Just a reminder that comments on different topics are separated by “==” while those separated by “—” are parts of a thread. What is in braces - that is, “[ ]” - in italics is added here for context; if it’s regular type is was as per the original comment.
Speaking of which, comments and reactions are always encouraged.
Here we go….
2026-10-09
[A man convicted of killing a trans woman won a reversal because the court had not allowed him to testify that she was trans.]
Okay, I think that while the decision is ethically wrong, it may be - may be - legally correct in that it could be seen as the trial judge getting it wrong by not allowing the introductions of potentially exculpatory testimony. The fact that the exculpation might be based on bigotry might not matter. (”The law isn’t about justice - the law is about the law.”)
Consider a hypothetical case where the circumstances were identical except that the defendant was trans and the court barred testimony that when the assailant drew their gun, they yelled “All you fucking tr***ies should die!” The barred testimony in the present case is not so obviously exculpatory, but the legal issue remains.
However - based on what we have here, I don’t think it will do Ward[, the accused,] any good in the end. He can’t claim any version of “trans panic” because it’s established that he knew she was trans, had associated with trans women, and willingly went to her place. What’s more, refusing to leave when she told him to belies any claim that he was in fear of her.
Unless his Hail Mary defense dream succeeds and he gets a jury so thoroughly bigoted that they were happy a trans woman was killed and so will look for ways to let him off despite likely thinking “he’s almost one of them,” I think a re-trial will turn out the same way the first one did.
==
2026-10-09
[”The Bible is full of allegorical stories. Not everything is literal truth, just moral truth.”]
So the Bible means what it says except where it doesn’t. Got it.
—
2026-10-11
[”If that’s how you choose to interpret ‘moral truth,’ then so be it.”]
I said nothing about any interpretation of any “moral truth.” I merely noted the meaning of your argument. And considering how you choose to interpret the story of Adam, I doubt you have the standing to question anyone’s interpretation of anything.
[He answered the question of where Cain’ wife came from by arguing that other people existed at the time of Adam and Eve, but Adam was the first one to receive the “breath of life” so was the first created “in the image of God.”]
But help me out here: Is Deuteronomy 20 allegory or moral truth?
==
2026-10-10
[A meme claimed ”Article II Section 4: If the president is impeached for treason the vice president and all civil officers shall be removed.”]
Sorry, but no. First, impeachment does not equal removal. Second, Article II Section 4 says that those offices are subject to impeachment and removal, not that if the president is impeached they all go.
If you doubt me, Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 says “In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President” who obviously still retains that office.
The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 set out the succession down through Cabinet officers.
==
2026-10-10
[Satirical vid offered how MAGA might regard Jesus if he was alive today.]
Another possibility is that they’d see him as Jesus and then, as the Bible (I forget which Gospel, one of the synoptic ones) says some of his followers did, abandon him when they realized the he was preaching about a spiritual kingdom and Earthly power wasn’t part of the plan.
==
2026-10-10
[CorpDem Tom Suozzi’s “Promise To America,” a plan to oppose democratic socialism, fizzled.]
Tom Suozzi, June 15: “[I]dentify a dozen members of Congress that think this way.”
Tom Suozzi, June 26: “There will be more as time goes on. ... We announced the first [sic] ten members.”
Tom Suozzi, August: “We only want ten members of Congress.”
OMG. An absolutely perfect example of sour grapes!
==
2026-10-10
[Quote is from Jeff Bezos in a Faux News interview]
“Success is not villainy.”
No, it’s not. But villainy is villainy. And greed, one of the seven deadly sins, qualifies as villainy.
Corporate groups are creating an affordability crisis in home ownership by buying up swaths of homes and then hoarding them to drive up prices for the sake of higher profits. That is greed. Is villainy.
Developers are creating an affordability crisis in apartment housing by focusing on building luxury apartments because the cost is only 10-20% more than that for more affordable ones, but the rents be can double or triple, meaning higher profits. That is greed. Is villainy.
For Jeff Bezos to dismiss that as “a simple supply and demand situation” is both a lie and an active, not just endorsement of, but celebration of greed as a principle. That is villainy.
And he is a villain.
—
2026-10-10
[Responding to a different comment on the same article.]
In my comment, I mentioned that developers are concentrating on luxury apartments because of higher rents that leaves others struggling to find housing, but yeah, the collusion among landlords to fix the rental market is absolutely relevant.
==
2026-10-15
[In a panel discussion, John Kiriakou described experiences of MOSSAD agents secretly defecating in someone’s residence as a means of declaring “We can do this and you can’t stop us,” connected to reports of IDF soldiers doing the same in Palestinian homes in Gaza. Someone responded by attacking Kiriakou with what appears to be previously-prepared statements.]
“Believe what you like.”
Okay, since you invited the response, I believe you are either a bot, a paid agent of either AIPAC or the government of Israel, a bigot consumed with anti-Palestinian hatred, or just a plain old-fashioned dumb ass.
One fact for you: John Kiriakou was not charged with “betraying [his] country.” He was charged with unauthorized release of classified information - in other words, he was a whistle blower, because of who we had documentation of a regime of torture carried out by the CIA during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, information I can safely assume you wish we never had.
—
2026-10-18
[The reply was another statement obviously prepared well in advance.]
It’s interesting to come across someone so convinced that every allegation made by the government during an active smear campaign and prosecution is unquestionable truth, especially considering that essentially none of that became part of the actual charges, which were for confirming the name of a CIA officer, giving classified information to the media (i.e., being a whistle blower by any reasonable reading of the term), and being deceptive with the Publications Review Board about a book in way that had Donald Trump done it, he could have claimed it just proved how smart he is.
