FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

"Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse."

So, sounds like the jury didn't say "rape", with either penis or fingers and only "sexual abuse".

Finally, the whole Carroll thing, I don't believe it -- Trump is not that stupid. What I believe is the $130,000.

For Georgia, sure, in principle and thankfully, it is up to the Georgia Secretary of State and the Governor, in principle. But it sure looks like that hate Trump prosecutor and her boyfriend are 99% of the reality there.

For the Arizona case, right, there are the charges that somehow near the end of his term, he went around the country doing something illegal complaining about the integrity of the election. So, he went around complaining. And maybe he had some coffee with Kelli. That should be no crime. And, with the Judge Merchant and Bragg case, there is a lot of lawfare going on. Trump did something illegal in Arizona???? Naw.

Again, the J6 committee was 99 44/100% Democrat propaganda.

The recounts, etc. -- if it was just counting again some crooked ballots, then that doesn't mean anything. The Chinese paper thing, then the changes for Covid thing, all looks like maybe something valid. I saw more accusations, e.g., trucks of fake mail-in ballots arriving late at night, but the information is too thin to take seriously. So, if there was cheating, I don't know how it was done.

Maybe the bottom line is "Politics is dirty business" and differs mostly only in how dirty. At this point, with the lawfare, the Democrats look like the dirty ones and look especially dirty since 2020.

Thanks for your materials. Apparently you believe those materials mean more than I do, but maybe they mean something.

For the 50:1 case outcome, looks like NO ONE in power wanted to open that possible Pandora's Box.

With the current lawfare Florida to Maine, it looks like the Democrats are going after Trump any way they can. That makes the legal cases you referenced questionable. The Democrats have a lot of power and money, and they can file lots of lawfare cases, and it looks like that's what they have been doing. I expect that some judges will retire, some higher courts will jump in and hose out the crap, some lawyers will be disbarred, and Trump will win all the cases. Why? In the lawfare, the main goal is not to convict Trump but just to tie him up in court, cost him a lot of time, money, and energy, sow doubt among some voters, and keep him off the campaign trail until 11/5/2024. The Democrats are calling the fire trucks. For that there doesn't have to be a fire or even smoke, and there isn't.

For 2024, Trump promises to have enough lawyers, poll watchers, etc. to have high election integrity. Maybe we will get some more information on how the Democrats try to cheat.

Look, there is something in this whole mud wrestling ring more certain and wrong than any of the actual legal accusations against Trump -- the Democrat's lawfare attack on Trump.

I was glad to get your references -- the DC one is a riot, a scream: As the PDF explains, he was fully within his rights to object to the 2020 election BUUUUUT: They are going to charge him anyway with, what, confusing the politics, the public????? Gads. That's not even up to the kangaroo level.

There is nothing to stop the Democrats from executing lawfare, but we don't have to grant that the objections are valid or that Trump did anything wrong. The Bragg case is a new low in the US justice system. Same for the 1/2 $billion fine.

As sometimes said in courts, there is a "pattern" here.

Actually, Trump is not even accused of doing anything seriously wrong.

Good to see, I'm not making a serious error in judgment liking Trump.

Thanks.

The same argument cuts both ways. Individuals can be corrupted by personal ambition versus sticking to a mission too.

> With formalized parties, we often see the strategic concerns of the party as an organization eclipse any coherent policy goals that are the ostensible reason for the party existing in the first place.

This is because there is no marketplace of parties. There is are just two, and we are stuck with them --- they are more akin to coalitions to parties in a multiparty than individual parties in a multiparty system. The monopoly/incumbency problems this creates are the same ones we see in commerce when there is a dearth of firm creation/failure, and the zombies live on.

> Multi-party in particular democracy has some significant pitfalls, including the tendency of marginal and extremist parties to play kingmaker. The historian Hannah Arendt made some salient points about how the multi-party structure of Weimar Germany contributed directly to the radicalization and eventual total control of the state by the Nazis.

There is that risk, but it is not like the US's system has protected us well from extremism either. When politics as usual gets discredited, we see both the rise of radical non-partisanship and parties shifting to the extreme.

I would not expect multiparty democracy to protect us from stupid as colossally stupid as the Treaty of Versaille, and neither should Hanna Ardent. US policy towards West Germany and Japan is the much better model of dealing with defeated enemies.

> Politics will always involve factions forming around shared interests or values, but in a situation without those factions being calcified into formal organizations, or even identities, we'd expect them to be much more fluid and ephemeral, and for politicians to be much more willing to reach across ideological divides without worrying about institutional discipline or being ostracized by the party establishment regardless of their constituents' opinions.

Again this all sounds nice in principle, but we are not seeing that in any extent political system. Large parties and small parties both have plenty of rhetorical dogmatism and inflexibility. But at least small parties can outflank large incumbents, bringing together constituents in hitherto unexpected ways. Stuff like YIMBYism, for example, which doesn't neatly fit into either US party is really screwed over by having to win through the "long slow march through the primaries", rather than create a nimble new party with cross-spectrum appeal.

> Ranked-choice balloting wouldn't eliminate parties per se, but it would reduce their influence in the electoral process significantly.

You need to provide more evidence for this. Campaigning is expensive. The returns on consistent messaging increase with scale (e.g. ingraining strains of through, moving the Overton window, etc.)

> I'd expect a reasonable voter to investigate the actual candidates on the ballot and make an informed choice, and not merely rely on party affiliation as the only criterion for casting a vote.

With enough work, one can learn about individual, but what enforces that those individuals are consistent? Firstly. The incentives for politicians, especially minor ones, are to avoid making enemies more than make friends --- they don't want you to know how they feel. Secondly, and more importantly, they have zero incentive to consistently feel anything as the political landscape and space of compromises shape-shifts.

You talk about reaching across the aisle as an unvarnished good thing, but as a voter there some deals are really worth it, and some deals are not worth it --- not all deals/compromises are good.

When individuals are fickle and nebulous, there is no way to vote on individuals that adequately conveys this sort of information. We can say "vote for good character", but that is feel-good dribble.

I was thinking the FCC regulations would have that power to implement such a ban based on national security, though I could be wrong. I'd have to look back at the Patriot Act as well, I'd expect that to offer similar powers but I don't remember for sure.