I’m kinda into the “cruel and unusual” punishment of giving them their own medicine, literally. Make them drooling messes of human beings and put them on display.
I wish the Dems had felt more confident in 2020, or that Kamala Harris had proven to be a more vibrant personality able to take the reins in 2024. I wish the Overton window in the US were farther to the left. But that’s not the fight in front of us; we are where we are.
I don’t think anybody denies that Biden is in physical and a sort of general mental decline. He’s old AF. I tend to think “turning it on” just takes a lot out of him and maybe requires a couple of days of R&R which you don’t normally get as president, but I would hardly be surprised if they give him a little chemical helper sometimes. If taking a stimulant just makes you feisty and articulate and able to pop off a solid State of the Union speech then, again, that just speaks to your being old. Someone who literally doesn’t know what they’re doing will be the same idiot, but higher energy…
Why do I feel like they made the right decision? That family needs to be in prison and ALL their billions seized as criminal proceeds. Enough of these bullshit wealth retention escape valves
Isn’t it weird to see a good headline come out of the Supreme Court and instead of thinking, “oh, that’s nice,” you think, “wait a minute, how is this bad?”
The dissent basically says that a deal was reached to get money from this company and all 50 state’s attorney generals supported this. This decision results in that money possibly being lost and opioid victims never getting paid.
I don’t know enough about it though. Seems like the money part of the bankruptcy should not shield the criminals from going to jail. But it sounds like it might be.
Which is exactly why its not tenable. Why are they negotiating with terrorists? $6 billion is nothing, shave it off the defense budget.
Its way more important that these people are put away and serve as an example, like they do in China. Any small-time drug dealer seling Oxy would have been practically crucified even in the US compared to the Sacklers who were driving the entire addiction campaigns and mess, also the consulting firms. Why is civil forefeiture only a fear for the poors/rest of us. Forfeit now, they can litigate it out later from prison
There’s endless fuckery happening and not so much findoutery. That desperately needs to change. I love that scene in Billions when the fraudster investor guy is begging his DA buddy to let him go, and he’s like “I’m sorry, I can’t. But I know you’re gonna go away for a while and come out a new and better man ☺️”. These people need way tougher love than that but you get the idea
They did, however, a new case won’t be brought and heard before the next presidency. Project 2025’s Schedule F hires won’t be prosecuting businesses doing business. Yet another reason to vote in November.
Again $6 billion is nothing, thats $120 million per 1/50 states, how much is even gonna go to each survivor or does the government annex it all basically, add it to the pork barrel to be distributed amongst their “tru$ted” partners/affiliates?
In its current form its already nothing, its sets the price tag at $6 billion to addict the nation and start nouveau Opium wars and still get to keep a commi$h and get out of jail free for their service
We’ve already spent $52B in settlement funds on local police departments and cash payouts. Without a federal mandate for investment in rehabilitation programs, it’ll just end up spent the same anyway.
How weird. Archive did some long display of loading resources and then showed me the correct article…but apparently the “share” link on it was wrong. Crazy
It makes zero sense: they say they don’t trust the government for the simplest things but suddenly they cool with it making life/death decisions often informed by legit incompetence/malevolence.
They are not serious, good-faith people who should have any influence or agency
The death penalty is an important bargaining tool with the spies of other countries in regards to serious cases of espionage.
It may be necessary to apply the death penalty in the case of a state in dire circumstances in which the release or escape of a prisoner may be regarded as deadly to the commonwealth - such as a dictator with large minority support or support amongst the elite still remaining being prosecuted for their crimes.
As deterrent in extreme matters of desertion, war crimes, or crimes against peace.
Fucking wild that a place where the sentiment of ‘eat the rich’ is commonly passed around recoils at the idea of executing a dictator after a trial if his crimes warrant it and there’s a reasonable threat that he could be sprung and returned to power by the elite or a radical minority.
Those are all arguably fair - but they seem to apply to national military judicial systems as opposed to civilian criminal courts.
Edit: And when it comes to the United States, those offenses would be federal ones, found in the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 - an Act which I still think goes too far. Above, I used the word "state" in its general sense. US States have no purpose applying capital punishment beyond revenge.