Nothing about “betraying his country” to be found. Just another long statement obviously prepared earlier and filed to be waved around when it appeared useful to advance other interests, one that, I note, never denies that his claims about torture or about the actions of the IDF in Gaza were true but rather tries to deny the claim by attacking the source.
I take it you would rather the torture - and the treatment of Palestinians - would remain a secret and “We the people” remained ignorant of the crimes perpetrated in our name. Which strikes me as more of a philosophical betrayal of what are supposed to our principles than anything John Kiriakou did or was alleged to have done.
Crawl back in your hole; you will get no further answer from me.
[In response, I was called a racist committing blood libel.]
==
2026-10-18
[Prompted by a discussion of a proposed California wealth tax.]
Some time back there was a TV series called “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” hosted by the aptly named Robin Leach (pronounced leech) and I saw an episode of it and could only think that these people are so nonsensically rich that they possess things like solid gold bathroom faucets because they are quite literally spending their energies looking for ways to spend money.
I was supposed to envy them or be fascinated by them - and I was the latter in the same way I would be by watching some newly-discovered weird deep sea creature.
==
2026-10-19
[Gavin Newsom opposed a referendum on a 5% tax on billionaire wealth and supported a referendum to undermine it.]
Why is Newsom doing this? I can answer in three words: Twenty twenty-eight money.
I said last year that “Gavin Newsom always kinda creeped me out. He was - I can’t put my finger on it, but he was somehow TOO polished, TOO smooth, TOO aware of how he looked, spoke, and moved. Okay, truth is he always seemed to me to be as slick as his hair and every bit as carefully created.”
Right now I don’t know if I’m pleased or upset to see that feeling confirmed as he tries to look as liberal as he (safely) can while making it clear to the Big Bucks Gang that he won’t touch them or their power.
==
2026-10-21
I suppose I would say that as a general principle, I’m against men in women’s sports.
But the thing is, we don’t have men in women’s sports. We have trans girls and trans women in women’s sports.
And anyone who doesn’t know the difference, who doesn’t know what those girls and women went through to live as themselves, doesn’t realize the medical requirements they often have to meet to qualify for those leagues, doesn’t have the knowledge or understanding required to have a legitimate opinion on the matter.
==
2026-10-22
[Someone quoted a NYT article as saying ISIS claims rape is encouraged by the Quran. A reply asked what verse does that.]
Just for the sake of precision, it doesn’t say anything about quoting the Quran. It says “ISIS claims” it says that. Which I expect would mean that ISIS, just like our Christian brethren here in the US (and I fully expect other conservative sects among other religions), wishes to impose their own interpretation of scripture onto everyone else.
==
2026-10-24
Ya know those 20,000 “noncitizens” the Department of Injustice claims is on the California voting lists? Democracy Docket had a list of the different ways The Orange Overlord’s servile minions in the DOI have described that list.
Oct. 13 — “Likely noncitizens”
Oct. 15 — “Likely noncitizens
Oct. 15 — “Noncitizens
Oct. 15 — “Likely” noncitizens
Oct. 15 — “Highly likely noncitizen aliens
Oct. 15 — “20,000 noncitizens”
Oct. 15 — “noncitizens”
Oct. 15 — “Suspected noncitizens”
Oct. 16 — “Confirmed” noncitizens
Oct. 16 — “suspected noncitizens”
Oct. 16 — “Reasonably believe” are “likely noncitizens”
Oct. 16 — “Actual notice of noncitizen voting”
Oct. 19 — “Likely noncitizen registrants”
Oct. 19 — “Highly likely to be noncitizen aliens”
Oct. 19 — “reasonably believe” they are noncitizens
Oct. 19 — they are the ones the DOI is “kind of the most confident [they] are noncitizens”
Oct. 19 — “We’re not perfect” so the list could include citizens
Oct. 20 — “Verified” noncitizens
Oct. 21 — “At least 20,000 noncitizens”
Oct. 21 — “Suspected non-eligible voters”
In sum, the DOI is kind of confident that it reasonably believes that it is likely that they suspect these folks are both noncitizens and registered voters even though they’re not perfect so maybe not.
Well, I’m convinced.
==
2026-10-24
[DOT is taking down info re bike lanes. Someone said that they grew up riding in traffic without bike lanes and they’re a waste. A reply said bike lanes reduce mortality, leading to a demand for percentages and comparisons to pedestrians.]
An AI-generated [because I was too damn lazy to start citing individual studies] answer to “Do bike lanes reduce mortality?”
“Yes, bike lanes, particularly protected bike lanes, significantly reduce mortality rates. Studies show that cities with dedicated bike lanes have 44% fewer deaths and 50% fewer serious injuries compared to average American streets.”
You also may care to check out [this link to] a one-page explainer from the USDOT that was among the documents stripped from the government website in the anti-bike push. Focusing in bike-car crashes rather then deaths, it reported that depending on the type of road, bike lanes reduced such crashes by between 30% and 55%.
Comparisons to pedestrians are difficult; we have absolute numbers of deaths for each group, but lacking data as to how many are exposed to traffic for how long, there’s no way to reasonably compare the two. What can be said in either case, however, is that safety features reduce both serious injuries and fatalities.
And your “I rode in traffic and I don’t need no stinking liberal woke safety stuff” doesn’t and won’t.
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