“Our country has a longstanding tradition of forceful political advocacy regarding widespread allegations of fraud and irregularities in a long list of presidential elections throughout our history, therefore, President Trump lacked fair notice that his advocacy in the instance of the 2020 presidential election could be criminalized,” according to his attorneys.
Calling what he did “political advocacy” is a bit like calling what Jeffrey Dahmer did an “alternative diet”…
I'm pretty sure everyone in the federal government has had plenty of notice, since the US Constitution grants States the sole authority to operate elections.
…lacked fair notice that his advocacy in the instance of the 2020 presidential election could be criminalized
They’re trying to insinuate that it was only just made illegal after the fact, like he didn’t know that trying to commit election fraud was already a crime.
I swear they’re about to take the Hitler defense. Just say, “yeah! We did it! We tried to overthrow the government! But only because we looooooove this country so much… And sure, sure, y’all say we’re racist, but it’s clear you don’t understand just how racist we are. We are waaaaaay more racist than you can even conceive.”
Then his idiot followers will talk about how he speaks the truth and says what’s on his mind and he’ll get locked up for, like, a year, during which time he’ll pen his horrible instruction manual on how to destroy our country.
Unfortunately these were debts that already had the potential to be cancelled due to existing rules. Turns out, just nobody has been following the rules and actually cancelling those debts for all these decades.
It kinda sounds like they wouldn’t have been canceled if he hadn’t made the effort. That’s no difference from any other debt forgiveness that’s within his power.
This is actually a remnant of his larger plan for cancelling student debt being blocked. So if it should have been done anyhow, we’re now…celebrating presidents for… doing their jobs?
No, I'd prefer if a president did his job to begin with and didn't try to take loud credit for a program that wasn't his when he finally gets around to doing his job.
Yeah, doing the bare minimum shouldn’t be newsworthy. “Hey boss, I showed up on time and got my day’s work done”? He’d probably say “Okay good? You want a cookie or something?”
Is forgiving $132 billion in student debt the bare minimum of the job?
Because if that's your bar, then Biden is the only president in history who has done the bare minimum. If that's your standard, I'd think you'd be jumping for joy that a president has finally, in the entire history of the US, done the bare minimum.
Sigh, it’s the people that don’t vote. One day, they’ll start reading the articles, and they’ll slowly form constructive opinions, and make a choice that’s actually a choice. But until then they’ll stick to how everyone is bad because it’s easier than learning the truth.
"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" is the operating phrase here.
There's a lot of people demonstrating a sort of purity cult here in the fediverse, where they think anyone who isn't the savior of all humanity incarnate is thus no better than the worst possible choice. There's no nuance, and no consideration for realpolitik.
Look at the reactions to this post for goodness sake... These same users whine and moane about Biden in every other thread, and then here's a story about how Biden doing something good that they actually wanted him to do, and they moan and whine about how it wasn't good enough.
That’s how you end up with things like the rail unions where nobody knows that the administration worked behind the scenes after the legislation to get the workers what they wanted from the companies – and they successfully did that.
The Executive Branch has checks and balances over both of the other two branches of government. Part of that is discretion.
The Executive is not, at all times, bound to the direction provided by Congress (see: lack of enforcement of Marijuana laws). This frustrates many when the wrong decisions are being made. And we love it when the right ones are.
So someone had stopped performing debt relief as instructed by Congress. Discretion, good or bad. Then Biden directs that the instructions be followed.
He kind of didn’t have to do that. I’m glad he did and I think it’s the basics of doing his job… But he could have just not done it and reminded entities that running a campaign is expensive or that he’ll be retiring at some point.
All too often, the police act like wannabe Rambos - charging in with guns drawn, willing to shoot or kill any suspects in their way. The ONE time that this might have been welcomed and they decided to sit on the side and do nothing. Okay, maybe not nothing. They harassed parents who were screaming about their kids being killed.
Same thing with gun nuts defending the country from tyranny. Turns out when tyranny shows up wearing a red cap, defending the constitution isn’t urgent.
I’m a “gun nut”. And if I see any red caps patrolling my voting place? Well, I’ll just take a quick trip to the truck and back. And then we shall have a chat about just exactly what the fuck they think they’re doing. If I have to stand there with a, “ALL are safe to vote here!” sign around my neck, I will do so. (That actually isn’t a bad idea!)
