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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29550 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024

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Palin v. The New York Times... still

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals holds:

Palin’s claim was subsequently tried before a jury but, while the jury was deliberating, the district court dismissed the case again—this time under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50. We conclude that the district court’s Rule 50 ruling improperly intruded on the province of the jury by making credibility determinations, weighing evidence, and ignoring facts or inferences that a reasonable juror could plausibly have found to support Palin’s case.

Despite the district court’s Rule 50 dismissal, the jury was allowed to reach a verdict, and it found the Times and Bennet “not liable.” Unfortunately, several major issues at trial—specifically, the erroneous exclusion of evidence, an inaccurate jury instruction, a legally erroneous response to a mid-deliberation jury question, and jurors learning during deliberations of the district court’s Rule 50 dismissal ruling—impugn the reliability of that verdict.

For those unfamiliar with the background, in reaction to the 2011 Tucson Shooting of Representative Giffords and several others, the New York Times, among many other media, tried to tie then-relevant once-Vice-Presidential candidate to the shooter. Like all those other media, the proposed connections the Times gave were entirely imagined: the shooter was a paranoid schizophrenic that had become obsessed with Giffords by August 2007, before Palin had been offered the Republican Vice Presidential candidacy, and before any of the proposed 'incitement', and there was never any evidence that the shooter had even seen any of Palin's supposed 'incitement'.

However, the Times slipped particularly aggressively: it revisited the claim years after it was obviously false in the piece America's Lethal Politics in 2017, arguing that the link to Palin's political incitement was extremely clear, unlike the then-current Congressional Baseball shooting. Not only would anyone remotely familiar with the case know that was false, claims in the piece America's Lethal Politics were in direct contradiction with the link used to support those claims, and/or with other claims in the same paper, or other sites under the Times umbrella. While these were corrected eventually in the most dismissive manner possible, the organization never actually apologized to Palin or made clear that the statements about Palin specifically were false: even the current piece just sputters off a correction that never mentions her name and a main piece that now merely points and winks when it says "... in that case no connection to the shooting was ever established".

In 2017, Palin brought a lawsuit for defamation. This Did Not Go Well. The district court first held that Palin would have to prove impossible claims and dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice. After an appeals court overturned that dismissal, New York State 'refined' its law so that defamation lawsuits became harder and more financially risky to bring; the trial court held this applied retroactively. The same district court then had an actual trial, where the same judge refused to allow a wide variety of relevant information in as evidence, required again that Palin prove a novel and impossible standard -- that the Times' editor not only knew the claim was false, but that it was defamatory -- and eventually dismissed the case while the jury were deliberating. Some number of the jurors received phone notifications of that dismissal while they were deliberating.

As a result, the appeals court has ordered Mrs. Palin a new trial.

It's... not clear how much this is gonna matter, though. Yes, Palin can demonstrate that the New York Times knew or should have known that the claims were false, and that being accused of inciting a assassin-turned-child-murderer is defamatory, while the defense is stuck with "owo, we fowgot". And yes, that's the traditional understanding of what it takes to defame even a public figure. But that's not what actually wins a court case, and when it comes to the things that do:

... while the voir dire proceeding in this case was atypically limited, it was not “so demonstrably brief” that it prevented counsel from “draw[ing] any conclusions about a potential juror[].” The district court questioned prospective jurors about what they and their partners did for a living and what county or borough they lived in. Although minimal to the point of being borderline insufficient, these questions provided at least some context for counsel to draw upon. While the additional voir dire questions that Palin proposed “might have been helpful to [her] in deciding how to exercise [her] peremptory challenges, we conclude that [their] absence did not render [the] trial ‘fundamentally unfair.’”...

The district court was initially misled on this point by defendants’ counsel, who insisted that “[t]he Daily Dish was a separate website,” such that Bennet’s statement in his deposition that he “consum[ed]” The Atlantic’s website would not support a conclusion that Bennet encountered any Daily Dish articles.

That is, all Palin must do is prove to twelve jurors the contents of a New York Times editors brain the better part of a decade ago, in a jurisdiction where the state has already retroactively changed statutes to make this trial harder, in front of a judge that has repeatedly made errors going on direction, while the defendant openly misleads the court, with the bare minimum opportunity to reduce bias on the part of jurors selected from part of the country heavily opposed to Palin. That trial -- maybe happening in mid-2025 -- in the exceptionally unlikely chance Palin and her legal team do win, will still do nearly bupkiss in actually making anyone whole or seriously discouraging the Times from making shit up; given reporting on the earlier 'victory' for the Times, it probably won't even persuade anyone not already certain of it that the Times was making shit up.

