Makeitstop

The next steps would be ordering the justice department to prosecute him, going to court, and appealing all the way to the new Supreme Court so they can overturn the precedent. Which would require either moving very quickly or preventing the other side from taking power, one way or the other.

Of course, by then pandora's box is open. As long as someone is willing to follow those kinds of orders, nothing would prevent the next president from doing the same thing. It's a slippery slope not unlike the one that caused Rome to go from being a republic that viewed regicide as a fundamental virtue to an empire that would persecute groups for denying the divinity of the emperor.

I had felt the same way, until they ruled that partisan gerrymandering is constitutionally protected, that racial gerrymandering can only be unconstitutional if it doesn't provide a partisan advantage to one side, and that the court must assume that legislators are acting in good faith because their need to not be embarrassed outweighs the constitutional rights of the people and the need for honest elections. I read that decision and said "shit, they're gonna rule that Trump's immune."

I never thought the Court would put out a decision that could rival Dred Scott for worst in history, but these asshole's have put out multiple contenders for that title in a single term.

Fucking insanity.

Civil immunity makes sense because anyone can sue anyone for anything at anytime, and allowing people to sue the president for official acts would leave him vulnerable to a nonstop barrage of lawsuits. Crime doesn't work that way. The only way the president should be facing criminal prosecution is if he's breaking the fucking law. That's kind of the opposite of what the president is supposed to be doing. You know, faithfully executing the laws and all that. If a presidential action violates the law, it can't really have the legitimacy that's being presumed for all official acts here, because by definition it violates his official duties under the constitution.

Now, I would never suggest that a sitting president order the unlawful detention or summary execution of political opponents and/or corrupt justices. But I might suggest that, in the interest of national security, that he order intelligence agencies to troll through communications records, financial records, etc. to search for signs of treason and corruption at the hands of foreign powers. And if that search should happen to find evidence of any kind of illegal activity among his political opponents or on the Court, well...

This decision so blatantly ignores the constitution, history, tradition, case law, and all available evidence, that I have to question why they even bothered writing such a long decision. They might as well have just said "Fuck it, we say Trump is immune. Eat shit America, we can do whatever we want."

I'd vote for ToS era Pike over Trump. I'd vote for a candidate who only communicates via ouija board over Trump. I'd vote to not have a president for 4 years before I'd vote for Trump.

It's crazy that Trump can get convicted of fraud, be found liable for sexual assault, promise to abuse presidential power to get revenge against those who cross him, actively undermine both national and global security, promise to round up millions and put them into camps, attempt to overthrow the election and refuse to not try it again, and so on, and his side is still so loyal they'll wear solidarity diapers for him.

They need a format that breaks the debate up into sections and actually includes fact checking, and a cross examination after each section. Have a team scrambling to find the records, studies, video clips and other evidence that they can bring up. Someone who is mostly honest gets lay ups and affirmation. Someone who lies constantly gets called out and put on the defensive.

Wouldn't happen of course. Even if the hosts were down to have someone take on a more adversarial role, Trump would never agree to something that actually holds him accountable for spewing nothing but bullshit. It's his entire strategy, if he can't sell snake oil he has nothing to sell at all.

This means that anyone who doesn't like a particular rule or regulation can pick a venue with a friendly judge, challenge it in court, and likely get the outcome they want. Even if judge shopping wasn't a major problem right now, this would still be a bad idea. The reason Chevron told judges to defer to agencies in matters where the interpretation is ambiguous is because those agencies have the experience and and expertise to understand the issues involved far better than a judge who has to try to master the subject from inside the courtroom.

This is all the more crazy in light of the recent racial gerrymandering decision, where Alito not only ignored the deference that appeals courts are supposed to show to trial courts (where the case is actually experienced and not just summed up in a brief) but then says that the judicial branch must defer to the legislators when they claim that they are being fair. So judges can just override the executive branch in subjects that they likely do not understand, but they can't actually contradict the legislature over something like whether a policy is violating someone's constitutional rights, despite that being one of their core functions for the past couple of centuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel

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

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

Precedents get overturned from time to time, and the way that generally happens is when a new case comes along challenging that precedent.

Maybe this goes nowhere. Maybe a conviction gets overturned on appeal. But maybe we could see a new precedent set. Might as well try, you're probably not going to find a better case to do it any time soon.

I like wireless, I just fucking loathe earbuds. Unfortunately, they have completely replaced the wrap around on-ear headphones that were the best for wearing while running errands or exercising.

I don't want something big and bulky while I'm walking around, but I also don't like having shit jammed into my ears. And critically, those on ear headphones are just the right size to have a convenient button layout so I can easily pause or go back a few seconds in my audiobook whenever I need to.

