Permanently Deleted
immutable @ immutable @lemm.ee Posts 0Comments 207Joined 2 yr. ago
immutable @ immutable @lemm.ee
Posts
0
Comments
207
Joined
2 yr. ago
Things are going great in the states right now.
Everyday I wake up and get to find out if trump had a good or bad day yesterday by whether or not we are waging a pointless economic war against our closest ally.
America is a joke and no matter what actions we take from this point on it would be foolish for any other nation to trust our government to act rationally.
Did you know that a tree will turn sunshine and carbon dioxide into oxygen and shade, for free?!
The tree doesn’t even try to maximize its economic value by charging for this service? It does sell the oxygen or comfort of the shade at all, it doesn’t have a subscription service so that you can pay it monthly for oxygen and shade.
It’s downright unamerican.
Why tariffs are stupid in three acts
Act 1
American producers: I can’t compete with that $10 foreign product, I have to sell my product at $12 to turn a razor thin profit.
Politician: ok I’ll slap a $5 tariff on the foreign product to protect you.
Act 2
American producer: awesome so now the foreign product costs $15! I can compete
American consumer: oh well I guess I can spend $12 instead of $10… sucks but America first I guess
Act 3
American producer: no need to leave $3 on the table, let’s sell ours for $14.99, I need more profits because everything I want to buy with my profits is now more expensive for some reason.
American consumer: the foreign one used to cost $10 and the domestic one cost $12… now they cost $15 and $14.99. I guess I’ll buy the American one and skip dinner tonight.
The very first thing that every human does when arriving in a brand new place, is take a piss on it.
Jump
The “very first thing”?!
This is why you don’t get invited to parties
Yea I feel bad for him too, you can tell when the officer tells him he has no choice to arrest him that he’s realizing how badly he just messed up.
In his mind he was about to lose his pardon and go back into the prison system.
But to me that also makes me think the officer is justified in his use of force. People that think everything is ruined are unpredictable and he was reaching for violence. While he was saying he was going to turn that violence on himself, there’s no particular reason to trust what he’s saying. I think there’s a very real possibility he gets the gun saying “I’m shooting myself” but then once he has it maybe shooting the cop sounds a bit better.
If I’m the officer I’m not rolling the dice to see if he points the gun at his head or mine.
And as much as I can empathize with the feeling of fear and loss in that moment, ultimately he made a bunch of choices that led to that. He did whatever he did to get his license suspended, he drove on a suspended license, and even in this instance he broke the speed limit knowing that the results of even a minor infraction could lead to the loss of his freedom.
At some point he has to be responsible for the consequences of his actions.
Police Activity posted the bodycam footage.
It’s under 7 minutes and when the shooting happens it’s blurred out. It’s relatively tame from a gore point of view, but it’s still a video of someone being shot so watch with care.
Here’s my synopsis of the footage for people that don’t want to watch it themselves, you can skip the preamble if you just want to understand the shooting. In my opinion the officer acts reasonable, friendly, and professional throughout.
Preamble
- Officer pulls the guy over for going 70 in a 55
- Guy offers up unprompted that he’s a J6 defendant that was recently pardoned
- Officer doesn’t seem to care one way or the other asks for license
- Guy says he’s coming from church and his mother’s grave. He doesn’t have a license and has been trying to get a hardship license, produces an expired license
- Officer asks how often he’s been caught driving suspended
- Guy says “in my life”
- Officer clarifies “recently”
- Guy indicates not much
- Officer goes back to his patrol car to run the guys information.
Shooting
- Officer asks the guy out of the vehicle, they go to the rear of his vehicle
- Officer explains that he’s reached habitual traffic offender status because of driving suspended.
- Guy begs for leniency
- Officer explains its now reached the point of being a felony and he has no choice but to arrest him.
- Guy says he’s not going back to jail
- Guy runs away from the rear of the vehicle and jumps back into the drivers seat
- Officer gives foot chase back to drivers door, he provides verbal commands to stop
- Before the officer can reach the guy, he says “I’m shooting myself” and reaches for something in the passenger seat.
- Officer says “no no no” and fires three shots at the guy.
This is shown from his bodycam and also from his dashcam.
A felon retreated into a vehicle, stating he wouldn’t go back to jail, produced a firearm, and threatened violence. Was the guy lying about shooting himself, was his plan to fire the firearm at himself or the officer? Based on my view of the video, the officer acted within his lawful authority, was polite and professional, and only used force consistent with what the situation required. But I’d encourage you to watch the evidence and make up your own mind.