Espionage outside of wartime is still done through the civilian courts, and treason trials (such as for an ousted genocidal dictator) would likely be done through civilian courts as well.
But yes, they’re generally more military/extreme edge cases that I feel the death penalty is warranted in. Murder? Theft? Taking up two parking spaces? Prison is good enough.
US States have no purpose applying capital punishment beyond revenge.
Death sentence does not, and has never, worked as a deterrent.
The death penalty doesn’t work on irrational actors - ie the desperate and the mentally unwell. Those who commit most crimes. The death penalty as a deterrent to rational actors (such as opportunistic politicians) is very much part of the mental calculus that goes into decision-making.
It’s also super fucked to say “sometimes you gotta kill a guy cause too many people agree with him.”
No, that’s actually pretty normal. People agreeing with genocidal dictators is a bad thing, and taking out the dictator is greatly preferable to taking out all the people who agree.
Rarely is it a rational gov’t/populace that takes out its own dictator tho. Usually it’s a military coup, so just substituting one dictator for another.
Can you put a dollar figure on the violation of your constitutional rights? The settlement should have been much higher. Sometimes it’s the only way to get power tripping cops to stop breaking the law.
Hit the individual, but also pull funds from the department. Make it hurt everyone and maybe they will start hold each other to some semblance of accountability.
In law it is the defense who is supposed to argue the amount is too much, and the plaintiff should ask for as much as possible because at that point it is punitive. Second, while you may not feel threatened by any single interaction with police, this officer was angry and had to have exhibited aggressive behavior. These ingredients have resulted in lots of interactions going south.
Thirdly, let’s put you in this man’s position, we will make one assumption - that you know flipping a cop off is settled law and protected free speech. You’re driving home and you get pulled over. For what? You were just driving and not speeding, what gives? “Licence and registration. Do you know why I pulled you over? Because you flipped me off”. This is not a first level offence. This isn’t being on your phone. This isn’t driving without a seatbelt or speeding. This isn’t driving erratically. This cop just told you he’s going to ticket you because you flipped the bird, but you didn’t. You try to explain you didn’t and he’s going to get mad because you called him a liar. Now you have a citation in hand and you try and NOT swear and actually flip him off. He has deprived your freedom of speech and given you a ticket for it and you know it. If you’re gonna get a ticket you may as well do the crime right? So the officer, rather than writing another citation you know will get thrown, has your car towed. He settles you with a $300 tow AND a citation OVER A GESTURE that he is legally and constitutionally WRONG about, and you know he is. He then arrests you for it, and you spend an hour at the precinct settling this. Then when you’re free to go, you have to bum a ride to go get your fucking car. A month or so later, you have take time off work to go to court. You miss making probably another $300 because a day off. It gets dismissed because it’s a first amendment issue - you knew this would be the result all along. A minor feeling of vindication because you are now out $500 for missing work and other legal fees, maybe an Uber to go pick up your car, and have been harassed by a state patrolman, spent an hour in jail instead of whatever you were driving to go do. 3 years later the ACLU says "hey so you were right, and we want to sue over it. Would you NOT say “yeah fuck that dude” and sign on for it?
Minor footnote, he won 100,000, and 75,000 went to the ACLU
You’re making my point for me. If you’re super generous about paying this man for all his trouble, loss of freedom, court costs, etc. (and we should be) …and then you double that for good measure… and then you double THAT for punitive purposes (and yes we should)… You still are far short of $175k.
I’m only bringing it up because it’s our money as taxpayers. The ACLU should not be another piggy at the public trough.
The defense would be the state, the state failed to argue he didn’t deserve it, and the ACLU their cut. I don’t remember if the article said it was by judge or jury, but even when a jury comes out with X number a judge can still say “yeah no that’s too high, I’m awarding Y instead.” So either way it was achieved, a judge felt that this was a fair number. Idk what to say beyond that other than I wish I could make 100k off something so silly but that is a lot of bullshit to put up with to be right. ACLU deserves some cut for doing probably all this man’s legal grunt work and legal time since he likely didn’t pay out of pocket for a retainer.
