• 2 Posts
  • 311 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 6th, 2023

help-circle
  • 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…



  • 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.



  • Well, for starters, it’s over 50 grand for the base vehicle, and that’s before adding the bed. And it’s bigger than what I’m looking for.

    What I want is something more like an electric version of the Ford Maverick, but one that adds to the bed length by switching to a regular or extended cab, and by moving the cab forward a bit since we no longer need to accommodate an engine. I want different proportions, but the same basic size and price (obviously making it electric likely comes with a price increase, but that shouldn’t be enough to double it).



  • I just want a reasonably sized two door electric truck with a decent sized bed and only minimal space taken up by the frunk. I haul enough stuff that I could really use the cargo space, but I don’t want to drive an aircraft carrier on wheels that doesn’t fit into parking spaces. And I don’t want it collecting as much data as possible on me, but that’s not just a truck thing.

    So, my options are basically leave the country, drive a 30+ year old ICE truck, or start my own car company. Because despite the fact that there is clearly demand for a smaller truck that’s actually a truck, no one is interested in making them for the US market. Not when you can make a big useless luxury truck that has a much larger profit margin.


  • 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.


  • Makeitstop@lemmy.worldtoStar Wars Memes@lemmy.worldI'm getting old
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    7 days ago

    Why do people defending Star Wars keep shitting on sci-fi and fantasy? “It’s just a movie about space wizards with laser swords” they say, as though having fantastical elements negates all criticism.

    The original trilogy isn’t schlock. It’s fun, relatively lighthearted adventure in a fantastical setting. It has its flaws, but there is genuine artistry there, and it resonates with people because of that.

    And even if I am looking at classic Star Wars through nostalgia goggles, that doesn’t invalidate criticism of new Star Wars stuff. Rise of Skywalker is a train wreck of a movie all by itself, no comparison needed.





  • Everyone who is alive today is descended from slave owners, thieves, rapists, murderers, conquerors and oppressors. They are also all descended from people who were the victims of slavery, theft, rape, murder, conquest and oppression. If people are responsible for the actions of their ancestors, then we are all guilty of damn near everything, and it’s basically just original sin without all the Catholicism.