PS: I'm embarrassed to say it, but I'd forgotten about Amendment XIV when I looked at the Constitution for this, Alarmist.

" if you count all inhabitants, non-citizens, not being Free Persons, only count at 3/5ths." One could try that out and never hear the end of "Three fifths! Three fifths!" for the end of time, haha. Also, as Mr. Smith say, who are these "free persons" of which you speak, nowadays?

"... what several states are doing to juice their representation is the other side of the coin of trying to disenfranchise certain of their citizens." True, so does Amendment XIV, S-2 work backwards? That wouldn't be good.

I guess "Why should they get full credit for persons not qualified as Electors?" should be "not qualified to VOTE for electors." The writers back then still understood the electoral system, as slightly strange as the elector business is, so they felt the need to write it in terms of "the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors" plus directly voting for candidates for other offices.

I suppose a SCROTUS decision would be in order, while we have a generally Conservative court, i.e. before something happens to Clarence Thomas, with no autopsy involved. Maybe Trump is waiting for that Sotomayor (with Type I diabetes) quit.

The Constitution simply isn't clear, as the idea of immigration didn't make so much sense yet - the people were settlers rather than immigrants. Plenty of States were going to be formed from populations that were not all born in the colonies. It's too bad that Amendment XIV didn't clear it up 3/4 of a century later. It's also got the oft-and-highly misinterpreted section 1 on citizenship.

As I've written, 5 of the 17 Amendments after the B.O.R. got into the States's business on voting: This one, 14, then 15, 19, 23, and 26.

PS

First of all, Art 1 Sec 2 says “three fifths of all other persons” and does not explicitly mention slaves. A black-letter reading of that would suggest that if you count all inhabitants, non-citizens, not being Free Persons, only count at 3/5ths.

Juxtapose that with the section two of the 14th Amendement:

“Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.”

Do we count all persons, but scale back representation in proportion for those not eligible to vote?

It’s murky, but what several states are doing to juice their representation is the other side of the coin of trying to disenfranchise certain of their citizens. Why should they get full credit for persons not qualified as Electors? One could hang on the not so obvious “or in any way abridged” as triggering the limitation of apportionment.

BTW, s2 of the 14A would supersede s2 of Article 2.

🕉

PS: "Also, Lame Cherry is back. The site had gone black for a few days." I just looked at this one. It doesn't display very well in this old browser and OS, so I'll check it out elsewhere. Thanks.

Thanks for the links, Adam. I've seen some of that before - I'll check out that last video in a bit.

PS: OK, yes, Tarheel and Mr. Hail, Vickram and Kash are 2 good examples of "based brown guys". I don't think I trust either of them to be in it for the country, but then I hadn't even heard of Kash Patel until he was picked by Trump for the FBI. (I just have not followed all those details.)

There are plenty of MAGA people who will grasp at any straw in desperate hope that these people will solve all our problems and defeat the Deep State.

I have been pretty optimistic about Trump-47, because it HAS been so much different from Trump-45. He's the same Reality-TV showman, no doubt, but his Blompfkrieg, I've called it, has rolled over the ctrl-left in some battles. I am too tired tonight, but I want to write about the actual border wall. Some things are really happening. Deportations under any previous administration since I've been alive didn't mean a hill of beans when there was no serious border control.

Anyway, I agree completely that DeSantis would have gotten a lot done without the bragging and BSing about it.

PS: Good morning, everyone!

https://blinkee.com/sample-page/page/1/?s=trump%20gold%20coin

https://blinkee.com/product/2024-liberty-donald-trump-gold-plated-tribute-coin/

https://dailyboulder.com/prosecute-and-deport-him-vivek-ramaswamy-accused-of-scamming-investors-in-2-billion-pump-and-dump-fraud/

https://www.newsweek.com/vivek-ramaswamy-fraud-always-has-been-opinion-1823853

Mr. Hail asked,

𝑊ℎ𝑜 𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦-𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑚𝑎 𝐹𝑂𝑅?