That ain’t bravado. I’d be scared shitless, shaking in my boots. But I know history, I’m old enough not to GAF and my little kids are young enough that I need to defend their future.
(As you might gather, I’m in a strange place for an American voter.)
Time and time again: They’ll gladly act when they can use overwhelming force. But when they are up against a similarly armed individual (ar-15 firing similar rounds to the military, body armor, etc), they cower in fear. Sometimes SWAT will actually act, but usually in situations where they can more or less level the building with tanks and explosives.
Its one of the best arguments for gun control. Because if we didn’t have ready access to assault rifles that were literally designed for military purposes and that fire one of the nastier rounds in existence*, then maybe “a good guy with a gun” would have any effect at all.
And just in case anyone thinks bump stocks or illegal modifications will let them stand up to the army: the army has “real” tanks, air support, drones, and a lot more explosives per soldier. You won’t stand a chance and, if anything, a concealable pistol chambered for one of the small caliber/high velocity rounds is more effective for a resistance force.
Time and time again: They’ll gladly act when they can use overwhelming force. But when they are up against a similarly armed individual (ar-15 firing similar rounds to the military, body armor, etc), they cower in fear.
You mean twice? Uvalde and Cloward? I can think of other times where regular street cops did in fact charge in right away even in the face of killers armed with AR-15s.
Because if we didn’t have ready access to assault rifles that were literally designed for military purposes and that fire one of the nastier rounds in existence
The .223 / 5.56mm isn’t even CLOSE to one of the nastier rounds in existence. It’s an intermediate cartridge with low power relative to real rifle calibers like the 7.62, .308, or 30-06. At 100 yards or less, the distance most mass shootings take place, even a 12 Gauge shotgun is vastly more destructive.
…then maybe “a good guy with a gun” would have any effect at all.
Plenty of “Good Guys with a Gun” have ended shooters armed with shotguns and rifles. The issue isn’t one of weaponary but of numbers, there just AREN’T that many overall and the odds of there being one in the right place at the right time are nearly zero. They can be amazingly effective when it happens though.
And just in case anyone thinks bump stocks or illegal modifications will let them stand up to the army: the army has “real” tanks, air support, drones, and a lot more explosives per soldier.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Syria…the list of conflicts that show this to be false as very long. Full Auto fire, whether through illegal modification or Bump Stock is stupid anyway and even the US Military has put controls on its use.
…a concealable pistol chambered for one of the small caliber/high velocity rounds is more effective for a resistance force.
It’s so great that it’s commonly used by literally no resistance force anywhere in the world. It is commonly used by Concealed Carry Weapons Permit holders though…like the one in the link up above.
Nah, it’s the loud opinion in these threads that all gun owners hate children or something because they don’t support “common sense gun control.” Nuanced discussion isn’t allowed, only name calling group hate against gun owners is.
I feel ya. We can’t talk in forums like this because of posts like OP’s. Nothing will get better, only more polarized, and ironically, more death.
I think the issue is that liberals have an ignorant view of guns and gun owners. I used to, and ignorance is OK! But FFS, be willing to learn and engage. I call you on your BS, you call me on mine, we learn.
When we bring facts to the table, facts that can be argued in good faith, we’re immediately called baby killers. That’s not helpful. In fact, it’s harmful.
Cute little comments score internet points, but you’re not helping me change the world. In fact, you’re only pushing liberal gun owners like me away. Was that your intention?
You are not helping the debate. You are only hurting. Engage honestly, and be willing to listen, as I am, or STFU.
Yeah. Valuing firearms over human life isn’t a leftist, or even liberal, thing. It is a monstrous. And I am not going to comrpomise on human life. Because, again, monstrous.
Also,if you can stop masturbating furiously over dead kids for a few seconds, you might see that I was actaully arguing for a “common sense” gun law of just banning assault rifles/AR-15s on account of the .223/5.56 round having significantly higher penetration over most handgun rounds AND being spectacularly monstrous when moving through human tissue. But apparently, unless people are protecting your gun’s rights, they are “not listening”
But hey, thanks for being yet another gun nut who wants to make it clear that nothing is more important than THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS (and shoot kindergartners).
stop masturbating furiously over dead kids for a few seconds
Again, you’re hurting us all with shit like this. Now we are two more people who cannot have a sane conversation, cannot solve this, work for a better world.
nothing is more important than THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS (and shoot kindergartners)
The 2A exists, cannot be realistically overturned, and the courts uphold it to be a personal right to gun ownership. That statements are facts, not opinions. Those facts must be met head on, without the emotional vitriol you bring to the table.