There's a lot of fun comparisons, of better and worse validity, to other recent defamation lawsuits, but I think they're a bit of a distraction. I tell that story so I can tell this one:

Trump v. Hostages

The former president allegedly made the call on August 14, according to Axios, and repeated in Reuters, which cited two unnamed "U.S. sources who were briefed on the call."

This claim was reported again by PBS host Judy Woodruff on Tuesday, who said, "the reporting is that former President Trump is on the phone with the PM of Israel urging him not to cut a deal right now because it's believed that would help the Harris campaign."

Big, if true! There's long been rumors about Reagan delaying recuse of hostages from Iran or Nixon sinking Vietnam-era peace talks, although they tend to end up just shy of conspiracy theory only because Dem cranks don't count. Someone like Trump doing it, in the middle of a war with tens of thousands of casualties and over a hundred corpses hostages, some American? With people willing to give first-hand knowledge of it?

And then the other shoe drops:

Woodruff, during PBS’ Democratic national convention coverage on Monday, repeated a story she had read in Axios and Reuters that Trump had allegedly been encouraging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to put off peace talks until after the U.S. election in the belief that a deal could help Democrat Kamala Harris’ campaign.

But Woodruff said in a post on X on Wednesday that she had not seen later reporting that the story had been denied by the Trump campaign and Israel.

That post reads, in full:

I want to clarify my remarks on the PBS News special on Monday night about the ongoing cease fire talks in the Middle East. As I said, this was not based on my original reporting; I was referring to reports I had read, in Axios and Reuters, about former President Trump having spoken to the Israeli Prime Minister. In the live TV moment, I repeated the story because I hadn't seen later reporting that both sides denied it. This was a mistake and I apologize for it.

There's a bit of a missing note, here: the problem isn't just that the Trump or Netanhayhu offices denied it -- they would, after all -- it's that she made it up, herself. Neither the original Axios or Reuters articles even imply that Trump has encouraged Netanyahu or other Israeli politicians to delay any deals of any kind. Indeed the Axios story managed to say the exact opposite:

"One source said Trump's call was intended to encourage Netanyahu to take the deal, but stressed he didn't know if this is indeed what the former president told Netanyahu."

Woodruff will, of course, suffer absolutely zero for making up a fat fib in the middle of a major media discussion on national news. But don't worry, we have really strong true-finding tools, right? Oh, no, they just need people to prove a negative or 'unproven' is all we get. Hope that won't be a problem!

Attempted Assassins v. FBI

"Extensive analysis of the subject’s online search history as well as his specific online activity has provided us valuable insight into his mindset, but not a definitive motive,” Kevin Rojek, the head of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office, told reporters Wednesday. So far, he added, the FBI sees “no definitive ideology … either left-leaning or right-leaning” associated with the shooter...

Which is kinda fascinating, given that the FBI sent out a wide variety of Emergency Disclosure Requests for accounts supposedly tied to the shooter, including a Gab account tied to the man was filled with progressive-aligned trolling, which the FBI lumped into the "the general absence of other information to date from social media". It'd be fascinating to know if that means that the FBI believes this Gab account wasn't the shooter's at all, or if anyone else with other accounts tied to him got EDR'd.

Too bad! And we're not gonna find out.

The FBI also released some photos of the shooter's gear; those that remember early testimony by the FBI about a 'collapsible' stock making it hard to notice while the shooter was walking on the ground can now know (again) that FBI Directory Wray is a moron.

Trump v. Arlington National Cemetery

On Monday, Donald Trump visited the Arlington National Cemetery with a number of 'Gold Star' families, close relatives of those who died in service to the United States military, in this case the Abbey Gate bombing during the Afghanistan withdrawal. To borrow from Douglas Adams, this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

The US Army issued a stark rebuke of former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign over the incident on Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, saying in a statement on Thursday that participants in the ceremony “were made aware of federal laws” regarding political activity at the cemetery, and “abruptly pushed aside” an employee of the cemetery.