There are a ton of bad cops and awful shootings. I don’t like J6 but I don’t see this as justified because the guy is an asshole, but justified because of his actions at this traffic stop.
The headline here is kinda absurd. From the article
The case, brought by Marlean Ames, a former Ohio Department of Youth Services (the state’s juvenile justice department) employee, challenges a rule the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals applies, requiring majority-group plaintiffs to demonstrate additional “background circumstances” to establish a discrimination claim.
This case is about whether or not the sixth circuit rule that a majority group plaintiff has to demonstrate additional background circumstances is constitutional.
“Because Ames is heterosexual, she must make a showing in addition to the usual ones for establishing a prima facie case,” Kagan read from the ruling, emphasizing that the opinion itself makes clear that different rules are being applied.
That’s liberal justice Elana Kagan making an argument reading the sixth circuits ruling.
A prima facie case is the first step in proving employment discrimination. Under the McDonnell Douglas framework, a plaintiff must show they belong to a protected class, were qualified for the job, suffered an adverse employment action, and occurred under circumstances suggesting discrimination. If these criteria are met, the burden shifts to the employer to provide a non-discriminatory reason for their decision.
So this case boils down to, “do members of the majority group have to jump over a higher bar to require that employers provide a non-discriminatory reason for their adverse employment action.”
The working class should be shoulder to shoulder in solidarity here.
I mean I’m sure the forms aren’t identical but is having to tell the same information so much of a burden that removing it materially changes anything?
It seems like to work would be in tracking the spending and then once that is done what all is there to save from only having to hand that data to one watchdog instead of two?
Unless of course one of those watchdogs, being a smaller state agency, could be cheaply bought and have their reporting requirements gutted.
When powerful people want small government what they really want is cheaper bribes.
Removed
Trump says he’s confident Putin will ‘keep his word’ if there’s a deal to end the war in Ukraine
Jump
I’m sure he will keep his word on every concession he’s gotten from the US without the US getting anything at all.
At least in an extortion scam you get to keep your store from being burnt down by the mob.
It’s an extortion scam coupled with a party that fucking refused to do anything.
Vote for us or a women’s right to choose will be gone!!! Ok we voted for you, you want to do something… no you can’t just ask the lady living her life like a chapter of the handmaids tale to pinky swear… and the Supreme Court just got rid of it… and I have a text asking for $20 to fight like hell…
Fuck the dems. They aren’t getting one red cent from me. Time for a new party that isnt crawling with consultants figuring out how best to milk donations
Every thing she lists is fluff.
If you are an employed professional you are spending your year doing your job. Not going back to school to pick up a certificate for fun or finding a documentary to be in (what even is this?)
I imagine the husband biting through his cheek during this grilling thinking “yea I’m busy fucking doing things.”
How do you define “violent aggression” then?
If someone poisons the air you breathe or the water you drink, is that violent aggression? Because there’s a long history of corporations knowingly doing just that to communities they believed were powerless to stop them.
If officers under the color of law routinely harass members of your community, openly admitting that they can choose who they want to stop under perfectly legal pretextual stops and then find a reason to beat or intimidate you, is that violent aggression?
Violent aggression can take many forms. What does violent aggression look like? If I buy the company that employs the people in your town and then fire everyone and move it overseas so I can make more money, that’s aggressive certainly, it will cause suffering, is it violent? Is violence just physical force? If I put a sheriff between me and the violence, if I use economic means but then enforce them at the barrel of someone else’s gun, am I being violent or are they?
Violence up close is easy to define, but how many layers of indirection do we need for violent acts to become ok. Politics is all about choices and a lot of choices end up harming a great number of people. We are living through and will continue experiencing natural disasters super charged by climate change. Communities flooded and burned down and destroyed by hurricane force wind, all because a few people would like to have more money and convinced some politicians that it was ok. Is that violence?
Sure if I said I was going to burn your house down that’s violent, but if I aggressively pursue bribing (sorry, lobbying) politicians so that they will support policies that my own scientists tell me will result in your house burning down, is that still violence?
That’s the real question people struggle with.
This has real “let them eat cake” vibes
Eggs have traditionally been one of the cheapest staple sources of protein for the working poor.
The right is living out their wet dream right now, in charge of almost every facet of the federal government.
And your concern is that people aren’t being nice enough to them and their supporters.