Great thing to note! My 70’s elementary science teacher changed my life for the better, in 100 different ways. One thing she taught, every damned year, was “opinion vs. fact”. And the idea that emotions had no bearing on factual evidence. I was bored stupid. “Fine. Who doesn’t get this by now?”
It’s so odd to see people putting words and ideas in my mouth. OTOH, I’m used to it.
No one thinks they can fight the military, no one has these bizarre fantasies. At least not among us “normal” gun nuts. I consume a fair deal of gun content on YouTube, and while I may be biased because I shy away from the right-wingers, I get not a single whiff of what you’re talking about.
Can’t find my old post in /r/liberalgunowners, but no one imagines a toe-to-toe fight. The US military, and even the cops, depend on civilian smarts, labor and supply chains. And those are easily disrupted. People point to Vietnam and Afghanistan as examples of poorly armed locals successfully fighting back. And those fights weren’t in our literal backyards among our neighbors!
But to bring it closer to home; What does this particular lib do when the local Brown Shirts come knocking to disarm me “for my own good”? That seems a very real thing to me. So do I lay down and get on the train later? Or… what?
Thought experiment; Let’s magically take every gun from every citizen excepting cops and military. How long you think until the GOP drops the hammer and goes full-on fascist? Deterrence is a thing. MAD got me through the 70s and 80s.
As to your link on the lethality of AR-15 rounds, paywalled, but I’m familiar. .223 or 5.56 rounds are tiny and hella fast. (My smart-assed take here: imgur.com/a/kolUESz.) The article’s take is for people unfamiliar with the horrific damage rounds of all sorts impart. tl;dr: Bullets don’t punch holes like an icepick. Shoot an empty vs. full can of beer with a .22, you’ll get it quick. A bullet is the response of last resort.
(And BTW, an AR-15 is illegal to hunt with in some states because the round is not lethal enough for a clean kill.)
And yes, the AR-15 is a military rifle. The title, and possibly the poster (don’t know his work), is revolting, but none the less, this is a solid history lesson. I had not thought all that through, but yes, the US civilian has always had better arms than the US military. The “military rifle/round” argument falls flat with me.
Look at it through a modern, more liberal lens and say, “I sure wish the cops could outgun us all! They’re perfectly trustworthy utilizing deadly force!”
Right people make fun but this is a longer term strategy to make the poll workers quit so they can be replaced with actual fascists who will actually shred ballots of anyone who looks too Democrat.
I don’t really understand how the US voting system works. But if enough people in states he would have lost decide “Fuck it, not worth the risk of going out to vote”, even if that includes people who would have voted for him, would that benefit him? Reducing voter turnout across the board in states he’d have lost? Legit curious if that might be his goal or if that makes no sense.
When fewer people vote, Republicans tend to win. They’ve even outright admitted this at times. This is why so many Republicans are in favor of enacting rules that limit voter participation. If the Republicans can prevent enough people from exercising their right to vote, then they might win. If too many legal voters cast their ballots, the Democrats will win - and that can’t be allowed!
Republicans won’t stay home out of fear. They’re the ones with the bulk of the guns anyways and seems a large body of them are itching for a manufactured reason to use them.
It was a law Georgia added after Trump lost. Part of the “election integrity” things they were doing. People can literally wait hours in line at some voting locations. If they legislated that each precinct was required to regularly give out water to those in line, then it wouldn’t have been so bad. I believe it was a bad faith change.
To this day, Trump claims that he actually won in New York and California, among other safe blue states. Fit the record, the last time NY went red was 1984 and the last time California went red was 1988.
Trump’s convinced that there was “voter fraud” that turned those states blue, when they’ve been blue for over 30 years. He thinks that, if you removed all the “voter fraud,” he really won in every state.
