DarthBueller @ DarthBueller @lemmy.world

Posts

4

Comments

588

Joined

2 yr. ago

I hear you, but the black community has been saying the system is rigged (regardless of who wins) for far longer than nearly anyone else. I don't know how you go from massive disengagement to engagement given the levels of distrust that exist. Or how you get black politicians elected to office outside of statewide office or city government. The youth vote decided to suddenly show up, but it's not enough by itself.

Yes, but usually disbarment is sufficient punishment for corrupt fuckers and a deterrent message to the legal community - permanently losing your livelihood and being publicly shamed in the process, while not a criminal proceeding, is extremely (and justly) punitive. That said, if there was a decent likelihood of the fucker becoming a media personality after disbarment, or otherwise capitalizing on their punishment, I'd suspect that a DA might consider criminal charges.

I also fail to follow the logic of this commenter. I'm not sure if they're conspiracy-minded ("lawyers protecting their own" - when, in fact, one of the ethical lawyer's greatest joys is taking bad actors out of the profession), or confused, or if I am failing to understand their point, or what....

I'm an attorney, and let me tell you, a corrupt lawyer as opposing counsel can make a good lawyer's life hell. Recently there was an opposing counsel who was such a bad actor that the judge themselves filed an ethics complaint with the state bar after the bad guy voluntarily dismissed the case. The judge also put the 10 page memo supporting the voluntary dismissal under seal because it was full of outright lies and slander directed at the judge and counsel on my side.

And it will take some bizarre set of circumstances to ever get the GOP out of state office because they have gerrymandered everything to fuck, and the rural base is seemingly forever captured by the GOP, and the states' supreme courts are GOP, and ...

I frequently fantasize about Canada, where the assholes are fewer in number. Though I was recently in upstate New York and I realized how much I fucking miss the Northeast.

My impression of her in 2016 was that she'd be a neoliberal centrist that would make similar missteps to Bill Clinton, and I wanted nothing of it. Bill was lauded for bargaining with the GOP controlled Congress, but people like me had to help fight against the effects of his deals with the devil. There were a LOT of POC grandmas in public housing getting booted out because the housing project's super alleged that their grandkids were dealing drugs - the changes to HUD regulations allowed grandma to be at fault for failing to control their grandkids. And there was a not-insubstantial number of project supers that would just make shit up because they ruled over the projects like it was their private fiefdom. I worked in Legal Aid at the time.

Also, Hillary's charisma was lacking. Not that charisma is all-important, but she just seemed fake as fuck. I wanted Warren because of her focus on consumer protection and debtor friendly bankruptcy reform.

Some of us remember the 90's, and the ubiquitous bumper stickers implying that while Bill was President, Hillary was in charge. Playing on sexist tropes, calling her a bitch of the canine variety, "I didn't vote for Hillary," "She's not my president," etc.. Hillary was well hated before she ever ran for President.

You forget that California actually allows for a fair amount of direct democracy - the South will cling to Republican government and will fight any movement toward direct democracy and ballot initiatives because every effort to appeal to their base would be defeated.

I'm left but the tankies are idiots and their ideology requires sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending history didn't happen. Though lemmy is the first time I encountered large numbers of such folk.

Anti-intellectual theology as well. "God and Country" evangelical churches from the smallest to the largest find it absolutely crucial to brainwash their congregations against higher ed and critical thinking.

I had forgotten about that. My main memories are the war and Dana Carvey impersonations, but I was young.

Charter schools are legally public schools that operate on a lottery for admittance where I live. The employees are in the state benefits system. The only difference is that the charter schools structurally are private 501(c)(3) non-profits that don't have public school boards, limiting the opportunity of the broken electoral process to interfere with education and the ability of Nazi groups like "Moms for Liberty" to fuck with them. The only fuckery they have to deal with is funding and the fuckery of the state legislature. I'm going to send my kid to one because I live in a red area full of white supremacist students and teachers, something that is WAY less of an issue at my local charter. For every charter school nightmare story, there's tons more success stories.

Um, on what planet does Uber have higher overhead than a taxi co, unless you're talking about debt service and maybe bandwidth? Uber doesn't own anything except tech infrastructure and IP.

The way taxi co's behaved, it's not to wonder that Uber took off. Acting like a modern era guild system, intentionally taking long routes to drive up the price, etc. There's no way that kind of behavior can succeed in an era where everyone has military-level accurate GPS mapping units in their pocket and greater impatience than ever with entrenched bullshit.

Nixon (national embarrassment) Ford (set the precedent of letting criminal politicians off the hook for "national unity", gone in a flash?) Reagan (well-liked by many, in hindsight wrecked the country on many many levels) Bush Senior (hard to take seriously, but national embarassment?) Bush Junior (oh fuck me straight up the goat ass, America, what is wrong with us?) Trump (oh fuck, America, why are you trying to one up your idiot self with this fuckface?)

It's not even the "location," it's the people that come with the location. If I could live in a rural area ANYWHERE in the US without having to look at Confederate flags or deal with out and proud bigots, it would be amazing. But that's not the country we've let happen.

The problem with high density housing is that the quality is shit. The quality is shit with lower density housing too, but things like thin walls in apartments goes a long way to people wanting to join in the sprawl. Developers fight tooth and nail against any regulations that are focused on QOL or environmental improvements (like "passive house" standards) and promise that they will make it cost far more than necessary if they are so burdened.

The US's sense of justice is very much informed by the widespread belief in a deity that requires people to conflate cruelty and love.

OK now THAT made me laugh out loud. Thanks, I needed that.

There have been claims inside youtube against white noise videos, so at least in their privately managed rights system, white noise is fair game for diverting $ from the poster of the content.

I can totally hear a pattern overlaying the white noise sound in my kid's white noise machine. The sound of the pattern varies based on the level of battery charge, as far as I can tell. I thought it was some kind of unintended noise coming from the circuitry (like maybe bad caps). Given that the underlying white noise sound doesn't seem to vary based on the state of charge, I am still not sure that the sample length is what causes the pattern, but now you've got me super curious to tear the damn thing apart to test the caps.