I would suggest that the show is for the 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑚 𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑙𝑒-𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑣𝑒...

https://i.ibb.co/Q3nL5fNT/The-average-American-voter-reads-below-a-sixth-grade-level.jpg

𝐾𝑎𝑠ℎ 𝑃𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑊ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑔𝑖𝑟𝑙𝑓𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑑...
https://xcancel.com/AlexisWilkins/status/1838631104510648721

Are Armenians White?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rA3ps4wPPU

Happy Monday! ☮️

PS I certainly don't disagree with Mr. Hail in re to Kash Patel.
Also, Lame Cherry is back. The site had gone black for a few days.

PS

(Another on the Based Brown Guy archetypal characters we see regularly in the news is "Kash Patel," who made a career as a pro-Trump demagogue in recent years and then out of nowhere was appointed head of the FBI; side-note: he has a White girlfriend, so maybe his and JD Vance's children can play and plot a post-White 'Based' Future for North America.)

___________

Trump: "NO MORE D.E.I.! Oh, and meet my new FBI director!"

https://stonetoss.com/comic/first-impressions/

PS

Remember also:

The Census 2020 was run under the first Trump presidency.

Trump's m.o., as we have seen it so often over the past decade, is this: Outrage, then signalling that a conspiracy against White America exists (which is true), that it's all the fault of others and not him, and that he has these great series of barstool-ideas he's just come up with to solve them.

This strategy succeeds in whipping up enthusiasm, in part by polarizing the situation by inducing the media, commentators, and regular people to over-react.

(I have recently been seeing Youtube ads for a "Trump Commemorative Gold Coin," the entire pitch for which is "The liberals are melting down over this, just look at their angry reaction videos about this new Trump Gold Coin collectors item; the 'libs' are angry so you know you've got to get this Trump Gpld Coin.")

But then a strange thing happens, given all the froth: little-to-nothing ever comes of anything. Enthusiastic Trump-support glides along because, as Trump supposedly said in 2024, "Where the hell else are they going to go?" Plus there are a lot of warm bodies in the middle-lower stretches of the bell curve that are convinced by the Trump Commemorative Gold Coin-like pitches. And on the right side of the bell curve, there has been all too weak leadership for decades.

Trump gets away with lies and exaggerations, and often-successful crude self-promotionalism, by never giving the full story. He gets away with never bothering to follow through with important things through the same or similar tactics, and through how-biz-like perception-management and agenda-setting.

The lie that there are mass deportations going on. It has been awkwardly pointed out to BE a lie by the Left, on many occasions now. They point it out because of the lie; not because they WANT deportations as such.

According to ICE figures, there were more deportations on a monthly basis under Obama than Trump-II so far; and similar numbers under Biden. Despite all the fanfare and outrage, there's not much going on except more Trump-style use of cameras and media narrative-setting.

They're on track even to deport 5-10% the stock of illegals in the US, whereas the mandate was to deport or encourage voluntary departure of all of them and more. The Trump people's claim they are doing mass-deportations is just as much a lie as so many of these other things.

At what point past the 7-month mark (of 48 months of the term), are they actually going to start with mass-deportations?

Actions and not words are more valuable.

PS

CONTRAST ---- A President DeSantis would've simply gotten Census reforms done, quietly, without Trump-style self-promotion.

PS

Vivek R is the quintessential political con-artist. He fulfills the Based Brown Guy archetype in the flesh, which in great part means people's reactions to him fulfill it.

Only around 2016-17 were terms "Based Brown Guy" and "Based Black Guy" coined. Vivek emerges in the early 2020s, fulfilling the archetype. There are a surprisingly many like him, associated with Trump-MAGA, which is disturbing given what these operators are "in it" for. We have our usual tendency of broad-spiritedness so always say it's towards a good end-goal that these petty self-promoters and demagogues are active.

The problem with the entire Trump-MAGA movement as it evolved by the early 2020s? It never got around to really strongly fulfilling its own goals. It became something attractive to people like Vivek (who had been involved in a 21st-century version of snake-oil fraud in the 2010s, pocketing lots of money along the way).

The regular pattern with Trump all along, since 2015, was that he'd float some good-sounding thing (or 'almost'-good-sounding thing) and get people cheering, but then never get around to implementing it, or get lazy, and then attack critics or create diversions and pointless dramas. In the meantime huge amounts of attention are generated, like the dust kicked up in some action scene in an old Western movie.