My guess is that he thinks voting for a Democrat is voter fraud and wants his violent mobs to make sure no “voter fraud” takes place. If he’s elected President, I fear that we’ll still have elections, but in the way Russia holds elections. “Do you want to vote for Trump or do you want to be sent to prison?”
Exactly. We’d still have “elections” to “prove that we’re still free,” but it would be just for show. Even if you somehow didn’t face consequences for voting against Trump, your vote would be tossed for being voter fraud. (Because all votes against Trump would be called fraudulent.)
It’s not that simple. Swing states have a divide between cities and rural counties. If you scare enough voters away in cities, those swing states become easier to win. It has nothing to do with the states he will lose, and everything to do with the ones he needs to win.
Problem here is people in cities don’t scare easily. If a rural mob of ppl comes rolling through my city policing the polls, its going to cause a huge shitshow but it won’t keep anyone from voting. Hell, it might drive turnout among some that were planning on not voting out of apathy. We city folk fight back. Trump sends his brownshirts here, they’ll get bloody noses at the very least.
They’re pretty basic here too. That doesn’t mean there aren’t scummy ass banks that still don’t offer them, and rely on the company name to get customers. Many old banks don’t offer most of this unfortunately, and most people don’t go looking for new banks often and get screwed.
Basic finance is easily one of the most important life skills anyone can pick up, right ght besides cooking and understanding when people might not have your best interest in mind.
How do execs not understand the Streisand Effect yet? If DeNiro had just made the speech and criticized Trump and the industry, I never would have read past the headline. Good for him for speaking out, but I’m good and over “celebrity bashes Trump” stories. Ah but Apple censors Trump criticism, well now you’ve got my click and my eyeballs. So dumb. Also evil. But mostly just dumb.
Yes, but now they have plausible deniability. They only care that they're not taking the blame for it, not that it's being said. "We tried to stop it, don't blame us".
What worse is, I was thinking of watching the movie, but knowing it’s Apple, and knowing all the control they try to push on the content, then maybe is not worth it.
Truth is an absolute defense in cases like these. They admitted to the facts of the case. The testing methodology is absolutely standard. There is no way Musk can prevail.
I just wonder if this will also fall under anti-SLAPP laws, since Musk is clearly doing it to shut down public disclosure and discussion.
Ok got it, and since this was always going to be filed in Federal Court, the jurisdiction didn’t particularly matter as far as anti-SLAPP laws are concerned
as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform
The thing is that it looks like Musk is going to mount a technical defense. There's likely to be an admission that there's all kinds of Nazi crap on Twitter and that they allow it to roam free, within it's own little echo chamber. The whole "it's not what the average user experiences" tells me is that what they're going to do is cover the keywords that unlock the Nazi echo chamber and how that sequence of required words aren't in some top 5,000 search terms on the site.
I'm pretty sure the entire point will be to sow some distrust on Media Matter's manner by which they got those screenshots. Basically an argument of "Well, yeah, if you search Nazi 100,000 times and then Apple 100,000 times, we're going to absolutely show you Nazi + Apple stuff. But the number of users who have that as their search history, we here at Twitter, can count on one hand."
The idea is to not deny that it is possible to get Nazi + Apple, but to indicate that the chances of getting it are so rare that Media Matters had to know that their research was contrived. I don't think they're going to deny one ounce of what Media Matters presents to the court, I think what they're going to try and do is shift what the underlying question is on the matter. Basically, shifting it to "this happens to rarely that you just have to go out of your way to get it to happen."
Media Matters will need to keep focus on their broader topic. "X admits that such a combination can happen, they indicate that it is super rare, but there is no way that X could have calculated every permutation. Because of that, the arguments of Media Matter stand firm in that such CAN absolutely happen and X has no idea the frequency of it."
And the fact that X has filed in a very friendly to them courtroom, it's likely that the court is going to entertain the more technical merits of the case rather than the broad questions. It'll absolutely put Media Matters in a very hard position.
There is no way Musk can prevail.
First rule of any kind of litigation. Don't ever say never. Law is black and white but the people who enforce it and judge it are still fleshy emotion pods.
Musk is clearly doing it to shut down public disclosure and discussion
Yeah, they signaled that’s what they’re going to argue but I don’t think it matters. That’s the standard way of doing that kind of research.
