Counter offer: Pass a law barring people facing felony charges from running for President.
If it would keep you from owning a gun:
ATF form 4473, line 21c and d:
“c. Are you under indictment or information in any court for a felony, or any other crime for which the judge could imprison you for more than one year, or are you a current member of the military who has been charged with violation(s) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and whose charge(s) have been referred to a general court-martial?
d. Have you ever been convicted in any court, including a military court, of a felony, or any other crime for which the judge could have imprisoned you for more than one year, even if you received a shorter sentence including probation?”
Super easy for those in power to keep their rivals from being able to run for office. Currently the president and afraid you'll be unseated by the opposing party's candidate? Just start an investigation on them! Boom, no more rivals.
Assuming a corrupt system, yes. But in our current system? Not so much. Trump deserves each of his felony indictments and if it would keep him from buying a gun, which it does, it should block him from being Commander in Chief.
I don't think our current system is nearly as robust as you think. Trump's first term laid that bare.
So many laws dictating what the president can and can't do don't have any actual repercussions for breaking them written in them because it was assumed impeachment would be sufficient. Trump showed that with our current system that means if you can't guarantee you'll have 67 votes in the Senate, then those laws may as well not exist. And every week the Supreme Court shows how much "settled case law" isn't anymore, so with a corrupt high court in his league, even the laws that do have teeth may be subverted.
We absolutely need to make changes to shore up the system and plug the gaps, but we have to do so with care that we don't end up handing new, more powerful weapons to the very bad actors we're trying to protect against.
I think it’s important to consider just how… ickily inviolable most (if not all) of the right wing feels about the second amendment. I don’t think this line of logic would carry much weight with that crowd.
But I agree with what you’re saying. We need much more stringent controls on who is eligible for office.
The problem is not that Trump is under felony indictment. It’s not that he’s a liar, a cheater, a misogynist, narcissist, and elitist. It’s that, knowing this, a lot of people STILL support him for our nation’s top office. That’s how screwed up our populace has become. That’s the problem.
Totally agree. These systems are critically important for our society. They need to be considered with care, and we need to be mindful of the complexities that come with any changes to them.
The real solution is you need a populace that is civically engaged and capable of enough critical thought to not fall for the right-wing fearmongering propaganda Fox, OAN, Newsmax, Murdoch, et al. spew out.
Bingo. A properly funded and functional public education system, that teaches real critical thinking and let’s include media literacy while we’re at it.
Not saying that they were right, because they were wrong, but this was actually a presented logical reason why voting was restricted to male landowners at one point. They were the only part of the population that received a formal education. Regardless of motivation this became a method of oppression.
To be clear, I agree that public education is a key to a strong democracy, as is removing restrictions on voting.
Barring those under felony indictment from running for office could help maintain public confidence in the integrity of elected officials and the political process.
It sets a higher standard for candidates, emphasizing that those seeking public office should not be facing serious criminal charges.
It underscores the expectation that public officials should be free from wrongdoing and suspicion of significant criminal activity, cultivating a political environment where ethical behavior is prioritized.
Reducing corruption and preventing distractions
Individuals under felony indictment may be more susceptible to engaging in corrupt activities. Preventing them from running for office reduces the likelihood of corrupt practices infiltrating government.
Legal battles can be time-consuming and distracting, detracting from a candidate’s ability to focus on campaigning and, if elected, governing effectively.
If an elected official is convicted of a felony while in office, it could lead to their removal, necessitating a special election and causing disruption and additional costs.
If an elected official is convicted of a felony while in office, that individual may use the office itself to avoid sentencing outcomes.
Maintaining national security
[While I am less than thrilled to include this one, ] Allowing individuals under felony indictment to run for office could pose national security risks, especially if their past actions have compromised national security.
Individuals under the influence of external and independent nations may have resources beyond the intended scope of our elections process, giving them an artificial boost towards victory. This is akin to a complete capture of our Government in the case of the Office of the Presidency. Or near enough.
Cons:
Presumption of innocence and potential for political manipulation
In the U.S. legal system, individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Preventing those under indictment from running could be seen as undermining this principle by imposing a penalty based on an unproven allegation.
There is a risk that felony charges could be brought against candidates for political reasons to prevent them from running, exploiting the indictment process to eliminate competition and undermine the fairness of elections.
Limiting voters’ choices and potential for disenfranchisement
Such a restriction would limit the pool of candidates available to voters, potentially preventing them from choosing their preferred representative.