“Participants in the August 26th ceremony and the subsequent Section 60 visit were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds. An ANC employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside,” the Army spokesperson said in the statement on Thursday. Section 60 is an area in the cemetery largely reserved for the graves of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the ANC employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked. ANC is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation’s fallen deserve,” the statement said.

The Army spokesperson said while the incident was reported to the police department at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, the employee in question “decided not to press charges” so the Army “considers this matter closed.”

I'm not a particular fan of using gravestones as political props, in a lot of the same ways that I'm not a huge fan of parents dressing their kids up as political props, and because Trump, this manages to be DARE-level incompetence at doing it, too. On the other hand, I'm also stuck in this world, where politicians taking media from military cemeteries for political ads has both long been tolerated and long been ugly and partisan, without it becoming a national news story or involving physical confrontations that get reported to police. Trying to track down the actual authority or past enforcement for the rule ends up finding 'something something Hatch act', which is just shy of Logan Act for a red flag for incoming inconsistent application.

Now, I don't particularly trust DailyCaller reporting.

But it'd be real nice to have a way to tell. Too bad!

Now, I don't particularly trust DailyCaller reporting.

This reply to your comment made me curious because I had not read anything about the trans Nashville shooter in a while. I encountered several articles about the manifesto "leaks" but I couldn't actually find anything specific until I ended up here. "One America News" does not inspire confidence! But even after law enforcement confirmed the authenticity of the leaks, the mainstream media declined to actually publish the confirmed-true information in the leaks.

So it seems increasingly to be the case that sites like DailyCaller and OAN are more trustworthy than the New York Times, CNN, etc. Not that OAN isn't obviously slanted reporting--it is!--but there are clearly a huge number of meaningful facts that the mainstream corporate press simply refuses to report on, for transparently ideological reasons.

I can't seem to think of any reaction to this development, and specifically to your post, beyond simple despair. The machinery of the civilization in which I live has been, broadly speaking, pretty good to me. I have a reasonably comfortable life, an interesting job, ample leisure. But that same machinery seems to have turned actively hostile toward the possibility that my children or grandchildren should be afforded similar opportunities--in particular, the opportunity to live in a pluralistic society. Ideological orthodoxy is all the rage, and I increasingly cannot shake the concern that Something Is Breaking.

There ought to be a name for this effect where the supposedly trustworthy institutions lie so obviously and so much that you end up having to listen to Alex Jones tier lunacy to get any real information on some topic.

Especially since it's so common these days.

I believe those institutions call it "misinformation", but there has to be a term for it that isn't loaded in favor of either total epistemic collapse or total submission to propaganda.

I thought we were calling it 'the "Alex Jones was right" jar'.

Heh, I guess that one works.

If you haven't already read it, this excellent article about "stochastic terrorism" uses the charges of incitement levelled against Palin as a jumping-off point to discuss how inconsistently the concept is applied (https://drrollergator.substack.com/p/stochastic-terrorism-a-game-of-rhetorical). After the Trump assassination attempt it's arguably even more relevant now than when it was first published.

Is this the correct link? https://drrollergator.substack.com/p/stochastic-terrorism-a-game-of-rhetorical

Yes thank you, I don't know why Substack links haven't been copying across properly lately. Updated.

Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds. An ANC employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside,”

Obviously the Army can regulate uniformed soldiers, but it does not seem that the statute (or any ensuing reg) can specifically single out political or campaign-related speech, since that would be a content-based restriction. Congress could (directly or through authorizing regulation) prohibit all speeches within the cemetery, since that would be a neutral time-place-manner restriction.

Of course the left "he broke the law" folks are just banging that drum without thinking through whether the law is even plausibly constitutional.

My take would probably be to ban all these shenanigans without distinction. For one, that's in line with our constitutional tradition of not distinguishing between speech on different topics, but also because none of that shit belongs in a cemetery for fallen soldiers.

On one hand, I appreciate the decorum of not politicizing national cemeteries. On the other, I appreciate your Constitutional argument, and it seems like we live in a time in which everything ("the personal," as the kids say) is political. Most wouldn't object to the President attending a ceremony at Arlington and giving a speech (indeed, this seems like a pretty regular occurrence), and the Right seems to have dug up campaign ads he's used in the past featuring national cemeteries. If we're not careful, the rule will quickly spiral in practice into "the President's political opponents are not allowed to attend ceremonies on public grounds," which feels very autocratic.