Lining up with any given ad is going to be a function of the number of buys for that ad and the number of locations on a page it could be shown on. That, times the number of users will give you the ability to estimate how many times that happens.
Not having the source code or the business rules for ad picking, the only way to simulate the experiences of millions of daily users is to load the pages over and over again and see what it produces.
IBM and Apple know pretty well how Internet advertising works. They were concerned enough to pull their spends because they were guaranteed this wouldn’t happen, and then it did. It’s really as easy as putting a flag like racist=true on the ad, then having the advertisers contract allow them to opt out of racist ads.
In fact, it’s so simple and such a solved problem that the only reason it wouldn’t be working is if Elon fired the staff that oversees trust and safety and signals that it’s not a concern of twitter’s.
Which he did.
Even if he managed to hand pick his judge, he will lose on appeal. This is a SLAPP with a chilling effect, and I’ve done research on network effects using internet searches as part of the data set, and I can tell you that they followed accepted academic practice.
Musk’s sole argument will be that they didn’t say how often it happened out of how many attempts, but the breadth and variety of the documented instances shows it’s not uncommon when you’re talking about millions of daily users.
Either he knows he’s going to lose and is just doing this to get his narrative into headlines, or he’s got full blown narcissistic rage.
And I don't disagree with you one bit there. But Texas' anti-SLAPP law is the Texas Citizens Participation Act and it used to be one of the strongest in the country. In 2019, it was modified by the Texas Assembly to introduce a lot of gray area and weaken it considerably.
So I don't disagree with the assertion that this is absolutely frivolous. But Texas' current laws on the book are likely to give Musk enough room to avoid challenges on that aspect.
and I can tell you that they followed accepted academic practice
Oh no doubt, that's the point. To sow doubt on that whole process.
IBM and Apple know pretty well how Internet advertising works
Oh yeah, the notion that they're indicating that Apple pulled their revenue because of "THIS REPORT" is just them grasping. But Musk is absolutely banking that IBM and Apple won't file brief with the Judge to provide more motivation to stick to the broad questions put forward by Media Matters. Business wise, this case isn't bringing dollars back to the platform, it is just being vindictive. Musk had his feels hurt and now he wants to hurt something else.
he’s got full blown narcissistic rage
I'm going to guess that one. Just the way Musk's been talking about this case, it feels like this one got deep under his skin.
This isn’t as ridiculous as the headline makes it out to be. You still need to be licensed, which means a college degree. You can’t get through college without reading. They’re trying to get more teachers by reducing restrictions, although what they should be doing is making being a teacher a higher paying, less grueling job.
My mother was a Special Education teacher for 40 years and was at the top of her pay scale at 89k. I work in tech and 5 years out of college I was making 4 grand less than her. 5 years later I’m now applying to remote jobs where they’re offering $60-75/hour or upwards of $150k/year! I worked for Disney+ and was making $110k/year not including benefits and was literally doing nothing half the time, meanwhile she would literally have to bring work home with her multiple times a week. People I graduated high school with were working in her district and were making like $35-45k/year which is fucking ridiculous.
Is FORT a good test to require teachers to take? The test seems rather difficult if it is a problem for college educated adults. What skills are lost by allowing professionals who can’t pass the test?
How messed up is the current school funding situation? School-age children as a percentage of the population is dropping, so it isn’t like we need more children as a percentage of the population. If school budgets kept up with inflation, we shouldn’t need teachers to take a vow of poverty.
School budgets are paid out of city property taxes, which are mostly paid and voted on by old people who own homes with no mortgage and little chance of increasing their income. They also don’t have young kids and are probably Republican.
They’d gouge their own eyes out before they’d vote to raise their own property taxes to pay for something that doesn’t benefit them.
Right-wing political philosophy is becoming so authoritarian that we’re really harassing people who just lost their pregnancy, treating them like criminals until proven otherwise.
There’s no surprise. Nobody is. Place has been a warzone since before I was born, and will be long after I’m dead.
They’re just getting all the juicy pictures of dead kids to sell their papers.
Give it a week and they’ll be a massive flood in Bangladesh or somewhere, and they’ll forget all about dead Israelis and Palestinians, and we can have a good old look at a load of water bloated brown corpses instead.
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