Voters may wish to support a candidate who, despite being under indictment, they believe is the best choice. Restricting candidates based on indictments can be seen as undemocratic and paternalistic.
Variable legal standards and unequal treatment
Different jurisdictions may have varying standards and processes for indictments, leading to potential inconsistencies in the application of this restriction.
This variability can result in unequal treatment of candidates based on where they are running for office, creating a patchwork of standards that complicates the electoral process.
Depending on how such a rule is applied, it could disproportionately affect certain communities that face higher rates of criminal legal system involvement.
My conclusion. This was stated elsewhere in the comments and is also my number one priority (aside from an alternative voting pipe dream):
-Education.
With an educated, well-reasoning and engaged populace, we don’t need the Government to coddle its voters. It’s a wonder Republicans are so against education and critical thinking skills.
One additional note that doesn’t really fit in the pros/cons list itself: This change would probably require a constitutional amendment, not just a standard law.
Yeah it’s there some unwritten rule against the press saying they killed him? Only good reason i can think of is they’re still waiting for the autopsy to confirm cause of death.
Because even though there’s a video showing that a cop killed a man, everybody (even cops) is innocent until proven guilty. Otherwise, you could get into a trial for slander and for having caused distress.
Yeah. The details are in the article. Officer had his knee on the victims upper back for at least 30 seconds while the victim begged the officer to move as he couldn’t breathe. At some point he stopped responding entirely while the officers were holding him. He needed immediate medial attention from the instant he stopped breathing. Instead of helping him officers told him “shut the fuck up you’re fine”. And only after he had stopped moving for 5 minutes did they check and realize he was dead.
The knee on the upper back position is illegal. The correct thing to do is to have 1 officer hold his shoulders steady and the other hand cuff him. If there’s only 1 officer present (which there never should be), there are many other holds that are not life threatening. I think it’s entirely fair and legitimate to say that they killed him. It’s not libelous, or exaggeration, they killed him and did not seek medical attention when he very clearly stated he wasn’t able to breathe. That’s manslaughter and negligent homicide at least.
Yes because it’s not an anti-police story, it’s a reporting of events with which you can use your brain to reach a conclusion. What you’re describing is better suited for commentary like this thread.
If you look at the URL the original published headline said ‘alleged murder’, it’s always more passive until something sticks, like a murder charge.
Edit: NBC is not doing their jobs correctly if they make assumptions about the cause of death. We’ve seen excessive force in similar situations being the direct cause of death but it’s not the job of these news outlets to make assumptions on your behalf. An assumption about something that was likely to have happened is still an assumption.
If NBC calls it a murder and a report comes out that definitively shows that the death happened concurrently but was not caused by the use of force then NBC is in the shit because they appealed to your emotions instead of reporting the facts.
One prospective juror, an older white woman, was struck from the jury pool by the judge after Trump’s legal team uncovered years-old social media posts that described Trump as a “racist, sexist” narcissist.
One of Trump’s attorneys called the posts “vitriolic.”
“She harbors a deep hatred for him,” said the lawyer, Susan Necheles. “She said that ’I wouldn’t believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized’” and that he was “anathema” to everything she was taught about love.
Even better - Conservatives: show me your personal medical records, I need to know if you are doing something I want to be illegal.
Also conservatives: what do you mean you want to check my mental health background before I can purchase a gun? Outrageous.
The whole LGBT stuff is such bullshit since it should 100% easily fall under first amendment expression it is retarded that they have not been trounced are every turn.
I knew that would be the one thing someone would comment on. I am not referring to someone with cerebral palsy, downs syndrome, ADHD, or any other affect that would cause the slowing of mental capacity. I am referring to politisication of something that has a clear constitutional argument to be made. Also, I was using it as a double entandre, one as to call the lawmakers and judges who support this bullshit mentally deficient, but also to say that the whole thing impedes progress, which is the very definition of the verb ‘retard’.
If I had been using it derogatorily towards someone of actual diminished capacity, I would need to do better. These are supposedly competent elected and appointed officials. As long as they actively retard the growth of my country, I will freely and happily call them retarded.
Fair enough, I appreciate the well articulated response and agree with your usage, but you said it right here:
I knew that would be the one thing someone would comment on
That’s the unfortunate state of things due to years of people using the word derogatorily. I applaud you trying to bring it back to proper usage, just be prepared that you will continue to get responses like mine and I doubt they’ll all be as considered as this was.
