Crazy that we didn’t have this already.

Also, how long before a Texas Judge overrules it thanks to Chevron being overturned?

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…

What’s really clobbered Firefox has been the rise of smartphones, where Firefox has very limited uptake.

That’s fucking crazy, because Firefox has been far better than the default options for as long as I’ve had a smartphone. I only recently dumped chrome on desktop for Firefox, but I took one look at Chrome when I got an android and immediately dumped that shit.

She believed it only because she had experienced many similar revelations during the last few years, ever since she heeded Trump’s warnings about the “corrupt, lying mainstream media” and decided to disconnect her television. Her friends introduced her to far-right media platforms online like Mike Lindell’s Frank Speech and The Elijah List, where each day she listened to a rotation of self-proclaimed patriots, biblical prophets and also sometimes political figures like Lara Trump. They offered Zakas not only conspiratorial ideas but also the promise of a community that extended far beyond the loneliness of her house, with a grandfather clock ticking away in the living room and views out the window of an emptiness that stretched clear into California. Each day, something urgent was happening in the far corners of the internet — something big and dark and secret, and that knowledge fueled her days with both purpose and agency.

A major part of the problem is that a large portion of the population will always choose the lies that resonate with them over the truths that bother them. And while I would love to see legal consequences for fraud and defamation when possible, that can only reduce the damage being done, and force the bigger names in misinformation to stay in a gray area of half truth and innuendo while still misleading people for economic and political gain. They can still lead people to the wrong conclusion, they just need to phrase it as a question rather than a statement (Note: This is a massive oversimplification).

I don’t see a good solution to the problem. Any tool strong enough to stop media that isn’t just overtly committing fraud and slander is a tool that will also likely be used to silence dissent and legitimate free speech.

She came to believe, along with millions of others, that Covid was a creation of the federal government used to manipulate the public and steal elections; that two doses of the vaccine would make men infertile; that Trump had been anointed to lead a “government cleansing”; that fighting had already begun in underground military tunnels; that Trump’s election in 2024 was preordained by God; that he would return to power with loads of gold collected from other countries that had capitulated to his power; that, during his next term, Americans would have free electricity, zero income tax and “medbeds” powered by a secret technology that could harness natural energy to heal diseases and extend human life; and that the only thing standing in the way of this future was a deep state so malicious and vast that its roots extended all the way into tiny Esmeralda County.

But maybe psychiatric help would be a good place to start.

Or a constitutional right to censorship.

The NDA was apparently against voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. Essentially, it was agreeing to only cooperate to the extent required by law.

That’s still bad, but wouldn’t overtly compel someone to commit a crime. It’s just heavily implying that crimes are being committed and could easily push someone to do something illegal simply to cover their own ass.

Letting fascists seize power will not make it easier to get rid of them. If you think it’s hard to stop them now, wait until they have a chance to purge the government of anyone who opposes their agenda, and wield the full power of the federal government without restraint or oversight. They have the insurrection act and they aren’t afraid to use it. And nearly half the people will cheer them on because they get their news from propaganda outlets that will reassure them that the protestors are the bad guys and the soldiers stomping their heads are the good guys. To say nothing of the kind of insidious shit they can do to suppress dissent using the IRS, the justice department, the NSA, etc.

Sacrificing democracy, the rule of law, and what little institutional opposition we have to authoritarianism is not going to help us in the long run.

The Supreme Court just ruled that racial gerrymandering is ok as long as it’s intended to advantage one party over the other. They gave a thumbs up to rigging elections and fundamentally undermining democracy and described it as a legitimate purpose. And if that wasn’t enough, they went on to rule that courts must tip the scales in favor of politicians who are defending against charges of racial discrimination, even if the evidence overwhelmingly supports the accusation, adding unique barriers to racial gerrymandering cases so that they are essentially impossible to win. That decision took away the one remaining tool that was available to fight the GOPs national strategy of going all in on gerrymandering and locking in power in every state they can.

Now, I’m sure you can probably think of other Supreme Court decisions that the current 6-3 court has made which were not exactly great. And those will keep rolling in until the make up of the court changes, which could happen at any time. If Trump gets to appoint another justice or two, he’d likely be able to lock in the right leaning majority for decades.

The undermining of democracy and the extremism of the Supreme Court should be reason enough to recognize that the damage Trump can do would outlast whatever political calculus goes into the next Democratic primary. But add to that his stated intention to eliminate the norms of that keep the justice department and IRS independent so that he can weaponize the entire executive branch to attack his rivals and carry out his petty Vendettas. Add his open hostility to NATO and Ukraine, and his unwavering support for Putin even as he threatens further military aggression. And let’s not forget his stated plans to rollback environmental regulations. Oh, and let’s not forget the part about how he’s planning on rounding up millions of people and putting them in camps. Plus, you know, the fact that he’s siding with Israel all the way, and doesn’t give two shits about genocide in Palestine or anywhere else. And that’s ignoring the crazier shit he might do.

Give me a break. The lesser of two evils thing is played out, it’s precisely what brought us right to this point. It’s time for neolibs to wake up, there is no way to avoid what is coming by voting for more corporate careerist shitheads, it doesn’t work. There is no “comfortable” way of weathering the confrontation with fascism that needs to happen.

You going to go out there and gun down the bastards? Because they don’t give a fuck about protests. They’re happy to send cops in to assault protestors, and then use the protests as fuel for fundraising. If you want to have an effect, your options are voting and political participation (potentially including protests), or a whole lot of assassinations. Unless you think that some signs and gas masks will somehow solve the partisan divide and bring the people together in a massive unified front that can overthrow the government and all it’s entrenched interests, and that this is somehow more plausible than being able to convince people to support better candidates in primaries and at the state and local level.