In practice, I don't really come off liking either side here: Trump seems to be pulling a political stunt on hallowed ground. On the other, Biden seems unbothered to attend to the families of soldiers sent to their deaths on his orders three years ago. I haven't read Trump's remarks, so it's possible the only direct politicizing was implicitly by Biden's absence, although from what I know of the man that seems unlikely.

Honestly, I am, for once, appreciating that other countries like the UK have a (mostly) non-political head of state (The Queen) that can attend to such things.

I guess prior to recent decades, everyone occupying or campaigning for that office had the sense not to pull a political stunt on hallowed ground. That practice didn't spiral out of control.

the UK have a (mostly) non-political head of state (The Queen) that can attend to such things.

Boy, do I have bad news for you.

I chose The Queen as the example because I wasn't really sure if Charles has acquired the same "beloved, apolitical voice of patriotic respect" that she had yet. But I'd be curious to hear from any of his subjects that have an opinion on that.

Charles III was somewhat politically active as the King-in-waiting (Prince of Wales).

He was never as political as Prince Harry, and never expressed opinions on live-wire issues like race, socialism, immigration etc. But he had a bunch of pro organic farming initiatives and youth schemes, plus low-key campaigning against GM crops. He also once personally intervened to stop the Saudis building a godawful modern monstrosity in London, persuading them to go for something more classical.

In general, King Charles was more political as a prince precisely because he knew he would have to be impartial once he became king. Now that he is King, he’s been much more careful. He’s never going to be Elizabeth II because he doesn’t have 50 years of rule going for him, but I’d say he’s broadly respected.

The problem has been more from PMs abusing him - Rishi Sunak signed a controversial Brexit-related deal practically on his doorstep before then getting Charles to have tea with the relevant signatories, in order to imply the deal had Royal assent and give it more power.

For those of you who have never been, the Arlington Cemetary folks and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier guards in particular are extremists. Just utter head cases. It's an incredibly hard position to get, requiring utter fanaticism about the army, yet simultaneously is so theatrical and useless, pseudo-monastic.

Since 1948, the tomb guards, a special platoon within the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), work on a team rotation of 24 hours on, 24 hours off, for five days, taking the following four days off. A guard takes an average of six hours to prepare his uniform—heavy wool, regardless of the time of year—for the next day's work. In addition to preparing the uniform, guards also conduct physical training, tomb guard training, participate in field exercises, cut their hair before the next workday, and at times are involved in regimental functions as well. Tomb guards are required to memorize 35 pages of information about Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, including the locations of nearly 300 graves and who is buried in each one.

I remember thinking as a scout, when the whole routine was explained to us, that if I loved the army that much I would really want to be in Afghanistan wouldn't I*?

So this is probably a case of poor advance work that has plagued the Trump campaign all through 2024, running directly into people whose entire day consists of enforcing petty and absurd regulations as sacred traditions. They take this kind of thing extremely seriously, Trump takes nothing seriously, it's tossing a Mentos into a coke bottle.

Why Democrats are even bothering this time is totally insane to me. Lucy and the football vibes. I hate this game we all play where we pretend that someone, somewhere would be offended by this, even though I personally don't really care. But somebody is super mad! It never works out.

*My dad, when discussing this, mentioned a friend of his from college who joined the marines and was posted as a guard at the white house. He kept trying to get sent to Vietnam, and his requests kept getting denied because, supposedly, his CO told him: "You're tall, you're white, you're good looking, you show up, you don't do drugs. I can send anybody to Vietnam, but I can't replace you here."

The reports seem to indicate the dispute was between the Trump staff and a wagie at the facility, not a ceremonial guard. The person is always referred to a "staff," "employee," or "worker" in all of the fake news reports.

Any of the "Army officials" are of course not from the fanatical guard either, but political operatives in the media department.

Not personally being guardsmen does not preclude them from fanaticism about the pomerium of the tomb of the unknown soldier.

pomerium

Huh. I learned a word today.

Civilian staff at Arlington are also nuts, just a little less nuts than the guards.

Since 1948, the tomb guards, a special platoon within the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), work on a team rotation of 24 hours on, 24 hours off, for five days, taking the following four days off. A guard takes an average of six hours to prepare his uniform—heavy wool, regardless of the time of year—for the next day's work. In addition to preparing the uniform, guards also conduct physical training, tomb guard training, participate in field exercises, cut their hair before the next workday, and at times are involved in regimental functions as well. Tomb guards are required to memorize 35 pages of information about Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, including the locations of nearly 300 graves and who is buried in each one.