But Apple decreed that wireless earbuds were the future and the market for everything else fucking died.

He's firing from both ends.

Wait, I remember this one...

Not since I was a teenager.

I find it interesting that guys like this who want to start a race war always think that this is the thing that's going to do it. Like we've made it through all the other hate crimes, injustices and large scale protests without erupting into a race war, but one more incident will do the trick.

Also interesting is how closely his plan is tied to the election. He isn't just trying to send a message before the election, he specifically thinks that his side needs a specific outcome in the election for his plan to succeed. This plan seems to be a direct consequence of current political environment and the messages coming from his preferred candidate and his supporters.

Now the article doesn't actually say which candidate needs to win in order to embolden violent white supremacists. But if you need 2 guesses, you should probably consider going back into the coma you've been in for the past decade, you're not going to like the future.

Shortly after Hutchinson's remarks, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was also loudly booed as soon as he took the stage and throughout his remarks as he also seemingly addressed the Republican divide.

"The problem is, you want to shout down any voice that says anything different than what you want to hear. You can continue to do it, and believe me—believe me, it doesn't bother me one bit," Christie said, who is also running for president.

The Republican fired back at the boos by saying, "You can yell and boo about it as much as you like, but it doesn't change the truth. And the truth is coming."

Christie added: "And all of you need to understand: America needs better than what we've had. And it never makes America a better place, whether it's on a college campus in an Ivy League or whether it's in an auditorium in Orlando, for us to be booing and shouting down opinions we don't agree with."

I'm sure there's plenty of people ready to point out the many ways in which Chris Christie is a piece of shit. But I really do appreciate the way he's willing to actually confront others in his party and call them out on their bullshit. Even among Trumps critics and would be rivals, so many others are retiring, acquiescing, or just desperately tip toeing around the truth to avoid upsetting the flavor aid connoisseurs. But Christie is out their scolding the crowd like obnoxious little shits that they are.

And no, it won't change the minds of the people who are booing him, they already went off the deep end. But it may help shatter the illusion for those who are moving in that direction, who have been living an echo chamber, and who need someone to be the first to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

Neat.

Remind me to check back in 5 years to see if this ever actually materializes.

There's gonna be some really great attack ads running in swing districts next year. Every vulnerable moderate just got handcuffed to this guy. Now they can be accused of supporting all the most extreme, unpopular, and unlawful things in Johnson's record. And on top of that, this almost certainly means that the agenda moving forward will be dominated by things which would alienate moderates and independent voters.

Apparently the lackluster mid terms weren't enough of a wake up call. I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be the moment that the Republicans lost the house. (Of course, I also wouldn’t be surprised to see the Democrats find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory)

Sending a notification that a renewal is coming up? Impossible, will cost a fortune.

Sending mountains of junk mail offering bundles and limited time offers? Clearly much cheaper and easier.

Also, think of the labor costs, retraining the call center staff to not spend hours trying to talk people out of canceling and instead just having them hit a button. Why, that's got to force a price hike.

Google results have gotten less useful, but one reason for that is that there is an ever growing sea of AI generated articles out there trying to hijack searches. In a way, Bing is just cutting out the middle man.

I enjoy playing with ChatGPT as much as the next guy, but it isn't a search engine. Hooking Bing up to an LLM just means that I now have to verify that the results it spits out aren't hallucinations, assuming it understood what I was asking in the first place.

Unfortunately, the people who need to hear this message will never read this.

In a jury trial, this could be a big deal. You have all this stuff that's off limits that the jury isn't supposed to hear because it's prejudicial, inadmissible and irrelevant. Mistrial have happened for less.

But there is no jury, the one deciding everything is the one who would be enforcing those same rules anyway. If anything, it just shows how easy the judge has been on Trump and team throughout this process.

It doesn't even really affect the media coverage because there's no clip to show, and any outlets that give him positive press off this would parrot his public comments anyway. To everyone else it just makes him look like a joke, a sad thin skinned loser who is trying to get the last word in in an argument he's already lost.

This just seems like a bad idea that his ego demanded against anyone's better judgment. Though I suppose it wasn't ever going to hurt his image among anyone that actually likes him, and anyone who is still on the fence won't remember this in a week, let alone in November.

They argued his actions were justified as self-defense. Perry told police during an interview that he believed Foster was going to aim the firearm at him, according to CNN affiliate KEYE.

Fucking open and shut case right there. If he was afraid that someone was going to aim a gun at him, it means that the person didn't aim a gun at him.

“We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis,” she said. “He invited it.”

This from the party that's explicitly invited a border crisis. Although, that's not actually inconsistent since the only reason they want it is so they can try to blame it on Biden.

