Amendment

This is all very simple since according to people who claim to believe in Originalism, "Constitutional interpretation should remain anchored in the original meaning of the Constitution’s text, which is the source of the Court’s authority and legitimacy." Using that definition:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The text of the Second Amendment begins with "A well regulated Militia" which is "necessary to the security of a free State". The language of the text does not mention Self-defence, hunting, target practise, or any other non-militia uses. It is a well established rule or statutory interpretation that inclusio unius est exclusio alterius  which means  that ‘including one excludes another’. The example given where I found this was the statement ‘no dogs allowed’ under this rule would mean that panthers were allowed.

Likewise, the fact that the Militia is specifically referenced would lead one to conclude that this text addresses the militia, but does not cover uses other than the militia.

Likewise, a search of the US Constitution shows that it addresses the militia, but personal defence is not addressed. Likewise, the preamble of the text makes it clear that one of the reasons for adopting the Constitution is to deal with matters of the common defence. However, there are people who claim to follow originalism who are willing to ignore the actual text of the Constitution to advance their beliefs.

The actual wording of the Constitution makes it clear that the Militia and Common defence are covered, but personal uses of weapons aren't.  I am not going to get into the grammar of the Second Amendment since that isn't really germane if one is going solely upon the text. Anyway, Dennis Baron addresses that issue in his amicus brief to the Heller decision and this essay where he demonstrates that the founders would indeed have seen this as only relating to the militia.

Reading the Second Amendment as a statement in which every word counts follows from the opinion articulated by Chief Justice John Marshall: “It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect” (Marbury v. Madison, 1803). But even without that landmark ruling, it would have been clear to 18 th -century readers that the first part of the Second Amendment was bound to the second part in a cause-and- effect relationship, that the right to bear arms was tied by the framers directly to the need for a well-regulated militia.

The Second Amendment was pretty much considered settled case law which was thrown into disarray by Heller and McDonald. US v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875) wasn't very helpful since it addressed private action, but Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886) and US v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) both made it clear that the Second Amendment related to the Militia. Miller is usually not properly represented in recent "Second Amendment Scholarship" and totally ignored in the Heller and McDonald decisions because it is "not helpful".

Indeed, it is not helpful to the recent decisions which were ultra vires because they amended the Constitution to add a new meaning to the Second Amendment, as this essay has demonstrated. I would also add that Justice William O. Douglas addressed Miller and glossed it in his dissent in Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S 143, 150 -51 (1972) , which somehow is omitted in lists of SCOTUS cases mentioning the Second Amendment. Which is too bad since Justice Douglas was a member of the Supreme Court when Miller was decided, which makes him a very good source for how that case should be read.

Justice Douglas pointed out that in Second Amendment jurisprudence:

The leading case is United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, upholding a federal law making criminal the shipment in interstate commerce of a sawed-off shotgun. The law was upheld, there being no evidence that a sawed-off shotgun had “some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” Id., at 178. The Second Amendment, it was held, “must be interpreted and applied” with the view of maintaining a “militia.”
“The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia – civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.” Id., at 178-179.

The Heller and McDonald decisions are examples of Judges failing to follow the rule of law, precedent, and their claimed theory of judicial interpretation. As I pointed out, those two decisions are ultra vires and should be ignored, which is easy since they are incredibly limited in their scope. But even then, some daring justice should show that the emperor has no clothes in these decisions.

Anyway, one doesn't need to go far if you believe that the text of the Constitution is determining in how to interpret the Second Amendment that it only applies to the militia. It is quite obvious that the Second Amendment relates to the militia from the text. But the Heller and McDonald decisions made it clear that the text was optional, which means that Originalism is a nonsensical school of constitutional interpretation.