When I was in Arlington many years back, I couldn't understand what the big deal was about the tomb of the unknown soldier, until I went. Pictures and video don't do it justice. There is an aura there. The way everyone is dead silent. The framing. The location. You have to walk through a quarter mile of perfectly-maintained memorial graves to get there.

Same experience, I went twice for random reasons as a kid and the reverence of the place was palpable. A mix of reverence, seriousness, glory, order, stability… it’s actually one of the more interesting places to go because these moods are rare in America. If I lived nearby I would through it frequently.

Re the above —

yet simultaneously is so theatrical and useless, pseudo-monastic”

The costly, theatrical, monastic signal is extremely useful for inculcating values. If cathedrals were made of painted cardboard they wouldn’t be so interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardboard_Cathedral

I tend to agree. One can see the clash of sensibilities in a Trump campaign visit from miles away.

It does make you wonder what kind of person joins the army to stand in front of a big rock all day. Then again that's apparently not too far off from what some of the regular grunts do.

Low morale, or what soldiers called a sense of purposelessness, was palpable. “Sometimes we sat around and joked all day about killing ourselves,” says a platoonmate of Valley’s who recently left the Army. “I mean, we were all depressed. Everyone in the Army is depressed.”. Fun times all around in the post-afghanistan military.

Why Democrats are even bothering this time is totally insane to me. Lucy and the football vibes.

Seems like a pretty expected response to the attacks on Walz for saying he carried weapons in war. Goose, gander, and we all get stupider.

They've tried this over and over and it's never worked. Trump says the dead soldiers are suckers, Trump says the presidential medal of freedom he gives donors is better than the MoH because you don't have to get shot, Trump says McCain was a loser because he got captured. Liberals get on their high horse, nobody is persuaded of anything.

re: the palin thing i think everyone should have free reign to defame politicians. if you are a politician then this is just a negative you need to suck up. i think the alternative that courts are adjudicating the line between free speech and defamation around politicians is much worse. i strongly suspect courts are just going to push the thumb on the scale to protect 'good' politicians and harm 'bad' politicians.

I don't disagree that we should look at how things would be applied at the time. And we shouldn't abandon being tactical in that case. So of course, I don't suggest giving more power to people who would abuse it. And it is true that the current elites anywhere, do abuse it in the direction you say. In general the freedom to say unpopular truths must include some possibility of getting things wrong.

But in an ideal sense, we would be better off if journalism and the media took defamation seriously, not in their two tier hypocritical pretense way that it would be used to enforce defamation they like, and silence accurate and exaggerations they dislike. A media that adhered to actual principles in a manner that they told the truth 100% is an impossibility, but something better than today is a possibility. And it would require changing the kind of people running the media and enforcing to them standards.

But sure part of this, can be more freedom of speech and less shutting them down, or in fact arresting, those promoting a different narrative outside of the bubble of the media that promote the same narrative, and often controlled by the same people.

That'd be a fun norm, but :

  • It'd be nice to have some other actual way to find truth from trustworthy sources, unless you want the inevitable LBJisms to be indistinguishable from actual pigfuckers. And we don't have such sources.
  • There demonstrably already are exceptions. At minimum, we have a Kari Lake exclusion, and more seriously a large portion of plausible threats that are so deadly not even complete morons risk them.
  • Palin was not a politician in 2017: she resigned from the Alaskan governorship in 2009, and would not join another political race until 2022 (which she lost).

I'd go one step further and say that everyone should be free to defame, simpliciter. I should be free to spread vicious rumors about my neighbors without fear of legal consequences. (The only things that could hold me back are social and/or moral concerns).

As a free speech absolutist, I'd be even in favor of allowing people to issue true threats against each other without fear of legal consequences, as long as they don't make good on those threats.

We already have a problem with smart, sane people staying the hell away from politics -- this would make it worse.

You are trying to remake politics in the image of academia. That won't work. Politics is a much more important and foundational human institution than academia. What is needed here are hustlers and grifters, the Saul Goodman types, not scientists or engineers.

I'm not trying to do anything of the kind, I'm well aware of issues with academia.

I have some experience with local politics and I'm telling you one of the biggest challenges is getting good people to run. Anyone who is remotely sane or competent wants nothing to do with politics.