But I get what you mean about tax dollars. It should have come from the department something more tangible for the state patrol to not do this again
You right they quickly get prohibitively expensive. But because of the 3 year gap idk if he asked them to sue or they thought they had a good case or what that arrangement looked like.
I would argue violation of our constitutional rights is worth more, and if you have a problem that it’s tax payers paying it and not cops, end qualified immunity, make cops carry liability insurance so when cops do fucked shit like attacking fundamental rights our country was founded on its not tax payers paying. The best way for the aclu to get that from government is by getting as much money from the tax payers as possible so when their state our county cant fix roads or keep schools open they can point to all the money spent settling lawsuits from shit cops and then maybe tax payers might start wanting cops to be liable for their shit behavior
This is also why corporate and/or establishment types can justify voting for non-conservative, populist Trump and his lackeys. They’re getting so obscenely rich and powerful thanks to Trump’s SCOTUS picks that nothing else could possibly ever outweigh the short-term gains for them.
Just think of all the dropped suits against 3M, Boeing, the Sacklers, and Big Oil, when Project 2025’s plan for Schedule F employees comes to fruition.
It’s because they are all fascists. “Conservative” in America is just a synonym. Fascism has always historically been a boon to corporations due to their integration into the corrupt machine.
Corporations could not care less if someone is “conservative,” what they care about is money, power, and control. And fascism seems to be a good way to get that done, while also having the added benefit (in their minds) of causing millions of humans to suffer.
I used to live downwind of an oil refinery, and at least once a year (sometimes 5 or 10 times in a year) there was an illegal emission that blanketed the entire town with particulate matter. The air quality would go from perfectly safe to barely breathable in minutes. As someone with asthma, I felt it immediately, and would have to lock myself indoors with an air purifier.
We’re going to be dealing with significantly more wildfires and increasingly poor air quality thanks to climate change, so the least we could do is ensure that businesses don’t fuck up the air more than it already is.
Fuck the supreme court for doing everything it can to make our lives worse.
trump is illegitimate because he coordinated with russia to tip the election in his favor. That’s illegal. His SCOTUS picks are illegitimate as a result of that (not to mention the perjury, cover up of rape and so on, but for this argument that’s not necessary).
Failure to impeach and a failure to rectify both the illegal campaign AND the attempted coup (who the fuck does anyone think planned and approved that shitshow anyway) means we’re in fucking la la land as it is, so if we can’t vote them out because 18th century slaveholders befucked a system that crooked pols refuse to fix . . . Well, then ya got problems.
God I’m so glad I live in California. We’re not perfect by any means but:
I used to live about 2 BLOCKS from a refinery and never had that experience. The one time there was even a vague issue that “might” have impacted health the FD came by and were like “GTFO were evacuating the area” and I went home that night to a safe and mot-covered-in-bullshit home.
And the supreme Court thinks making that normal everywhere is bad.
I want the rich to not be rich anymore, not for them to be killed. And I definitely don’t want children of rich people to be abused, because child abuse is bad.
Personally, I don’t care if the rich stay rich. I want the rich to pay a proportionate amount of their wealth in taxes, equal to or maybe even a little more than the proportionate amount I pay as a non fecal dragon sitting atop the mountain of gold I’ve shit all over. I also want rich to stop staying rich because their parents and parents’ parents (etc) were rich and paid to have the system rigged so their degenerate children can stay rich without merit.
Glad to hear that. The top comment is talking about the people that do think the rich should be killed. And those people co-existing with people that empathize with Paris Hilton on lemmy.
They do it to me all the time, apparently because I drive a Prius. It doesn’t even make sense. It still has an internal combustion engine. I guess they’re mocking me for not having to pay as much per month for gas as they do?
They don’t think that deeply about it. The Prius was the first mainstream hybrid vehicle. The first got really got attention for being more environmentally friendly. So it got the right-wing media’s attention and they turned their base’s hateboners onto it. Even with EVs, the Prius is still the “eco car” to most.
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