The next steps would be ordering the justice department to prosecute him, going to court, and appealing all the way to the new Supreme Court so they can overturn the precedent. Which would require either moving very quickly or preventing the other side from taking power, one way or the other.
Of course, by then pandora's box is open. As long as someone is willing to follow those kinds of orders, nothing would prevent the next president from doing the same thing. It's a slippery slope not unlike the one that caused Rome to go from being a republic that viewed regicide as a fundamental virtue to an empire that would persecute groups for denying the divinity of the emperor.
This decision so blatantly ignores the constitution, history, tradition, case law, and all available evidence, that I have to question why they even bothered writing such a long decision. They might as well have just said "Fuck it, we say Trump is immune. Eat shit America, we can do whatever we want."
I had felt the same way, until they ruled that partisan gerrymandering is constitutionally protected, that racial gerrymandering can only be unconstitutional if it doesn't provide a partisan advantage to one side, and that the court must assume that legislators are acting in good faith because their need to not be embarrassed outweighs the constitutional rights of the people and the need for honest elections. I read that decision and said "shit, they're gonna rule that Trump's immune."
I never thought the Court would put out a decision that could rival Dred Scott for worst in history, but these asshole's have put out multiple contenders for that title in a single term.
Fucking insanity.
Civil immunity makes sense because anyone can sue anyone for anything at anytime, and allowing people to sue the president for official acts would leave him vulnerable to a nonstop barrage of lawsuits. Crime doesn't work that way. The only way the president should be facing criminal prosecution is if he's breaking the fucking law. That's kind of the opposite of what the president is supposed to be doing. You know, faithfully executing the laws and all that. If a presidential action violates the law, it can't really have the legitimacy that's being presumed for all official acts here, because by definition it violates his official duties under the constitution.
Now, I would never suggest that a sitting president order the unlawful detention or summary execution of political opponents and/or corrupt justices. But I might suggest that, in the interest of national security, that he order intelligence agencies to troll through communications records, financial records, etc. to search for signs of treason and corruption at the hands of foreign powers. And if that search should happen to find evidence of any kind of illegal activity among his political opponents or on the Court, well...
France on Sunday took a step closer to delivering what was once seen as an unthinkable nightmare: a far-right government taking power in Paris for the first time.
Well... the first time in a while. And just as the last time was exiting living memory.
I'd vote for ToS era Pike over Trump. I'd vote for a candidate who only communicates via ouija board over Trump. I'd vote to not have a president for 4 years before I'd vote for Trump.
It's crazy that Trump can get convicted of fraud, be found liable for sexual assault, promise to abuse presidential power to get revenge against those who cross him, actively undermine both national and global security, promise to round up millions and put them into camps, attempt to overthrow the election and refuse to not try it again, and so on, and his side is still so loyal they'll wear solidarity diapers for him.
They need a format that breaks the debate up into sections and actually includes fact checking, and a cross examination after each section. Have a team scrambling to find the records, studies, video clips and other evidence that they can bring up. Someone who is mostly honest gets lay ups and affirmation. Someone who lies constantly gets called out and put on the defensive.
Wouldn't happen of course. Even if the hosts were down to have someone take on a more adversarial role, Trump would never agree to something that actually holds him accountable for spewing nothing but bullshit. It's his entire strategy, if he can't sell snake oil he has nothing to sell at all.
This means that anyone who doesn't like a particular rule or regulation can pick a venue with a friendly judge, challenge it in court, and likely get the outcome they want. Even if judge shopping wasn't a major problem right now, this would still be a bad idea. The reason Chevron told judges to defer to agencies in matters where the interpretation is ambiguous is because those agencies have the experience and and expertise to understand the issues involved far better than a judge who has to try to master the subject from inside the courtroom.
This is all the more crazy in light of the recent racial gerrymandering decision, where Alito not only ignored the deference that appeals courts are supposed to show to trial courts (where the case is actually experienced and not just summed up in a brief) but then says that the judicial branch must defer to the legislators when they claim that they are being fair. So judges can just override the executive branch in subjects that they likely do not understand, but they can't actually contradict the legislature over something like whether a policy is violating someone's constitutional rights, despite that being one of their core functions for the past couple of centuries.
Well, for starters, it's over 50 grand for the base vehicle, and that's before adding the bed. And it's bigger than what I'm looking for.
What I want is something more like an electric version of the Ford Maverick, but one that adds to the bed length by switching to a regular or extended cab, and by moving the cab forward a bit since we no longer need to accommodate an engine. I want different proportions, but the same basic size and price (obviously making it electric likely comes with a price increase, but that shouldn't be enough to double it).
Precedents get overturned from time to time, and the way that generally happens is when a new case comes along challenging that precedent.
Maybe this goes nowhere. Maybe a conviction gets overturned on appeal. But maybe we could see a new precedent set. Might as well try, you're probably not going to find a better case to do it any time soon.