Academia has too much fraudsters it self. What we need is less people like that anywhere, especially in important fields while still be wise to their tricks. So maybe a few reformed ones to catch the unreformed ones.

I'm also stuck in this world, where politicians taking media from military cemeteries for political ads has both long been tolerated

The link you provide shows an image from a video, and when you watch the video it has in a tiny font a disclaimer that the use of DoD images does not inply any endorsement.

From what I understand, Bthe law prohibits use of private photogs for campaign activities on the cemetary grounds.

So it seems that there is a minute, and trivial difference.

I wonder why Trump didn't just use the DoD footage from all the times he visited Arlington as president?

EDIT: if you'd like a more recent and undisclaimered example, this was from 2021.

From what I understand, the law prohibits use of private photogs for campaign activities on the cemetary grounds.

Which would be fascinating, given the official Army response was not that the photographers were specifically the problem, but that regulations "clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds". And no one at the Army is pointing to the specific rule either way directly.

Some other groups have pointed to CFR 32-553.32, but that doesn't care at all about photographers, and depends on a ludicrously vague definition of 'partisan political activity' (here, largely devolving into "but Trump"), and the regulation allows nothing more than the ANC's Executive Director to ban someone, which can't be delegated. Worse, the Trump campaign claims to have gotten explicit permission from Arlington beforehand, albeit. The closest I can find for an actual statutory, rather than regulatory, prohibition is one on demonstrations separate from ceremonies, which doesn't apply here. Others point to the Hatch Act, but that applies more to use of video and imagery taken during a political career -- the Hatch Act excludes the President and VP, but doesn't allow everyone working under their orders a Get Out of Hatch Jail Free Card.

((Uh, overlooking the bit where the Hatch Act is also basically unenforced.))

I wonder why Trump didn't just use the DoD footage from all the times he visited Arlington as president?

No small part of the point of this particular circus is to highlight the Abbey Gate families, and implicitly that the Biden-Harris administration has generally not met with or supported them. Since Abbey Gate happened in August 2021, that would be after Trump left the Presidency.

“No using cemetery grounds for political campaign purposes” doesn’t seem like “a ludicrously vague definition of 'partisan political activity'” to me.

Also, are there prior instances of political campaigning in that same spot that were ignored? If not, is it not reasonable for Arlington cemetery staff to enforce cemetery-specific norms and rules regardless of what laws have been explicitly passed?

The 2021 example linked above was specifically Biden in the same section of Arlington. And I can give more.

Ah I missed that edit. Thanks, that is exactly what I was looking for.

Although I don’t see how your latest link in this comment is an example of Democrat hypocrisy.

But the letters of the law and regulations don't matter. They can always fall back to "norms", and if you point to Democrats doing the same thing, they can always find or fabricate a distinguisher. What matters is control of the press, which the Democrats have, so this is spun as "Trump campaign violates rules by using Arlington National Cemetery for a photo-op and brutalizes totally innocent non-partisan employee who tries to stop them". And that's the pravda.

I am not able to find the source I saw last night saying that the private photog was an issue in the law, but for what it's worth Trump's campaign made it a point that their photog was allowed in.

"The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony," Cheung said in the statement.

I doubt very much this issue actually gathers any steam. But if it'd did, I'm guessing a lot of the juice would be around the permission Trump's campaign has claimed to have gotten.

Palin v. The New York Times

Is this basically all that bullshit about the crosshairs map? That's all I can recall.

Among the things with your summary about Palin v. The New York Times that strike me the most, is how is this the same state where Trump got sued for defamation when a woman accused him of raping her, and he said he didn't do it? I'm sure some lawyer will come in here and explain in detail the twist and turns of each trial, and how specific statutes effected one or the other. But I'm so completely past that. If there is any justification in law for these massively disparate outcomes, that law is illegitimate.

how is this the same state where Trump got sued for defamation when a woman accused him of raping her, and he said he didn't do it?

Don’t make me tap the sign

How about the trans school shooter's manifesto that can't be released because of copyright?

At this point I have to wonder what could possibly be written there, that they are so defensive about it. If Trump's shooting got effectively moved on from like nothing ever happened, so can this manifesto.

Full lyrics to multiple Linkin Park albums. Or whatever the kids listen to these days.