It is actually a word that I have been endlessly frustrated with the changes socially to its use. When actually discussing mental deficiencies in a medical sense, the phrase “mentally retarded” is a rare apt terminology. It is “the state if being inhibited from further mental or cognitive progress”, which fits the definition of the verb “retard” perfectly. I understand that socially it was widely used abusively and historically it has a dubious past medically at best, but linguistically it is perfect. I guess that is what frustrates me, because so few things in this world have such a linguistic, well, not perfection, but something to that effect. I guess my failure in words goes to rhetorically illustrate my point.
This attitude doesn’t really remove derogatory language, because idiots who want to be offensive just jump to stupid, new words, or else they turn words that we could previously use just fine into slurs.
Ah, but you see, there is no restrictions to owning a gun. Our forefathers believed so, even though at the time every gun was a single shot using black powder that wasn’t that accurate. They absolutely knew that one day people would have semi-automatic weapons able to fire off an obscene amount rounds in a minute, hitting a target accurately from a long distance.
Don’t forget that they were just coming out of a time of oppression and persistent existential fear, but were obviously clairvoyant enough to know that it would be a rule that held in what would be the absolute safest and most peaceful time the world has known in 200 years.
Trump and his company need to post a bond for the full amount by next week in order to stop New York Attorney General Letitia James from being able to collect while he appeals.
He doesn’t have the cash to pay, so when NY collects, they can start forcing sales on his property.
If he gets the bond, then it just sits there till after appeals. Which would prevent him from selling property he put up for bond, but he’d still own them.
If he misses that bond, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate
Back in the late '80s, Spy magazine had a plan to collect donations to purchase a condo in one of Trump’s buildings - which they were then going to donate to the outgoing president of the Industrial Workers of the World to retire in.
If a random loud bang from an acorn falling nearby is enough to get someone to behave like this, they really should not be walking around with a gun. This is completely insane and unhinged behavior.
I want to stress that I am in no-way attempting to excuse this cop, nor am I suggesting that there is any reasonable way to confuse the sound of an acorn with the sound of a gunshot. Even if there were, there is no justification for blindly “returning fire” in the general direction of the noise. That is so batshit crazy a scenario that it is completely irredeemable. This cop needs to be in prison.
That being said, I do want to comment on the capabilities of recording and playback. They completely lack the dynamic range necessary to make any sort of reasonable judgment on the intensity of the “bang”. What we hear in the video and what the officer heard in real life are two completely different things.
I have heard black walnuts (golf ball to tennis ball sized outer shell) hitting vehicles at close range. While they certainly can’t be reasonably confused with a gunshot, they are startlingly loud.
Again, I want to stress: completely unreasonable that an acorn hitting the cruiser could be confused for a gunshot, and criminally stupid to fire in the general direction of the noise.
Fun fact: ‘police officer’ isn’t even in the top 10 most dangerous professions in the US. It’s solidly beat by things like garbage collector, delivery driver, maintenance worker, and pilot. None of those professions typically carry weapons on the job.
Lots of police officers were former bullies with an inferiority complex. Some are wusses who only feel powerful because they’re carrying a deadly weapon.
Another fun fact: police in several other western countries don’t carry deadly weapons and yet are able to do their jobs just fine.
American police are trained to think everything and everyone is against them, through programs like David Grossman’s Killology course. Weird how a program designed to teach recruits to kill without empathy would result in people killing without empathy.
Elsewhere, police are learning de-escalation tactics, but police in the US are learning escalation.
It’s absurd, and leads to scared, trigger-happy morons shooting at acorns.
McDonald’s used to be viable because it was shit, but at least it was cheap. Now it’s just shit. I haven’t gone of my own will in years, only with other people who wanted it. $3 for a hash brown is absurd.
No man. McDonald’s used to be cheap, fast and decent. The original burger in 1955 was 15 cents, or about $1.75 today. Don’t forget how far things have fallen lol
It is known why the rivers are running orange. It is because the permafrost is thawing.
Sure, the exact, specific process causing the oxidation is being debated by scientists, but … the reason is because the permafrost is thawing.
Anyway, what this nearly certainly means is that the artic has already blown past the feared warming tipping point and is now releasing methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
This article should be focusing on how this likely indicates that climate change will intensify faster than commonly understood by the general public.
It’s more like the article is focusing on the wrong part of this story. The exact mechanism can be debated but we know what’s happening and why: global warming. The article just doesn’t want to acknowledge that so it focuses on the fact that science hasn’t conclusively figured out the mechanism.
It would be like saying “the glass feel of the table, but we don’t know why it hit the ground” just because we do not understand gravity in every way possible.
