commandar @ commandar @lemmy.world

Posts

0

Comments

131

Joined

2 yr. ago

why is that move considered political?

Political lobbying is kind of inherently political, no? They weren't passive observers or commentators; they hired lobbyists to influence the legislative outcome.

Actively working to shape the legal structure of the country to better suit their company is politics. It's different from culture war politics, but it's still politics.

If anything, economic politics are what traditionally drove a lot of the political divide in this country. That's taken a back seat to a degree, but it hasn't made it not political.

they didn't want their non-political national brand associated with extremely politically decisive right wing media

Worth noting: Dunkin is owned by Inspire Brands, who went out of their way to toot their own horn about how they were successful in lobbying to kill inclusion of a minimum wage hike as part of COVID relief:

https://www.newsweek.com/this-fast-food-giant-bragged-about-killing-15-minimum-wage-1579273

So they're perfectly happy to take political positions; they just recognize these platforms are even more radioactive than bragging about opposing living wages for their workers.

Further, Inspire is owned by Roark Capital -- a company literally named after an Ayn Rand character. That's how far out in the loonie bin these folks are. And the MAGAs are too far over the line even for them, lol.

dork enlightenment

I have no idea how I've never seen this up to now, but good god that's the perfect encapsulation of that particular sect of morons.

The entire system is deeply corrupt beyond false positives.

We know for a fact that Russia was systematically cheating testing and the grand sum of the punishment they faced for it was having to compete as "Olympic Athletes from Russia" for two years.

So Kamala was also invited to speak, but she had to be at a funeral and couldn’t come. She offered to do it on Zoom, but the NABJ declined. To me this is more an indictment of them

I'm willing to give them a pass on this because Trump complained that he had wanted to do the interview remotely and they had also declined for him.

It sounds like the ground rules for both included "it has to be in person" and the NABJ stuck to their guns on that.

This is really the point to open a second front and start openly, explocitly calling him a coward.

Weird is effective at highlighting how far outside the mainstream these people are.

Coward directly pokes holes in and deflates his strongman image. It hits enthusiasm within the cult.

It also helps that their attempts to redirect back mostly serve to highlight their weird preoccupations.

Things are happening like a former Trump speechwriter posting "Emmett Till was weird" on Twitter because they can't comprehend just how unhinged and generally weird saying something like that is to a normal person.

Or they think they're being clever flipping the script and ranting about "boys saying they're girls is weird." "Why do you spend so much time obsessing over what children have in their pants? That's really weird."

It all puts them in a bind. If they try to defend what they're saying as normal, it's very clear that it isn't. If they try to deflect with what they think is weird, it just shows how detached they are from normal reality. It's a surprisingly effective line of attack that largely neutralizes their normal gish galloping.

Also worth noting: Wray's statements were made in response to questions asked by Jim Jordan.

This isn't something Democrats went looking to dig up. It got stirred up by one of Trump's frothiest allies.

I'd be in favor of more. 26 is just because I think there's a very easy argument to make for "every circuit gets direct representation on SCOTUS" and it's not a huge leap to go to two per circuit from there.

Increasing throughput is definitely one of the reasons I'd support doing this as well. Thanks for highlighting that since I didn't.

The problem is that the process for amending the Constitution is heavily, structurally biased in favor of the Republicans now. The GOP would absolutely rally around this issue because it's one of the primary things allowing them to hang on to power right now.

I don't believe in engaging in theatrics with a zero percent chance of success when there are real, feasible steps that could be taken to make things better.

Article III only lays out there there will be a supreme court and a Chief justice and makes Congress responsible for establishing them. It does not lay out the makeup or structure of that court. The current body of 9 justices is set by federal statute and could be changed by a simple act of Congress.

Article III also explicitly states that whatever Justices are appointed hold their office as long as they maintain good behavior (I e., as long as they haven't been impeached) and that Congress cannot reduce their pay.

Term limits are explicitly unconstitutional.

Setting the number of judges is explicitly within Congress' constitutional powers.

Randomized panels would probably be challenged just because it's never been tested, but the language in the Constitution re: Congress establishing the Supreme Court is vague. That said, Congress has already established inferior Federal courts that operate in this manner, so there's precedent.

Beyond physical injury, Trump's description of the event -- along with Wray saying the FBI is unsure -- really makes me lean toward it not being a direct wound.

