Persistent Science

Sadly, we're getting to see this in real time

Could not agree more.

Can we at least act as though this is a crisis and we want to stop it, even if we don't actually have the power to do so?

Why it seems like so many with power are so reluctant to act as though this is the crisis it is will be a mystery to me until my dying day. Psychological textbooks will written on this time, and the actions of many.

Of course, some have done far more, and if the Republic is saved, I think Marc Elias, Mark Zaid, and others who have fought the good fight legally will deserve an outsized portion of the credit. But they can't do it alone.

And sadly, it makes me wonder whether we will recover from this - not because we can't, but because those who shold know better and have the power to lead us out of darkness act as though it's all cool. It's just another Wednesday.

As a federal employee, I watched horrendously illegal, unConstitutional, corrupt, and damaging actions all of last year, and the "business as usual" response to it. I can't speak for all feds, but the lack of full-on political response was probably the most disheartening thing.

And in that lack of news, they conclude Trump's actions are, while not necessarily something they love, are not a crisis.

Impeachment, whether successful or not, rips that complacency apart.

Even CBS has to report on it.

The problem with NOT doing this is the vast majority of people do not spend time on BlueSky, or Truth Social, or anywhere they might hear a lot of what more politically aware people hear.

What they DO see is lack of news regarding opposition to Trump's actions, whatever those might be.

I have had enough. I was more than content to say impeachment was pointless because he will never be convicted by the Senate, and to just focus on impeachment of his lackeys.

But you know what? Impeach him anyway. Create an extensive written record of his high crimes and misdemeanors.

Didn't the South Koreans threaten to file impeachment charges against their would-be autocrat over and over until he left?

I recall something about "filing on a weekly basis".

"Never" is a long time for something like murder, which has no statute of limitations.

It is remarkable to me how much of our current law and governing structure revolves around assumptions of good faith on the part of most players.

I won't call it "lack of imagination", because a Trumpian-style populist is not a new phenomenon.

Regardless of origins, it is in need of correction.

I don't mind at all.

Funny. To most of the rest of us, I'd venture to say it's a sign of weakness and cowardice.

Ken - on the civil suit side, the victim is a private citizen, not public figure, and DHS and Noem don't seem to care much about the truth in the statements they're making. After the criminal proceedings, would defamation be a possibility?

A question on the civil side: Noem and the DHS social media team leaping out to smear the private citizen victim here, without knowing anything about her, seems like "reckless disregard for the truth" to me. But I'm not a lawyer. Thoughts?

The thing is, this isn't a political opponent. It's a private citizen gunned down in cold blood.

And if I may borrow a legal term, I think Noem and the DHS social media team are demonstrating a blatantly reckless disregard for the truth in her claims about the victim.

Kind of hoping there's a strategy here. His answers don't seem solid.

As I've said elsewhere, as a federal employee, I can assure anyone who asks (as can other feds) that we are most certainly accountable to Congress, the President, and the American People.

We are accountable to the law.

The idea the president has a popular mandate and accountability superior to Congress would have been baffling, infuriating, and heretical to the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution, and this is obvious to anybody even glancingly familiar with what any of them had to say about it.

Doesn't the U.S. have enough private sector corporations? Why set up the President to compete with them?

The government, by design, serves a different function. And it requires expertise to do it. Sauer is a fool.

As a federal employee, we sure as hell answer to Congress. We also answer to the White House, and to the American People.

We don't have to treat the President as an unaccountable private sector CEO to make that happen. It already does!

There can be no logical limiting principle when you set the President up as a king.

The Constitution provides broad limits on the President by making that office respect the law. Absent that, you really have nothing.

They are arguing for monarchy by ignoring the part of the Constitution that prevents it, full stop.

And some of those include accountability to Congress, some to the President, and some more directly to the American People.

It isn't necessary to treat the President like a monarch to have accountability for the civil service. In fact, that turns the civil service into the President's army.

There are lots of centers of power in the U.S. that do not answer to the President. Or is his argument that they should? Are we actually arguing for a kingship, here?

As for the civil service: it answers to the law, which specifies a host of ways for being accountable.

Cotton's one of those people with a whole lot of pent up karma waiting for him.

And no one will shed a single tear.

I've followed the back and forth on this for a year, including brilliant posts by bsky.app/profile/evan....

At first, I thought Wurman's position was at least one of intellectual honesty. I don't think we can still say that. And history won't be kind to his memory.

Who knows whether he cares.

Increasingly hard to tell in many cases whether "AI" stands for "Artificial Intelligence" or "Arrogant Ignorance".

To be clear: I'm not proposing letting anyone who knew (or should have known) better with respect to something like this off the hook. I'm just guessing that files on someone as well connected as Epstein will contain a lot of names for things other than criminal (or icky) activity.