I don’t like your analogy. We understand the physics of falling pretty well. We do not understand the chemistry of this reaction.
Maybe “the glass fell because of humans”. Did they push it off a table? Drop it? Place it inn the counter wrong?
Edit: let me put it this way - the water could turn orange without a melting permafrost right? So while the change in this instance may be triggered by melting permafrost it is not a necessary condition. The cause is something more necessary.
What makes your think that we do not understand the chemistry here?
Where do we start the “x is caused by y”? The way it actually happened? Then melting permafrost is indeed the first step. If you want to go by how we ended up perceiving it, then you need to start, for example, at how the brown color came to be. Then where that came from. Then what caused it to be made. Etc.
There’s definitely a long chain of events that led to these rivers turning orange.
It would be unsatisfying to say “the universe coming into existence caused it”. You need to pick a level to stop at. You’re satisfied with “melting permafrost causes water to turn orange” but I think it’s very reasonable to step a level down. The title is accurate in that regard. The people complaining seem to want the article to be more political.
BTW this discussion reminds me of when Feynman was asked about magnetism.
News articles like this speak loudly about who this kind of news is written for.
The article headline makes it sound “dangerous” and “bad” for the “lenders.” Billions on the line!
It’s never “billions on the line for consumers!”
Profits for corporations are always treated by news media as a given and anything interrupting them, including people’s real lives, are less important.
If shoppers are buying less they should just try increasing the price. More revenue per sale you don’t even need those lousy shoppers who left! What could go wrong?
Victim still got charged with a felony after spending 5 months incarcerated waiting for trial, and has to wait another month in jail to find out if the judge will overturn his final charge.
Self-described “Goon” still walking around on the streets getting paid for harassing and assaulting strangers. As a bonus, nearly doubled subscribers.
This case is exactly why DA’s level stack multiple felonies in these cases.
Jury: Well this is clearly self-defense, but he also probably pushed it too far so we don’t think he is innocent. Better just give him one felony.
For those that don’t know, the American courts have interpreted the constitutional “right to bear arms” as void for felons. This guy who was just acknowledged to have used his firearm in self-defense, is no longer allowed to own a firearm for his own protection.
This guy who was just acknowledged to have used his firearm in self-defense, is no longer allowed to own a firearm for his own protection.
Good. Because that wasn’t self-defense, and he clearly doesn’t know what situations are appropriate for lethal force. Neither his life nor property were in any danger.
You know that his life wasn’t in danger because you know it was a prank. The defender here did not have the benefit of that knowledge.
When someone nearly a foot taller with 50 more pounds of muscle gets in your face and starts accusing you of thinking about their private parts, then you get to decide if self-defense is necessary. The defender tried to get away from the aggressor multiple times and told him to stop multiple times, but the aggressor obviously kept engaging.
Do you think he should have waited until the giant started punching or kicking him before he decided to draw his weapon? Should he have tried to punch the giant instead of using the weapon he has? Do you think you could outrun someone taller and in better shape than you are?
If the defender had multiple self-defense options he might have chosen another, but all of this is arm-chair quarterbacking. We weren’t there and the person that was chose the only real defense option they had.
This situation is entirely the Goon’s fault. He should be the one facing charges. While it might be reasonable to recommend a self-defense course for the victim, my understanding is that he already followed good self-defense principles.
Edit: Also, since no one else is saying it, I will. If the victim happened to have been gay, the aggressor probably would have been charged with a hate crime. The goon was clearly accusing him of it.
There wasn’t a threat or posturing like a bar fight. There needs to be some actual positive evidence to be able to claim you fear for your life. Even cops make up those reasons.
Seems to me that people are just happy about the annoying guy getting shot for shitty behavior, and they’ll rationalize it however needed.
There wasn’t a threat or posturing like a bar fight. There needs to be some actual positive evidence to be able to claim you fear for your life.
You don’t need to fear for your life just your safety. Those guys cornered him up against the counter and then followed him when he tried to get away, despite repeated requests to stop.
Seems to me that people are just happy about the annoying guy getting shot for shitty behavior, and they’ll rationalize it however needed.
There are plenty in this post that would take that stance. However, I am not one of them, and nothing in my comments indicates otherwise.
The driver owning a gun is not a danger to random members of society. His actions clearly indicate he is willing to deescalate the situation and try to walk away before defending himself. Even when he did fire, he didn’t unload the chamber at the aggressor and his friend, he fired a single round while continuing to try and leave. It was the bare minimum for the weapon he had available.
At any point, the self-described “Goon” could have ended this hostile interaction by just standing still.
