anon_
12hr ago
You guys are confusing civil asset forfeiture, in which the US files a suit in rem and merely fining someone, in which the US files a suit against the defendant.
anon_
12hr ago
unless the fact that they acted illegally can be proven to a criminal standard, the worst that can happen to them is that the proceeds of their acting in a dodgy way can be taken away from them
I don't think I agree with the premise here. In the US, at an administrative/civil level you can be fined. That is not "to a criminal standard" (beyond a reasonable doubt) it's to a much lower civil standard (preponderance of evidence) and has far fewer procedural safeguards. For example, in a civil suit, even defending against the government, one isn't entitled to a free lawyer.
With a proper civil asset forfeiture scheme you can have rules like "if we prove to a certain standard that you did something bad then we're not just going to take the money you made through your illegal actions, we'll also come after a portion of the rest of the wealth you own"
That sounds very sensible. It also exists, and we call it "civil enforcement". And there is virtually no limit to the fines that can be exacted this way -- although the Court has set some outer limits. See, e.g. Timbs v Indiana and US v Bajakajian
anon_
20hr ago
What sort of actual beneficial policies would be prohibited by the 5A?
Also, it's "cannot be seized except for a public purpose and after paying just compensation". That's a fairly big omission IMO.
anon_
20hr ago
Um, yeah? Venezuela is not, in fact, part of the US. US law does not apply in Venezuela.
But US law does apply to US firms, and those firms are prohibited from assisting Venezuela in any way. The target of this statement is the former, not the latter.
anon_
21hr ago
That's correct, the jury is told they cannot convict for both before their deliberation.
Which I think undermines the idea that the jury is gonna be mad about charging both, because it's not framed as two separate convictions that might both be applied, but two possible convictions of which at most one will be applied.
anon_
1d ago
If you thought it was 80% likely, you can get a spread of buy options for various times/prices. The loss (and gain) is completely bounded up front.
anon_
6d ago
As a juror I can imagine going ya he is guilty of the worst one, but it feels like legal BS to double charge him with a lesser crime that is the same thing.
It is -- the double jeopardy clause prevents double charging where the elements of one charge a proper subset of the other one. That's not a question for a jury tho.
anon_
9d ago
Even the most "liberal" members of the Motte (myself included) are at best the sort of heterodox classical liberal that leftists today call fascists and rightists still promise to put up against the wall with all the progressives.
Damn bro. Ouch.
anon_
15d ago
First, the land connection doesn't and can't carry even a tiny fraction of China's foreign trade, and certainly not enough food and fuel to get through a cold Beijing winter.
Taiwan would have benefit of replenishment via their eastern ports by the largest blue water Navy in the world.
anon_
15d ago
Right, you can’t intervene in an invasion from outside missile range, but you can entirely choke all seaborne commerce.
Hence it puts the timeline pressure on the invasion. Even the largest oil reserve won’t last that long.
anon_
16d ago
Japan is 90 days from a nuclear warhead. The funny (well, not haha funny) thing about that is that it is both a very short and a very long time.
anon_
16d ago
In other words, the First Strike option is China committing suicide.
Well, there is the off chance that the first strike succeeds very quickly beyond expectations and before the economic/industrial effects take hold.
I don't give it much chance of success, but if China manages to strike first and seize the island by force with low/minor US & Taiwanese casualties, it changes the calculus of the reaction.
I'd probably say 1 chance in 5 that works. And the downside of failure is pretty high.
anon_
16d ago
give Taiwan an ultimatum of some sort (e.g. "stop buying US military hardware") and then when it is denied, a limited ballistic missile strike on Taiwanese C&C facilities, combined with a lightning heliborne assault to seize a port, coordinated with a large amphibious landing.
The problem with ultimatums is that it telegraphs the next step. By the time the ultimatum is denied, the C&C facilities and all leaders have been dispersed/hardened, all civilian air traffic is stopped and the air defense have orders to destroy anything that flies.
anon_
16d ago
and so on, you make a military response ultra-hard mode, giving China carte blanche to invade at their own pace with the wind at their backs
I don't think that works. Even with a massive first strike leading to a hot conventional war with the US right off the bat, if China doesn't actually compel Taiwan to surrender in short order, the US has the easy option of having the blue water navy camp outside of Chinese missile range and completely stop shipping in and out of the country.
This isn't hard mode at all, unless China decides to sally their entire Navy and challenge the US outside the range of their land based assets.
This forces a kind of timeline on it. China can surely survive for a considerable time, but it also puts a limit on it that's not "their own pace" -- they have to either seize the island or fold, they can't just wait.
anon_
16d ago
You need probable cause to search and arrest someone. But you don't need probable cause to be in particular McDonalds.
The latter statement is hard to interpret but might be totally wrong as well -- there is no 'actual reason' test. In fact, the Supreme Court has specifically said (unanimously) that police can stop someone for one reason (for example running a stop sign) even if their "real reason" for wanting to stop is something else (e.g. the cop believes they have drugs in the car) even if the latter reason would not on its own suffice.
All that matter is that the officer had some probable cause to arrest it, for example because she thought he looked like the mugshots of the NYC murder suspect.
anon_
16d ago
so they ginned up this McDonald’s employee whistleblower so they had a reason for actually being there and finding him
The FBI doesn't need a reason to be in a McDonalds. It's not a private residence, it's open to the public and they can just go.
Maybe there were in there due to illegal surveillance, but even then it doesn't help the defendant. A defendant can't (at least how 4A law is today) argue that a search or arrest is illegal because the police were in a public place but due to information they obtained unlawfully. That information itself isn't admissible tho.
anon_
16d ago
I fully agree that would be super interesting to hear.
That said, I don't see any reason that at a criminal trial, you'd have to call in the individual whose tip (putatively) lead to the suspect's arrest. That isn't normal in most trials and isn't super probative as to any real (?) factual question about the defendant.
So while maybe all that is true or not (I don't know enough to say one way or the other), I don't see how it would be relevant at trial.
anon_
20d ago
I think you’ll have to forgive that the industry that could benefit from it as decided to obstruct it.
anon_
20d ago
I think the simple explanation is that society generally condones or at least tolerates porn “actresses” making large amounts of money because people generally understand that such women are condemning themselves to social damnation with assumptions about their reputations that may very easily turn out to be naïve and thus deserve to be at least financially well-compensated by simps whom society considers to be loser chumps anyway.
This isn't even true. Most porn stars make less -- it's a steep pyramid.
It's the same with kids that want to become soccer stars or football greats -- sure Messi & Brady made $100M a year or whatever, but it's just not representative. Or rock stars or rappers. There is an allure of glamor and a draw of the very top of the pyramid, but the reality is that most live music acts are done in a local dive bar for barely a few bucks. Some kid in the hood really thinks he's gonna be the next Drake?
This seems like a far more parsimonious explanation about stardom.
anon_
20d ago
Boy, if only there was a technology that could help with that the movie industry would embrace enthusiastically.
anon_
20d ago
Buddy, you can't tell people to shut up.
in a lot of cases, consumers stopped buying the Big Mac because it was outlawed
Yes. This is a problem on the regulatory side. And I'm very sympathetic to the claim that a given regulation (say, for backup cameras or whatever) has an unfavorable cost/benefit ratio -- in many cases it's absolutely true. So it's completely valid to say that shitty regulation makes things more expensive, but that isn't inflation.
Yeah, and those are not "to a criminal standard", they are "to a civil standard".
In many cases, they can be levied administratively (e.g. by members of the executive branch) and it's on the individual fined to bring a challenge in court (at their own expense).
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