Who is all this political reality-show drama FOR? One answer seems to be it's SPECIFICALLY for attention-getting polarization, and since Trump has rarely sided with White core-Americans explicitly, and has often promoted how great he is for Blacks, LGBTQs, and Hispanics (and Israel), we have to conclude he is okay with a Based-Rainbow Coalition. A well-spoken, charismatic Black Trump-supporter who says "YEAH, Don't count illegals on the Census!" can simply walk into power and influence.

PS I'd proffer Vivek as an example of Mr. Hail's "based brown guy con-artist", but I disagree with Hail's overall assessment of Trump. I'm no Trumptard, but the choice was binary. We are much better off than we would have been with Hillary or Kamala. Heck, the supreme court appointments alone were worth the price of admission. Deliberately or not, Trump plays a kind of rope a dope/stream of consciousness/blitzkrieg game. It throws his (our) opponents off balance.The Dems are reeling now. Trump has moved the Overton window to the right on many issues.
Sorry to go OT here, but what happened to Lame Cherry? Poof, gone.

PS: From Mr. Hail: "Based Brown Guy con-artists who recite anti-Woke bullet-points are genuinely valued over actual civilization-building Whites who aren't on board."

I take it you mean your Candace Owenses and such here, or else who? Do you have some examples of wha tyou mean here?

As for the White ctrl-left, they've been destructive to the country since well before wokeness. (I agree with you that they do this often as useful idiots, not "coming to these ideas through their own means.) There was the 1960s of course, with so much damage being done by these people in half a decade. Then they want us to unilaterally disarm during the Cold War. Then, they've been inviting in your Somalians to Maine and Minnesota, etc., etc.

PS: That's a good point, Mr. Smith.

Regarding the taxes, I'd always thought that sales (or excise) taxes, if you're gonna have any at all, are the more fair and least intrusive.

PS

I don't think the apparently good things from Trump are worth much, partly because there is no follow-through. (Although it's even beyond that, the "no follow-through" problem is pretty huge and can't/shouldn't be simply bypassed.) We've seen it all too many times.

It's a show, a game. It's a kind of big joke (on "us"). It's not enough that "he says things no one else will say." We've seen this act for more than a decade running! It's his m.o. to "say things no one will say"-- he just doesn't get around to doing anything, and gets distracted and bored and moves on to some other "thing no one else will say." He is a self-promotionalist hype-man. He says things to get attention. He really is a lot like the loudmouth on a barstool arguing with other patrons and other barfly-frenemies.

Even if there WERE follow-through, the way I now see it the follow-thru would be towards some strange goal of a Trump personality-cult version of anti-Wokeness Without Purpose, a movement or anti-movement in which Based Brown Guy con-artists who recite anti-Woke bullet-points are genuinely valued over actual civilization-building Whites who aren't on board. It becomes a virtue-signaling game of its own kind, a new kind of Political Correctness, but without a clear purpose or vision.

There is value in Whites of the Left when they are balanced against non-Left and not transmogrified into the Woke variant of the post-modern Left. Wokeness is heavily under the influence of ideas, agitators, and manipulators who come from outside our intellectual tradition, so ordinary White believers in Wokeness are not coming to those ideas through their own means, generally. (The thing is, also, that these types of manipulators also play puppet-string games with the Right. We are best advised not to direct stones toward White dogooder-Leftist glass-houses.)

PS: Good afternoon, Mr. Moderator!

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑠...

Are there any of 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑠 left?
Some of the Amish? (Maybe?)

I'd argue that there have been close to zero 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑠 since Abraham Lincoln's aggression against the south flipped the master/slave relationship between the 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑠 and the corporation masquerading a "government" on its head. (When the 14th amendment made the people subject to the jurisdiction of congress.) Others might argue that the so called property tax (1st plank to the communist manifesto) and the income tax (2nd plank) were turning points in the enslavement of the American people.

Not sure exactly when it happened but I see very few 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑠 nowadays. (Anyway...)

Cheers! ☮️