I just want a reasonably sized two door electric truck with a decent sized bed and only minimal space taken up by the frunk. I haul enough stuff that I could really use the cargo space, but I don't want to drive an aircraft carrier on wheels that doesn't fit into parking spaces. And I don't want it collecting as much data as possible on me, but that's not just a truck thing.
So, my options are basically leave the country, drive a 30+ year old ICE truck, or start my own car company. Because despite the fact that there is clearly demand for a smaller truck that's actually a truck, no one is interested in making them for the US market. Not when you can make a big useless luxury truck that has a much larger profit margin.
Why do people defending Star Wars keep shitting on sci-fi and fantasy? "It's just a movie about space wizards with laser swords" they say, as though having fantastical elements negates all criticism.
The original trilogy isn't schlock. It's fun, relatively lighthearted adventure in a fantastical setting. It has its flaws, but there is genuine artistry there, and it resonates with people because of that.
And even if I am looking at classic Star Wars through nostalgia goggles, that doesn't invalidate criticism of new Star Wars stuff. Rise of Skywalker is a train wreck of a movie all by itself, no comparison needed.
Trump was the keynote speaker at the Faith & Freedom Coalition in Washington DC, a gathering of politically influential conservative Christian activists who advocate for strict abortion restrictions and a tougher stance on the southern border.
Yes, I often reflect upon Jesus's teachings regarding the border. And all those times he talked about how we should crack down on immigrants. He was so famously against things like, the poor, foreigners, and your neighbors. Clearly these people are doing God's work.
At this point I'm almost surprised that Trump's lawyers haven't tried filing motions going through all the classic sovereign citizen arguments. Think of how long they could delay by spending a week arguing about tassels on the flag, and another week on whether the charges apply to Trump or if they only apply to TRUMP.
Seems like the first step should be taxing those personal loans that are being used as income. That seems like a simple fix (simple by tax code standards, I'd still expect such a law to be ridiculously complex).
I do worry about the unintended side effects a of a wealth tax targeting stock ownership directly. That just gives the rich an incentive to squeeze more value out of their investments in order to cover their tax bill. And it seems like it would likely push private companies into selling out more as they grow since the money has to come from somewhere, thus giving even more incentive to cave in to investors who just want to make a quick buck and don't care about the long term survival of the company.
Because they could sell them as new games.
Fallout is hot right now thanks to the show, and from a business perspective its kind of crazy that they didn't plan to have something available to capitalize on that interest. A Fallout 1 & 2 remake or remaster would have been an easier option than a whole new game. And it's the kind of thing you can outsource to another studio, so it doesn't have to disrupt their current plans.
If I were some soulless executive at Microsoft, I'd have been getting this put together the second I saw that the show was a huge hit. I'd be trying greenlight remasters of basically all the games, plus a new non-numbered game in the series that could have limited scope but keep the same basic flavor, and maybe a new game in a different genre altogether. Things that could be handled by other developers and pushed out over a reasonable time frame so we could at least have something to announce before season 2, while letting Bethesda keep Fallout 5 for whenever they finally get around to it.
His support in Wisconsin is largely outside of Milwaukee. And his core MAGA base wouldn't stop supporting him if he showed up and took a shit on their porch. Hell, they'd probably agree with Trump about Milwaukee (regardless of how they felt before Trump said anything) rather take any offense.
But of course, I also assume that Trump didn't think about anything like this before opening his noise hole. He just says whatever nonsense passes througg his failing neurons and manages to escape his mouth.
On the one hand, yes, these movies are products being churned out for profit by a corporate machine that cares more about marketability than creativity or quality. Anyone signing up for a big studio blockbuster production (superhero movie or not) should know exactly what they are getting into.
On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with actors in flopped movies pointing out that they flopped in no small part because they are the product of a system that seems focused on everything but the quality of movie being made.
And it absolutely can be life changing when it works. Just look at the early MCU movies and tell me that they didn't have a huge impact on careers. Of course younger actors who take these roles are hoping they will be life-changing. You don't become a superstar by doing nothing but small independent arthouse films that kill at festivals and award shows and are never seen by the general public.
And finally, I gotta call bullshit on the assumption that you can't have artistry or depth in movies based on "some fucking universe for cartoon characters." There's no reason why a superhero movie (or any other genre film) can't be more than just a two hour trailer for itself, or a soulless vehicle for merchandise. It's not the medium that the IP came from that determines the artistic value of the movie adaptation, it's the people making the movie (and the suits controlling them) that determine whether it will be a cinematic masterpiece or further proof that AI generated movies are inevitable.
And don't get me started on modern conveniences.
It seems like all the other markdown stuff works, but we're missing superscript and subscript in connect. As a frequent user of footnotes,1 I would greatly appreciate support for these tags.
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1 Great for citations, explanations, or really stupid tangents