Trump said he heard bullets "whizzing" by. A supersonic bullet directly next to your ear isn't going to make a whizzing sound like on TV; there's going to be a loud, distinct crack from the sonic boom as it passes by.

I fully believe Trump would be leaning into that hard if that's what he'd heard. "It was like thunder next to my head. The loudest thunder. The greatest thunder you've ever heard. HUEG thunder." It's exactly the kind of thing he loves to play up.

I think you're missing the point.

As things stand now, you get cases that are tailor made to the whims of specific people because there's a 100% chance it ends up in front of those specific people. That's an absolutely massive problem.

The point is that you're less likely to have cases that are specifically aimed at stroking any given individual's brand of crazy when there's only a ~1 in 3 chance they'll even hear it. A panel of 9 from a pool of 26 means that you go from a 100% chance that, say, Alito and Thomas, hear a case together to around 12%. That's a huge gamble when it takes years and a massive amount of money to get a case in front of SCOTUS.

No, it doesn't solve all conceivable problems with the court. But it'd help address the fact that SCOTUS justices are entirely too powerful as individuals and it can be done via simple act of Congress.

Appointees should just be subject to term limits and yearly affirmation votes by members of the BAR association to renew or revoke their qualifications

Not going to happen. SCOTUS terms are life appointments constitutionally. That means you've gotten into amendment territory which just plain is not realistic right now.

This matches the broad strokes of the approach I favor as well.

There are 13 Federal circuits. Expand to one justice per circuit, then double that.

But the core of the approach, regardless of the exact number, is to shift to having cases heard by randomized panels of judges. The amount of power wielded by individual justices right now is just insane. Dilute it down so that the power rests with the body rather than individuals.

Further, randomizing who hears any given case would help curtail the current environment where test cases get tailored to the idiosyncracies and pet theories of individual judges.

SCOTUS should be deciding cases based on rational reading of the law, not entertaining wing nut theories that Thomas or Alito hinted at in previous decisions. That sort of nonsense becomes a lot less feasible if there's no guarantee a case will actually end up in front of Thomas or Alito.

You tell them you don’t work for $500.

Or you tell them that you do.

Per hour.

But since they're clearly such great mates with dad, you can cut them a deal.

Would be rather funny to flip the right's obsession with with weaponizing Section 230.

It strikes me as rather arguable that this is evidence that he's acting as a publisher rather than a platform.

our last "just war" that was even a little cut and dry was world war two.

The Balkans were pretty cut and dry in justified intent.

It was an intervention into the worst genocide in Europe since WW2. We're talking not only wholesale slaughter of civilians, but even the establishment of literal rape camps as part of an organized, systemic campaign of ethnic cleansing. What was happening in the former Yugoslavia was absolutely horrific and the US and NATO stepping in to put an end to it was an unequivocally good thing.

That said, there were still questionable incidents like the "accidental" bombing of the Chinese embassy or the numerous cases of civilians killed by NATO bombs. But that mostly emphasizes the fact that there's no such thing as a clean war. War is always going to leave blood on your hands, even if it's being fought for the right reasons.

Crowdstrike is very entrenched in healthcare. Hospitals were routinely at capacity in 2020.

The outage this weekend probably killed some people due to disruptions in delivering care. It definitely would have then.

She's barely said anything publicly.

The fact that we're hearing what's she's saying in private means that there's been a lot discussed in private and the fact that we're hearing it isn't a coincidence or a leak. It's a sign that a lot of weight is being put into this effort.

Pelosi is an incredibly powerful woman -- still -- and the public never sees a lot of the work she does. Power brokering typically happens behind closed doors. The fact that we're seeing this is definitely a reason to take notice.

Also if we are to blame Obama for anything, it should be for him discouraging Biden not to run in 2016 over Hillary

Deeper than that. Obama inherited the party infrastructure Howard Dean built as DNC chair that was effective at state and local levels. That infrastructure completely fell apart after Obama loyalists took over the party after 2008. Dean ran a 50 state strategy and had built the party to support lower level candidates and contest elections Democrats had traditionally ignored. Post Obama the party shifted back to a focus on marquee races that didn't really provide support to state parties and startup candidates.

That's genuinely the single biggest Obama fuckup that doesn't really get talked about much because it's very insider baseball. But it's had very real effects on how Democrats have failed in lower level elections in the years since, which has percolated up into everything else since.