I think that is a reasonable stance, one I even mostly agree with. If any of the charges were misdemeanors, I might even have let that one through myself with time served and a request to take a firearm safety or self-defense course. However, I think the judge would still be having to decide whether to throw it out in a month.
However, once you say the self-defense is justified, trying to tack on additional charges is pretty unfair to the defendant. If he had another method of self-defense with him, he might have used it, but he only had the firearm and he used the minimum amount of force possible with that tool.
As I said below:
The driver owning a gun is not a danger to random members of society. His actions clearly indicate he is willing to deescalate the situation and try to walk away before defending himself. Even when he did fire, he didn’t unload the chamber at the aggressor and his friend, he fired a single round while continuing to try and leave. It was the bare minimum for the weapon he had available.
It would be pretty reasonable to lay the entire situation at the feet of the instigator. I will be interested to follow a civil case if the defendant attempts to sue the aggressor.
Hey Mr. Tech journalist, why don’t you write about federated communities and get off the corpo-web? Help us all out with that big name of yours I’ve never heard.
Edit: oops. That was meant to be a top level comment. Whatever.
I would be shocked if he or his colleagues haven’t written about federated communities and the like.
But if he will have no engagement or meaningful interactions, why would he waste time managing and understanding social media for another platform? Like, this isn’t someone just shitposting. Building and maintaining his brand is a significant part of his job. Same with understanding what people may be interested in reading about to know how to steer stories and the like.
And we very much learned from the olden days that just mirroring the same post to every site doesn’t really do anything positive and mostly pisses people off when they realize they aren’t the audience.
Building and maintaining his brand is a significant part of his job. Same with understanding what people may be interested in reading about to know how to steer stories and the like.
If that’s your full time job then maybe dont outsource it to some random company that gets bought by some random dude…
He looks over 60, so he likely saw all the trans people and rainbows thriving there and his innate Boomer deep fear of something novel and amazing and different took over.
It’s not closed to the general public, any member of the general public can join as long as you get an invite. I’m not sure how to get invites as I don’t interact with BlueSky much, but I was invited by my brother and he’s nothing special on the Internet.
That's definitely fair. I've thankfully not seen that content.
The only content I've found that I care about were some of the more active folks on Twitter that had insightful takes or were occasionally funny like Popehat, Mike Masnick, and Kashana.
Just yesterday I had an interaction on Mastodon.social that gave me pause and made me question using even the Fediverse.
Someone posted about KOSA legislation coming to “protect children” from trans people like myself.
Somebody got in the conversation and had a link to an organization that actually uses the terminology “map” to refer to the people who are more properly called pedophiles.
I shut that shit down, deleted my comment, and am seriously considering deleting all of my Fediverse accounts.
Like, I’m not here to make friends, but I am not opposed to it either.
I am here to be informed, entertained, maybe sometimes outraged a little.
I’m not sure why one comment is enough to provoke such a reaction from you? Especially since I see these pedophiles and their apologists on other social media too.
To continue the previous comment, I want absolutely no association with people that like to play games with terminology like this.
I don’t want any connection with a person that would be okay with sexualizing children, or changing names of the evil people who do it under the guise of being tolerant or pc or some shit.
I don’t want any loli garbage, hentai, nazis, etc.
And that the Fediverse seems to not have any content moderation ( am I wrong/missing something?) makes me want to give up on it.
The fediverse isn't a unified whole. Some instances don't have moderation or have shitty inconsistent moderation. You should move to an instance like beehaw.org or lemmy.blahaj.zone if you want admins that don't put up with that shit. Both will ban users and other instances that do that allow that kind of shit. While lemmy.world seems fine with it, but if you call out their use of discord they may ban you.
That’s sick and gross and weird. What kind of websites have those type of videos and/or pics? What are the addresses to those sites? I want to make sure I never click on them.
I thought “Blue MAGA” was a fictitious organization used only by authoritarians cosplaying as lefties. MAGAs wouldn’t use it because the implication is that “Red” MAGAs are also brainwashed clowns in a cult (which is true, but they don’t like that fact).
When MAGAs are pretending that the terrorism their team commits is someone else’s fault I think they blame antifas or the FBI.
Plus it seems like some weird ass info to pull out of your pocket like someone insults you and you bring up a test score of theirs from 30 years ago as a response.
They shouldn’t let him sit in on the mudslinging strategy sessions. He doesn’t listen but then wants to participate. This is like how he was talking about drinking bleach, he heard something and is trying his best to repeat it.
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