I would have more respect for them if instead of this they just got drunk and yelled "oh no, Biden shit my pants again!" Not only would it be more dignified, it would actually be more plausible.

If I buy a product, and the manufacturer remotely disables that product in order to coerce me into buying their goods and services, the people responsible should be charged with fraud, destruction of property, criminal conspiracy, racketeering, and anything else that can stick. It should be treated no less severely than if they hired thugs to smash it with a crowbar.

If every halfway respectable news outlet sounded the alarm and made Trump's threats to democracy and the rule of law the dominant story from now until election day, he'd still have 85% of his supporters. Some would be OK with it. Some would say he's still better than Biden. Most would never see it because they live in a media bubble that tells them what they want to hear. And more than a few would call those stories hit pieces and climb into the bubble to be safe and comfortable.

We do need the media and everyone else to sound the alarm. And even a small shift could be enough to make the difference. But as long a large portion of the population is listening to outlets that unabashedly spew extremist propaganda, we're going to continue have this problem.

The automatic diverting of money to the copyright troll is the part that gets me. That really ought to open YouTube up for liability just as much if not more so than hosting copyright violating material. Copyright trolls should be facing fraud charges and systems that reward them should be under intense legal scrutiny.

Sadly, that's not how it works and even if there was enough interest to organize and lobby for a positive change, there'd still be zero chance of congress anything useful in the foreseeable future.

There are currently billions in subsidies offsetting the costs of constructing more chargers, which will bring in continuous revenue long after the construction is paid off. Continuous revenue being that thing that so many other Tesla projects are not bringing in. And the number of vehicles paying to use these chargers is about to go up as most other manufacturers recently agreed to change their standard and rely on Tesla's charging infrastructure. And with range anxiety and the perceived lack of charging infrastructure being consistently cited as one of the main things holding people back from switching to EVs, future growth depends on increasing the availability of charging. Plus, with Tesla pushing its app on everyone who wants to use their charging network, I'm sure there's plenty of data being gathered and sold, making it that much more valuable for them to maintain a near monopoly.

Plus, they have spent years developing a skilled team of experienced employees that know what they are doing and have relationships with all the various vendors, regulators and external stakeholders that need to be dealt with to get things done. And with the non-compete clauses Tesla likes to use having been struck down in court, and Tesla's charging standard being released as an open standard rather than a proprietary one, anyone they lose can take all that expertise to a competitor. Like, maybe one of those other manufacturers that wants to switch to NACS, and might just want some of those subsidies to pay for chargers that will bring in long term revenue.

I mean, you'd have to be some kind of moron to fuck that up. You'd have to be the king of all morons to fuck that up over your own ego. Especially since the dispute is over how many employees with critical functions you want laid off, while at the same time you are spending money on an ad campaign to convince shareholders to approve a compensation package that costs more than all those laid off employees would have cost over the next decade or two.

My favorite comment in response to Tesla's terrible decisions: "Man, it's like their CEO's on drugs or something"

Golden Goose: [Dutifully laying eggs.]

Musk: [Sharpens axe]

So, how do you think the Court will justify keeping Trump on the ballot?

• What Trump did doesn't qualify as insurrection.
• Trump hasn't been convicted of insurrection.
• The insurrectionist ban is only for people who participated in the civil war
• The ban doesn't apply because presidents aren't officers
• The ban doesn't apply because presidents swear to protect the constitution, not to support it
• Section 3 can't be enforced without congress passing legislation to enforce it.
• It's a political question so courts can't touch it.
• Trump being impeached but acquitted after the insurrection means he can't be punished for it due to double jeopardy (I hate that this is an actual argument being made... and that it's not even close to the stupidest one to come from team Trump)

They were denying him basic living conditions common to large zoo animals. If you are so profoundly mentally ill that you can't be allowed to spend time in a slightly larger enclosure, it seems highly unlikely that you are mentally competent enough to be convicted in the first place.

The justification for this is also pathetically flimsy and should be easily rejected with just a moments thought.

Exercise has been deemed a necessity which cannot be denied to prisoners. He was kept in solitary without being allowed out for 3 years, but it's OK because it was many small punishments served back to back without relief, not one big punishment. So, if we can deny necessities for extended periods of time, that means we can also withhold food or water for years at a time, as long we're doing it by stacking punishments and not just starving someone to death over a single incident.

Hostage takers remain undecided on the best strategy to free the hostages.

They aren't trying to avert a shutdown, they're trying to get the most concessions possible in exchange for averting it. They are the ones causing the shutdown, everyone else is actually trying to keep the government running.