Given that it's actually the school that owns the copyright (apparently "sorry our daughter killed your family, here's the copyright to her writings" is a thing now...), my guess is that there's discussions of the school environment in her writings that the school believes would be damaging, even if the ground truth is actually anodyne.

Even very light discussion of "my school didn't affirm my gender identity and led me through Unfixable Trauma, they're horrible homophobes and transphobes" could very easily rile up the rainbow mafia against them. From what we've seen of her writings, and especially considering she hated these people enough to kill them in cold blood, my guess is she wasn't afraid to call them all sorts of evil names and accuse them of all kinds of wickedness. It would be even more damaging if we set aside my assumption of good faith on the part of my ingroup and assume these accusations were of genuinely terrible things that really happened.

I don't think this is an action by the woke mob, I think it's an action in defense against the woke mob. Given that the parents who transferred the rights to the school liked it enough to send their child to there, I expect that their action was in solidarity with them.

Given that it's actually the school that owns the copyright (apparently "sorry our daughter killed your family, here's the copyright to her writings" is a thing now...), my guess is that there's discussions of the school environment in her writings that the school believes would be damaging, even if the ground truth is actually anodyne.

Sure, but more importantly, what was in there that made "them" defensive enough to give the copyright to the school in the first place? That's the more relevant question.

I don't think it's anything we'd find surprising.

The narrative around its release would fall on political lines, the right would know she wanted dead kids, the online left would say with varying couching the kids deserved it, the establishment would focus at best on some random point about the essay while they continued the exact rhetoric they put out following the shooting: "Psycho murders multiple children, trans most affected." Especially if there are likely superficially true but substantively false allegations about abuse by the school.

I think if it were some astonishing new low in depravity we'd have read it, so we have read it, in the gestalt. It could be a rare bit of wise realism. Nothing will be gained from litigating her words, let the dead rest.

Everything we've seen about the shooter screams 'batshit crazy'. There's probably some mix of true and hallucinated misdeeds. Probably the true ones are relatively small potatoes but so easy to confirm that it makes the hallucinated ones look true.

Or at least that would be my assumption.

It was a good strategic move. If the parents of the killer had tried to keep them out of the press, they would have failed.

Regardless of what's in them, I would imagine the victim families would prefer it not go out and become the subject of more discussion. Regardless of their politics.

Are the ideological motivations of spree killers politically relevant, or are they irrelevant?

If they're irrelevant, then how do we stop Blue Tribe from pretending otherwise when they find it convenient to do so?

If they're relevant, then how do we stop Blue Tribe from pretending otherwise when they find it convenient to do so?

The last several years have seen multiple spree killings and attempted spree killings directly motivated by Blue Tribe ideology. The Dallas police shooting, the congressional baseball shooting, and this case here are three examples. None of them have actually been taken seriously as ideologically-motivated killings by the culture generally; I see no indication that people actually remember that they happened. By contrast, numerous spree killings have been attributed to Red Tribe ideology, even when that attribution was preposterous, as in the case of the Giffords shooting.

It seems to me that this is a serious, chronic problem. I see no indication that anyone has any ideas for how to solve it within our existing system. I see no indication that our current system even sees it as a problem,m as opposed to a positive feature.

This is an example of why I am not in favor of maintaining the present system.

Are the ideological motivations of spree killers politically relevant, or are they irrelevant?

Irrelevant. Certainly irrelevant in the sense that as little attention should be paid to them as possible. We shouldn't know the names or manifestos of people who murder children. It encourages child murder.

I hold that belief personally, but even if I didn't: I'd still defer to the actual parents of the actual Christian school kids murdered and say that if they want to keep the manifesto out of the press to protect their own sanity, then that deference seems fitting and proper. If they said that they wanted it out there, they could post it themselves on a website and there ain't shit the Blue Tribe can do about it. The motivating force behind this isn't some nebulous cabal of NYT editorial staff, it's the actual parents of the actual children.

Either way, I don't really think this is a serious, chronic problem. Paranoid schizo blue tribers tell me that black and trans people are murdered in the streets by racists, paranoid schizo red tribers tell me that white kids are regularly beaten to death in inner city school districts by bloodthirsty gangs of migrants. The issue such as it is seems to be immune to media bias, red tribers are just as likely to imagine political violence as blue tribers. Whose manifesto gets the most airtime seems less related to media bias than to how effectively they broadcast that manifesto prior to the shooting, if the trans whatever had livestreamed the shootings then it would be out there regardless of copyright.

