MAGA? This Railroad Could Cripple America's Economy

"The upgrades now rolling across this route will do a whole lot more than safeguard millions of journeys and a huge slice of the US economy. They could enable America to finally run truly high speed trains. An ambition which has harboured since forever."

You may be someone who doesn't understand how much railraods contribute to a country's economy: even the US. The US has neglected this segment of the tranportation sector to its detriment. But it's also been neglecting an even worse segment of the transportation infrastructure: the one that services the automobile (which includes trucking).

Was Luigi Mangione's DNA collected illegally?

Rosalind Franklin By MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

 OK, this is called touch or trace DNA since it is found on an object. It doesn't need to be something that the cops gave him, since someone leaves this DNA pretty much everywhere. Yes, the Fourth Amendment analogue in Pennsylvania law has a broader guarantee of the right of privacy, but how intrusive was this would be my question? The police could just as well  get this DNA from the food he was eating at McDonald's as well as from something they gave him.

His defence could question the science, but that requires Mangione providing a sample of his DNA. Also, PA law says:

§ 58.2 . Authority of law enforcement officers.
The General Assembly has declared that nothing contained in the act shall limit or abrogate any existing authority of law enforcement officers to take, maintain, store and utilize DNA samples for law enforcement purposes. See section 506 of the act (35 P. S. § 7651.506). Failure to comply with this subchapter does not
form the basis for suppression of otherwise admissible evidence.

And Pennsylvania's law on DNA evidence (CHAPTER 58. DNA DETECTION OF SEXUAL AND VIOLENT OFFENDERS ACT) specifically mentions 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502 (relating to murder) as a reason for collecting DNA.

It sounds to me like this may be an attempt to diminish the size of the mountain of evidence which incriminates Mangione.

I mean, he was caught with the ID used to stay at the NYC hostel, the murder weapon, and his DNA links him to the crime scene. Of course, the defence wants to see this evidence suppressed. 

My opinion is that it will be allowed unless the defence can discredit the science, which would probably require Mangione to submit a DNA sample.

Italian High Speed Rail: The Trains that Killed an Airline

I finally made it to Italy, despite having spent a lot of time in the French Alps, which happen to be literally next door. In fact, we were staying in Chamonix and went to Courmayeur, that happens to be in the Vallée d'Aoste someplace I've been wanting to visit for a long time.

Anyway, I was rather surprised that Italy is a leader in High Speed Trains. These two videos give you some ideas why I support HSR. 

So much for Making America Great Again if Italy is kicking the US's but in this regard. These trains leave Acela in the dirt.

 

Luigi Mangione's defence fund.

I was listening to an interview with one of the people from his "defence fund". She said that they wanted him to have the best defence possible,

That got me thinking because his best defence right now is to hope for a really good deal from the prosecution. Which isn't a very likely possibility from the Feds.

For those who don't know it, the feds have a 93% conviction rating. Mostly because they don't try cases they can lose. Federal practise can best be described as "Let's make a deal". In other words, you had better have something juicy you can offer the AUSA handling the case. They might knock down the charges so that Mangione gets life (which is indeed life since there is no time off for good behvaiour in the Federal system).

We used to get people to become cooperative when I worked for the US Attorney in DC by threatening to make the charges federal, since that would mean a "solid" sentence anywhere in the US Prison system.

But that's an aside since I was thinking that maybe some of those big, anonymous donors were health care companies who want to see Mangione have the best defence possible, since he is probably going to go down hard.

And the reality is that he's not as good of a defendant as people want him to be. As I have pointed out, even his mother thinks he could have done it!

To be honest if all of his supporters would shut the fuck up and work on this issue, I'm pretty sure that there would be change. But what have they done about this?  Have they supported serious health care reform?

Obviously not.

What don't you understand about "domestic violence"?

In the previous post, "Misinterpreting the Constitution", I mention the phrase "domestic violence", which has a drastically different meaning today from what the founders understood it to mean. While this video is fairly elementary (as in it's like my A level english course), it does make a few important points about language.
 

The major takeaway is that language of even a fairly recent time might be different from how we interpret it. And it's definitely different from what it was 240 some years ago. It's wrong to impose modern ideas on a text that old: especially if it is detrimental to modern society.