Why? Because they are immature and emotionally stunted jackasses that care more about their own petty bullshit than they do about living in a civilized society and being decent human beings. And because they are spoiled shits who assume they will get away with it (which is unfortunately true).

This guy is full of shit though. We aren't seeing violence because Republicans are fractured and trying to keep their party in line. Mullin was picking a fight with the head of the teamsters over tweets. And this isn't even the first time Mccarthy has been accused of nonchalantly hitting someone while passing through the halls.

We're seeing violence because all the mechanisms of power at work in the Republican party have been pushing out those who value ethics, cooperation, or civility, and raising up bullies who value aggression, hostility, and the unrestrained use of power.

At this point Conan the Barbarian could run on a platform of crushing his enemies, seeing them driven before him, and hearing the lamentations of their women, and he'd still come across as reasonable compared to some of these asshats. Hell, that would actually be less threatening than many of Trump's speeches.

A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Alina Habba, praised the appellate court after the Thursday hearing and quickly took advantage of the development.

Ms. Greenfield “is in the judge’s ear time and time again,” Ms. Habba said. “If she had a real threat, she should get off the bench.”

"We have never encouraged death threats against the individuals we scream about online, while sharing their names, pictures and even addresses. But if those people have gotten death threats at some point after our unrelated personal attacks, then clearly they should give in to the demands of the people threatening them. Demands which just so happen to align with our interests."

I can only hope that this shithead ends up facing legal problems like so many other Trump lawyers. Or that she ends up getting doxed and harassed so severely that she becomes a recluse, though I'm not sure what she'd have to do to get anyone to give enough of a shit to put in the effort.

Lying about testing a product in order to get people to buy it so you can get your affiliate revenue sounds like fraud to me. Seems like the kind of thing that should lead to lawsuits and potentially criminal charges. Not that anyone would actually try to do something about this or most other problems facing consumers.

Not only is there a lower margin, but the fact that EVs are lower maintenance means they will get less money from a customer coming into their service department. Not that it even needs to get to anything as farsighted as that when a sales guy gets a larger commission for an ICE vehicle. They aren't going to spend time learning about a product that gets them paid less, they are going to say whatever it takes to steer a customer towards whatever gets them the biggest payday.

One of my favorite examples of ignorant dealers saying stupid shit was a dealer telling a would be customer that they weren't able to bring EVs into their service dept because they have to be kept in a bomb proof shelter in case the battery explodes. This wasn't even a sales guy, it was a manager in a service dept, at a dealer that (supposedly) sells and services EVs.

Not in a million fucking years Sony. I would have gladly given you my money, but apparently that's not good enough for you.

Trump can do no wrong. Therefore, any action taken against him must be unjustified. So it can only ever be political, and therefore, it's only fair that we do the same to Biden.

The best part is, they recognize that this is terrible for democracy, that this being normalized would be a disaster, and then say they are going to do it anyway. They are admitting that rather than accept the outcome of the legal process for settling these kinds of situations, and respecting the rule of law, they would rather damage our society to get their victory by any means necessary.

Which is pretty much how we got here in the first place, when Trump couldn't accept an election or dozens of court cases all telling him he lost.

Elon: "Now that I've purchased reddit, we're going to rename it x."

Person with an ounce of common sense: "But you already changed twitter's name to that.

Elon: "Don't be stupid. I named it X, whereas reddit is going to be x. It's going to be a totally different brand."

I can see two possible explanations for why they want this stupid "ladder" structure.

1. They know a shut down will do them more harm than good politically, but can't just give up after demanding so many things that were never going to work out. Therefore, they put in this stupid gimmick that doesn't really affect anything, but which allows them to claim some kind of victory.

2. They want to stagger the spending cut offs so they can threaten a partial shut down next time, which they can more easily defend while still inflicting pain.

“I just don’t think that Americans care that much,” Bishop added.

Smartest thing any of them have said in a while.

This motherfucker is lamenting that people aren't cool with political violence, and specifically references the type inflicted by pro-slavery legislators in the lead up to the civil war.

I know we are already living in the twilight zone, and the leading candidate for president is spewing nazi rhetoric and promising to put people in camps and imprison his political rivals. But can we just acknowledge that this piece of shit is going out of his way to embrace the kind of senseless violence committed by people who would go on to secede and wage war on the United States over their right to own people like cattle.

In a sane world, this asshat would have just ended his career. Here in the darkest timeline, he probably just secured his reelection.

It's a life sentence. This is just a rebranded life sentence with the added bonus that those who are paroled stay on parole for life.

It's just that it sounds bad when you say someone is getting a life sentence for petty crimes. It sounds a lot nicer when you only mention the minimum jail time they'll have before being eligible for parole, and justify it as being for everyone's protection.