Collaborators can eat shit
There’s no way a busty woman talking about bitcoins could honeypot any of these people. No sir. These young men are definitely above that sort of thing and no enemy of America would be wise enough to take advantage of these young lads.
Nope, totally safe and secure. We should all sleep soundly tonight knowing some 19 year old has access to our national treasury under the order of a ketamine addict.
You know what they say when you are at the top of a global order and reap substantial benefits from having that coveted position?
Blow it all up and hope that it’ll come out better by having you… at the top… which is where you already were… hold on.
American ruling class, “Oh would you look at that, we just found a 24.99999% price hike that we definitely have to do because economy. Still cheaper though than the Canadian and Mexican imports.”
It’s just the rest of America that is going to get fucked.
Ok what did they do in those 4 months.
You see what republicans do the moment they get any kind of power? They have shit ready to go. New tax plan, sure half of it is scribbles in the margins, but push it through. No child left behind? Why not, let’s just overhaul the education system, no need to know what we are doing.
They just signed a bunch of executive orders reclassifying everyone as female and turning the government off. They just had them ready to go.
If I were locked out of power in a deeply broken nation, what else do I have to do but get together with the rest of my party and hammer out the shit we want to get passed when we get some power back.
What were they doing for the other months in that 40 years?! Sitting around dialing for dollars begging for plutocrats to give them enough money that they could do fuck all when they finally got power? Yea, that’s it. That’s what they did.
Why didn’t they have ANYTHING ready for when they had power? Why do they always act like “well now that the voters have given us a mandate, you know government is slow going, we don’t even have drafts ready to go to solve any of these problems. Gotta go get my thinking cap and a big cup of cocoa and noodle this… fuck we lost power again. Jimminy jillickers, I can’t believe our rotten luck”
Either they are the most incompetent gaggle of idiots ever assembled under one banner. Or the people that bought their seats for them would rather they talk a big game on msnbc and sit around and not threaten the broken system that has made them incredibly wealthy.
I’ll let you consider which is better.
The republicans are bringing back fascism but they are at least doing awful things their constituents want.
I disagree with these things, but they deliver on their stupid backwards promises.
I’ve voted for the democrats for my entire adult life, the very first vote I cast was for John Kerry.
Here’s the thing though. Are you a liberal, you wonder why the party is hated, have you ever seen Last Week Tonight?
Jon Oliver gets on tv every week and talks about some horrible problem that started with Reagan or Nixon and has just been going strong ever since. There are so many of these. And which ones can I look at and go “well the democrats sure did fix X when they finally had the levers of power”
I can’t think of a single thing. The most important project they’ve undertaken was the ACA, and I don’t know if entrenching health insurance companies permanently and legally into the fabric of our nation is all that much to celebrate.
Do they do some good things from time to time, sure. You can point to a policy here or there that are nice. But it’s a party of not-even-half-measures.
Can we have single payer? No How about a public option? No What can you do? Romneycare… great
Can we have immigration reform? No What can you do? DACA and that’ll be rescinded the moment we lose power.
Can we reign in the banking sector? Nah
Can we close Guantanamo? Too difficult
Can we enshrine the right to abortion in law? No, but we will ask justices to pinky swear… oh they just removed it, nevermind
Can we do anything to help the common man? Let me check with the donors, nah they don’t like that, but if you like some tweets about how trump is bad, I’ve got those for you.
A party that refuses to use the power you give it is not much use.
And before you type up your essay about how Ackshually! There was only one weekend in 2009 when they could have passed any kind of legislation at all. Fucking stuff it. Then they should have sat there all goddamn weekend and passed bill after bill fixing this shit box nation. Their lack of any kind of foresight and planning and doing anything but building a better and better donation collection machine has led us to fascism.
They can collect a billion goddamn dollars but have to text me to see if I can give them just $27 more dollars before they can pass a bill. We need a new party to represent the people.
Democratic leadership is coming out swinging on this one, telling their caucus that any member of the party that attempts to block this bill will be primaried.
When asked if they were at all concerned about the policies they would be enabling they responded
When told that trump recently threatened to round up democratic lawmakers and execute them for the good of the nation leadership had this to say.
At that point democratic leadership had to leave with one senior leader saying “I need to get back to dialing for dollars” and another stating that they “had to pressure more members to censure Al Greene for his despicable display of barbarism, shouting out the president, is there no decency anymore”