So racial discrimination and disenfranchisement is acceptable, as long as it’s in service of rigging elections and undermining democracy? Jesus fucking christ Alito, I know you’re a corrupt piece of shit that shows utter disdain things like justice and the rule of law, but this is taking things to another level entirely. At this point it looks like you’re trying to beat Dred Scott for the title of worst Supreme Court decision ever.

I think I need to officially change my bet. The Court probably will rule that absolute presidential immunity is a thing. I mean why not? The reasoning here is that politicians can do literally anything that isn’t specifically called out as forbidden by the constitution, no matter how egregious or corrupt it may be.

Since we can’t rely on even the tiniest hint of deference to even the most basic of legal principles, the only thing left that I can point to to argue against that outcome is the fact that it would immediately give Biden cover to open up 6 seats on the Court. I doubt they’d take that threat seriously, God knows I don’t. But after this, I don’t think I can even argue that a call to seal team six in that scenario would be doing less damage than leaving the Court in place as the grave diggers for liberty, equality, democracy, and the rule of law.

TL;DR: The decision was bad and everyone should feel bad.

And on the flip side, Trump is erratic, emotional, and extremely narcissistic. He demands absolute loyalty, but will turn on people in an instant. He is pretty much the last person on earth you would want to rely on, and there’s basically no depths he won’t sink to in order to get what he wants out of you. Just look at the way he treated other Republicans on January 6. Look at all the people he’s cheated, attacked, or simply discarded when they were no longer useful.

If I were a Republican, even one on the far right, I would still rather try to work with Biden to reach some sort of compromise on the things where that would be possible than take my chances working with Trump.

The case presented the court with the tricky issue of how to distinguish race from politics. The state argued that partisan politics, not race, and a population boom in coastal areas explain the congressional map. Moving voters based on their politics is OK, the Supreme Court has held.

This right here is the real problem. Partisan gerrymandering is essentially no different than allowing the party in power to declare that their party only needs 40% of the vote to win an election, while requiring everyone else to get over 60% to win. It’s a method of rigging elections. Giving it a thumbs up is a direct attack on democracy, and is among the worst things the Court has ever done.

We need an updated voting rights act and a very different Supreme Court.

Don’t worry, it might still bubble up to the surface in the hallucinations of an AI.

Oh look, a troll.

Ukraine is a major global food supplier. The war has directly impacted food prices. And if Russia succeeds, it will only encourage more conflict of this kind. And that’s ignoring the possibility that this will escalate into an even larger conflict because Putin decides that NATO’s resolve is weak enough that article 5 is no longer a plausible threat.

Also, that stupid argument applies just as much to funding schools, cancer research, fighting climate change and basically all other functions of government that serve the public good. We should do more to address economic issues, but that doesn’t mean we should stop doing everything else.

My dad used to tell me “It’s a lot harder to carpet the world than it is to wear shoes.”

Ambitious redesigns of existing infrastructure are neat, but they are rarely more efficient or practical. Especially when you are overengineering to solve an issue that’s already been dealt with. A self cleaning room requires a lot of additional hardware, all of which has to be designed, built and installed, and has to be powered and run by software that needs to be programmed. It also needs to be maintained, and depending on how it’s cleaning things, it may also be dangerous, or at least capable of damaging property (ever have a motion activated light turnoff while in a bathroom stall? now imagine it triggers steam jets). Not to mention the potential hazards of water damage on a room if anything goes wrong.

Or, you can buy a mop for 0.1% of the price.

Humanoid robots can escape this problem because versatility adds value. The upfront cost may be tens of thousands of dollars, but for that price you’re getting something that solves many, many problems. They can potentially go from task to task, filling a multitude of roles, and ideally with minimal down time.

It also helps that we can use existing processes to train them. They can observe human workers performing a task, attempt to replicate that task, and use feedback to improve. And that’s critical because the hardware is the easier part, it’s software that’s the real challenge.

Watters has alleged without evidence that “liberal activists” are lying to get on the jury, a claim that Trump himself has repeated on Truth Social, potentially violating a gag order.

It’s like they saw Trump, Giuliani and Alex Jones all get absolutely fucked in court for defamation, contemplated their own settlement with Dominion and the 2.7 billion dollar lawsuit pending from Smartmatic, and said to themselves “now seems like a good time to endanger innocent people by spewing inflammatory bullshit.”

Not that I expect them to learn a lesson if they aren’t bankrupted or actually sent to prison.

It’s easier to build a specialized robot for one task than to create a general purpose robot to handle that task. However, as the technology matures, I think it becomes much more practical to create a general purpose robot that’s capable of performing millions of tasks than to create millions of different specialized robots. Not only is that far less to design, source parts for, build and maintain, but it also makes it much easier to repurpose them as needs change. The same basic design can potentially be used for factory work, household chores, new construction, search and rescue operations, food service, vehicle maintenance, mining, caring for kids/elderly/pets, building and maintaining other robots, etc. We’re not there yet, but that’s where this kind of technology could potentially take us.

The advantage of a mostly humanoid robot is that it’s versatile and can use existing solutions built for people. Yes, you could replace the legs with wheels or treads, and you’d probably be just fine for most functions with a Johnny 5 type design, but there will still be exceptions. Being able to climb up or down a ladder for example means that you don’t have to engineer a solution to deal with getting onto a roof or down into a tunnel system. We’ve already spent thousands of years solving those problems for humans.