This next video gets into how when Shakespeare (Shakespear?) is heard in the original pronounciation, it makes the meaning clearer. Likewise, when the constitution is understood as a whole, it makes the meaning of the Second Amendment much more obvious that it relates to the militia, which is an institution that has changed drastically from how it was original conceived by the founders.

Another takeaway is that what people think pirates should talk like is the West Country Accent. I have to wonder if Shakepeare's English is coloured by his being from Warwickshire, which isn't exactly West Country, but it would have been signifiantly far away from London when he was alive. After all, the World's End Pub in Chelsea WAS way outside of London when it was built. Even where I live now wasn't as built up as it is now in the mid-1700s!

And people who have seen "Lost in Austen" will remember her visit to Regency period Hammersmith. I used to live in an area that was once farmland in the mid-18th Century and is now considered centre city.  But that's a lot of a digression other than life has changed quite a bit from the late 18th Century and we can't place modern ideas on texts written over 200 years ago. That probably even applies to something written 25 years ago.

Anyway, see also:

• Baron, Dennis, Corpus Linguistics, Public Meaning, and the Second Amendment, Duke Center for Firearms Law: https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2021/07/corpus-linguistics-public-meaning-and-the-second-amendment
• ___.    Guns and Grammar: the Linguistics of the Second Amendment, https://debaron.web.illinois.edu/essays/guns.pdf
• Amicus Brief NY State Rifle and Pistol Association, https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-843/193271/20210921155937883_Amicus%20Brief.pdf

Misinterpreting the constitution.

 What would you say if I told you that there is a constitutional obligation of the States to address the topic of domestic violence?

It's in the Constitution at Article 4, Section 4:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Of course, domestic violence in the constitutional sense isn't a battered spouse. Instead the founders knew that danger might arise from internal forces, It is the constitutional obligation of the people in the federal government to use whatever power is necessary to deal effectively with both threats. So, it is the federal government to “protect” the people from “domestic violence” as well as from “invasion.”

Yet another tenet of the gun rights crowd shot down since the constitution is pretty clear that it deals with matters of the common defence and insure domestic tranquility. Can't have armed bands running around threatening the constitutional framework. After all, Shays' Rebellion was one of the reasons for the adoption of the Constitution. 

The war for independence was a pyrrhic victory in that it left the "United States" in disarray and heavily in debt.  The founders could have just said, "fuck it, we made a mistake, let's not bother with starting a new nation."  Each state would go its own way.

But the mythology is that it was the colonists themselves threw out the British at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. Nevermind that the War for Independence went on for eight more years with a lot of help from foreign powers, particularly the French. And with that myth came the belief in "god, guns, and guts" made the US great.

But the War for Independence wasn't really the start of the colonists' aspirations, the glorification of the War for Independence leaves out that it was a reaction to receiving the bill for the French and Indian War. A war that led to British Troops being stationed in the colonies. It was their presence which led to these complaints in the Declaration of Independence:

• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

The founders understood the right guaranteed by the Second Amendment as relating to the Militia and the Common Defence, in particular the powers given to Congress under Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 & 16. I would refer you to the analog to the Second Amendment created by Thomas Jefferson in the Virginia Constitution of 1775.

What got me to write this was someone did a youtube video about American's love for guns which totally misstated the facts and presented the mythology of guns in the United States. We wouldn't be in the mess we are if it hadn't been for a radical reinterpretation of the US Constitution, in particular the Second Amendment, for a fantasy version of that text.

So, if you want to ask me "what don't I understand about 'Shall not be infringed'"? I have to ask if you believe that acts of domestic violence should be addressed by the state government?

The ultimate answer is that asking what I don't understand about "shall not be infringed" removes the Second Amendment from its historic and consitutional context. One which needs to be read as a whole since Marbury v Madison said that such an interpretation is "form without substance" it makes the section is mere surplusage -- is entirely without meaning -- if such is to be the construction since It cannot be presumed that any clause in the Constitution is intended to be without effect, and therefore such construction is inadmissible unless the words require it.

see also:

• Baron, Dennis, Corpus Linguistics, Public Meaning, and the Second Amendment, Duke Center for Firearms Law: https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2021/07/corpus-linguistics-public-meaning-and-the-second-amendment
• ___.    Guns and Grammar: the Linguistics of the Second Amendment, https://debaron.web.illinois.edu/essays/guns.pdf
• Amicus Brief NY State Rifle and Pistol Association, https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-843/193271/20210921155937883_Amicus%20Brief.pdf