If anything, I more associate talking about motivations with Red Tribe speakers post-shooting, the Blue Tribe mainstream just wants to keep the focus on guns guns guns. Who cares why he did it when it offers me an opportunity to take away someone's constitutional rights?

There is definetly a chronic problem of anti white and really anti all the groups progressive dislike.

Right wingers shining a light on genuine problems suffer from actual censorship. There isn't an equivalence.

Conversely, liberals promoting completely false pictures about black epidemic of being falsely killed by polcie believe in false facts.

Lets just say for any right wing exaggeration believed or suppressed, much more truth is suppressed by censorship, or dishonestly pretending it is BS, or extremism. While conversely, progressive false narratives are dominant.

We would definitely benefit by starting to understand real problems and stop hiding facts. IIRC there were leaks about the trans shooter who did it motivated by the pervasive antiwhite, antichristian, narrative.

The people who censor rightists talking about genuine problems like say black crime, or any other of the taboo topics, are contributing to creating a distorted narrative that leads to a far left extreme result. What we need is to remove from positions of power people who suppress such issue, and promote false narratives, over those who would promote the truth.

I think the less the general public knows about spree shooter’s manifestos the better. There’s at least some evidence that spree shooting can be contagious much like suicides and so the less sensational the reports on any given shooting, the less likely the shooting is to inspire copycats. I don’t think it changes if the motives are political.

I do think there’s a place for experts to study the motivations of spree shooters. I want cops and schools aware of the commonalities between the events, likely motivations, and best practices for preventing them or mitigating the damage during those kinds of events l.

This seems like a reasonable position as far as it goes. How do we address the problem of people blaming spree killings on their political opponents? Likewise, how do we solve the problem of people actively encouraging spree killings?

Honestly, I would hope and expect that the parties themselves would deal with those who are clearly and obviously calling for violence, and I would expect them to defend their own members from false accusations. I’m not sure, outside of the public refusing to support people and groups calling for violence, there’s much the general public can actually do.

As it stands, the bar for what constitutes “calling for political violence” seems pretty low. If you use a flamethrower on empty bio es labeled with the agenda of the other party, that’s now political violence. Even though no humans are in the images. With such a broad definition, almost any ad that gets attention could be accused of violence in some way. To me, if we’re going to stop “encouraging spree killings”, I think it should be done in cases where the call is real and unambiguous. You can’t curtail free speech by calling every symbolic reference to a gun violence.

Could implicate some LGBTQ NGO that receives government funding in providing aid and/or radicalizing them.

The copyright is owned by the school. My guess is it spits a mix of true and false accusations against the school and/or denomination which are impossible to disentangle.

Yeah, that thread by Trace was a good breakdown.

You know, I’d been oddly curious about the Crooks rifle. Canted sights! I’m surprised he didn’t have a tac light.

At least now we know that the reporting of iron sights was premature.

Did you get the right link for “dressing up their kids as political props?” It’s currently a tweet about “Let’s Go Brandon” as political speech.

For those interested, we now have images and documentation on the other attempted assassin's rifle. It's... uh, a thing.

At least now we know that the reporting of iron sights was premature.

It is always interesting how people insane enough to do things like this are also terrible at selecting their tools (which is fortunate).

Had he actually bothered to buy some magnification things would almost certainly be quite different now; even a cheap, modern fixed 3x-5x is sufficiently magical that it can turn all misses into all hits in a course of fire at similar distance and targets about that size.

I'm not a gun expert, but is there a risk that if the scoped got knocked in transport he'd need to re-zero it?

No. This isn’t a thing hunters worry about and they have far tougher terrain to climb over.

Very unlikely, especially unlikely it'd be noticeable given the distance. Even shitty chinesium scopes hold zero decently these days. Whatever he'd be able to get off the shelf for his budget DPMS would work just fine after that light climbing.

Possible but unlikely.

Think “swappable drill bit.” Easy enough to unscrew in the proper direction, but not prone to misalignment. Metal tightly gripping metal.

not really, no. There's a level of force at which you might lose zero, but my guess would be that you'd be equally likely to smash the glass or damage the rifle. Normal handling won't do it.

The plaintiffs in that case were a pair of middle schoolers and their parents. While the kids were old enough to ditch the sweatshirts and seemed like they were probably wanting to play along, it was still near-certainly the parents providing the sweatshirts and idea.

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