PseudoSABR

Free speech cuts both ways. Person A: I hate Person Bs!! Person B: Shut up, Person As!! The right to assembly and cry shut up is no less than the right to speak and announce one's hate.

I think we all agree violence isn't the answer. Not all protesters are cut form the same cloth; I honestly don't know the level of violence committed by either side, but I do know what Trump is saying and doing as a result.

I abhor violence, and Trump has a right to speak, but the hatefulness of that speech is laying the groundwork for actual violence, whether its at the hands of protesters or his supporters.

Watching a Trump-rally/protest now in Kansas City, and Trump calls for protesters to be arrested, and to be branded with an arrest-mark, so it ruins their lives. One of these days he should pick up the Constitution and give it a once over.

Via Reuters

I hate party loyalty conversations.

Via CNN

NPR reports that Obama is in the process of interviewing several candidates.

I don't think Sanders can win the nomination, but I think it's good for the American conversation as long as he stays in the race.

Are you suggesting his electricity-allergy is not a symptom of schizophrenia (or something else which would cause hallucinations/such behavior)?

Where are you getting this information? (Link?) I've been following reasonably closely and haven't seen anything beyond the Nevada Governor's withdrawal.

For those of you who do want to keep up with the news and speculation, Scotusblog is a great resource.

Chuck isn't right though (his attitude enables what Jimmy becomes). People aren't this fixed, known quantity; they are dynamic. I'm reminded of the proverb that Manning evoked yesterday during his press conference: Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be and he will become what he should be. Chuck, for a person of such vulnerability, has no empathy, and no sense of responsibility for the welfare of others. Did anyone catch what Mike said to Tuco as the cops pulled up and Tuco punched him one last time; it sounded like something in Spanish, but I couldn't make it out. But the way Tuco smiled and than socked Mike made me think it had some significance.

There's been NO Reports that any one has 'turned down the nomination.' The Nevada Governor withdrew his name from consideration, but he was not offered the job; and my reading was that his name was politically floated to see if the Republicans would eat their own (which they did).

Thank god we spare alcoholics from jail (unless they get behind the wheel). They actually live the consequences every day, as all addicts do. I don't claim to know what the solution might be, but their sickness always runs deeper than their drug of choice.

Interesting tidbit from Carfardo today on the Murphy/Hicks trade.

He loses very badly. Republicans will feel vindicated by the suggestion that Trump was a liberal all along; and liberals won't buy his sudden shift. He'll lose his base and won't attract voters who normally sway left.

Wait, so he wasn't wearing sun glasses?

Cruz looks like he'll win Kansas by a substantial amount; he's also leading in Maine. Could Cruz really emerge as the unifier of the Republican establishment? Ha.

I think it's willful blindness more than stupidity. When conservatives spend, they just go back to the notion that if entitlements were cut, their spending would be within the budget. Conservatives romanticize the past and believe that they never had the chance to really enact a pure conservative policy, always being held back by liberals or regulation. ("We never gave free market a chance.") Cruz says some things crazier than Trump. Getting rid of the IRS? Carpet bombing ISIS? Refusing to compromise? "As president, I promise to VETO EVERYTHING!" - Cruz

I tried to sign up for MLB.tv and turned out they had already charged me. I didn't get the email saying that they considered me a subscriber from last year - maybe it went to the spam inbox. As far as I know there was no box to check or uncheck to avoid the re-subscribing. The automatic subscription thing is really problematic because it isn't just a month-to-month charge, nor is it a yearly service. It's not like I was using my MLB.tv subscription in January, thereby giving me fair notice that my subscription might continue. And given they just got hit with a class action which obligated them to change prices and services, I'm not sure how they could use last year's subscription as opting-in to this years changed services.

Here's an analogy that might make what the government wants Apple to do more objectionable. Say there's Person A who has information the government could use in pursuit of a criminal case against Person B - say that it's terrorist related. Person A has been subpoena, but won't cooperate (not because it would incriminate that Person A, just that Person A values his privacy), so Person A would rather be held in contempt of court and face those consequences than tell the government what he knows. Should government be able to force, say Pfizer, to develop a truth-serum to get Person A to talk? This kind of reasoning inevitably invites us to ask are there some things we are unwilling to do in order to get information that would help us prosecute the worse among us. For my part, compelling a third party who has no criminal culpability to act on the behalf the government is the same kind of no-limits reasoning that justifies the use of torture. As a civil society, we must accept there are some methods that we will not take in pursuit of justice/retribution, to do otherwise undermines the very fabric of what makes us part of a just society.

There's two separate issues. Both are worth pause. 1) There's the issue of privacy. 2) There's the issue of compelling a private party to act on behalf of the government. -- For my part, privacy is the rockbed of freedom--scrutiny by the government, big brother's eyes, restrict a person's actions. (Imagine living your life with your parents always watching you. Privacy is what we fought for as child, and its what we ought to continue to fight for adults; we feel most human when we believe we have privacy.) However, as soon as a person commits a crime, any privacy related to that crime can be overcome by warrants or much less. The FBI has a right to the information in the phone at least under current constitutional law. I think everyone can accept if the FBI has probable cause and there's relevant information on the phone, they have a right to the information. The disagreement is about compelling Apple to help break into the phone. The government is not asking Apple to simply testify or merely provide information that is related to the crime; the FBI is demanding that apple design software to subvert the very privacy they sold. Such an act doesn't just implicate the single phone, it creates a model to subvert the privacy provided by the telecom industry altogether. This matters in the same way as eminent domain matters -- people are cynical when the government starts telling people what to do with their property and their time. All that said, Apple would be smart to access the single cellphone in question without utilizing the grandiose techniques the FBI is requesting. The government doesn't just get to demand that Apple hand over it's technical prowess, but Apple need not even make that fight and just meet the demand on their terms citing to "gross deviation of terms of service" or whatever the heck.

Something you might be over looking is that Sanders, although he won't get the nomination, has demonstrated there's political viability to the left of where the Democrats have been. Democrats like Hillary can claim moderation as long as there continues to be a presence from the socialist/liberal wing of the party. The GOP won't really have any viability (in terms of numbers) without the Tea Party base, which is why they went down the fire-and-brimstone path in the first place to counter the changing demographics that favor the Democrats. The GOP, for however much it would like to claim moderation, still don't seem to advocate policies that favor the emerging class of people that will make up the middle--I just don't see them peeling off moderate Democrats, without a shift in policy. As much as we talk about how crazy Cruz and Trump are; Rubio's advocating much of the same, with growing the military, destroying our enemies (ground wars), being tough on immigration, repealing Obamacare, etc.

1) I can't imagine she'll get indicted by Obama's Dept. of Justice/Attorney General; I still don't know what crime she could even be charged with. 2) If she were to be indicted, or have some scandal that forces out; Biden could step in and become the Democrat nominee without serious need for vetting; and in the alternative, a third party like Bloomberg would almost assuredly go up against Trump without Clinton.