Agreed. I’d also like to add that intelligence != wisdom != experience, and you need all three to achieve real understanding.

Woot Kbin Gang! Holds the best parties by far. You get lemmings and mastodons all rocking out as Reddit burns. This occasionally gets messy (mastodons get pregnant, lemmings get flat), but damn is it fun.

Being able to follow other users makes a huge difference to content discovery - there’s a lot of immediate content you’re missing out on if you’re only on Lemmy, and Mastodon users miss out on most of the long form content and discussions.

Infected Mushroom

Zircon

Eskimo

Had a feeling this is how the political dynamics would play out.

Trump made a lot of enemies in the GA GOP when he first dragged Raffensberger through the mud and then cost GA a senate seat by telling his supporters the special election was rigged. I’ve said it before - those good ole boys down south never forget a slight. Hell, they’re still pissed off at Sherman down there, and that was 170 years ago.

Kemp knows that stepping in now to disqualify Willis would give the Dems a lot of ammunition for turning GA blue in 2024 - I can’t see him sticking his neck out for Trump here.

Good ole mass media, telling you something big is going down, and giving you absolutely no clue as to how to get involved.

The FCC has made the comment process extremely difficult to navigate, but it looks like the hearing is on docket 23-293 (commenters, please correct me if I’m wrong). You should be able use the form here to place a comment on the proceeding. Use 23-293 in the proceedings field to bring it up for selection.

Here’s a more detailed view of the Media and Democracy Project’s petition, which includes a supporting filing from Jamie Kellner, former president of Fox Broadcasting.

It actually might - check out the second half of the article:

There are minimally six aspects revealed in the latest indictment that we believe justify Georgia – under Section 3 of the post-Civil War Fourteenth Amendment – keeping Trump off the ballot:

1. The racketeering scheme was a multifaceted attempt to subvert Georgia’s own part of the 2020 electoral process;

2. The officials on the receiving end of the unsuccessful racketeering scheme were elected and appointed Georgia officials. …

3. … whose actions to reject election subversion vindicated their own oaths to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States as well as Georgia’s;

4. Most of these officials were and are Republicans – including Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, Governor Brian Kemp and former Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan;

5. These officials will, in 2024 as in 2020, collectively determine who is qualified to be on Georgia’s presidential ballot; and

6. These officials’ testimony, and related evidence, is at the heart of the proof of the Georgia racketeering case against Trump.

In other words, the evidence to convict Trump in the Georgia racketeering case is the same evidence, coming from the same Georgia officials, who will be involved in determining whether, under the 14th Amendment, Trump is qualified to be on the 2024 presidential ballot – or not.

Little if any additional evidence or proceedings are needed. The Georgia officials already hold that evidence, because much of it comes from them. They don’t need a trial to establish what they already know.

How could Trump avoid this happening? A quick trial date in Atlanta with an acquittal on all counts might do it, but this runs counter to his strategy to delay all the pending criminal cases until after the 2024 election.

With no preelection trial, there will likely be no Trump on the 2024 Georgia ballot, and no chance for him to win Georgia’s 2024 electoral college votes.

Once Georgia bars him, other states may follow. That would leave Trump with no way to credibly appear on the ballot in all 50 states, giving him no chance to win the electoral votes required to claim the White House.

This indicates that the GOP of GA are done with Trump after he dragged Raffensberger through the mud and cost them a Senate seat. They might just be petty enough to give him the middle finger here. Those “good ole boys” down south never forget a slight.

Lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and legal experts have since called for Roberts to face a subpoena that would force him to answer for Supreme Court corruption.

Stop talking about it and do it. Each day the issue goes unaddressed, the public’s confidence in the court decays. We’re at the point where in a normal political arena, there would already be an impeachment investigation in play. Roberts is betting on either Trump winning or having a divided legislature in 2024 so that everything can be swept under the rug.

Excellent article that really looks at the history of antitrust law and draws a pretty spot-on analysis of the current case, and how the presiding judge, Amit Mehta, compares to Harold Greene, who broke up AT&T:

There is also a loss of faith in American institutions writ broadly, which differs from the 1980s. At the same time as he’s been dealing with Google, Mehta is presiding over trials of January 6th perpetrators, a showcase of the deep fissures that simply did not exist decades earlier. One result is that the politics of corporate power is very different, and that antitrust is on a generational and bipartisan upswing. (Indeed, Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr brought the case, Biden’s antitrust chief, Jonathan Kanter, is continuing it.)

The net effect is that Mehta is an important actor here, but not as important as Greene. The case is likely to be appealed, probably all the way to the Supreme Court. And if the Supreme Court erodes antitrust caselaw against Google, then Congress will be confronted with the reality that it is hard to use the existing antitrust laws to address big tech. But ultimately if no cases against dominant firms succeed, then eventually Congress will change the law. Moreover, this case isn’t a one-off; the environment is less like AT&T in 1982, or even Microsoft in 1998, and more like that of the turn of the 19th century, when Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson brought dozens of cases against dominant firms. This is one chapter in the fight over corporate power, but not the only one.

I think the author is being a bit too hopeful here that Congress will enact stronger anti-trust legislation if the case fails, but he’s likely right about this eventually ending up in front of the Supreme Court.

Holy shit, this is beyond fucking vile:

After all, he had years of practice writing about eugenics as Richard Hoste, advocating for precisely those types of policies.

“The maintenance of the quality of the population requires not just a stable population at all levels but the active weeding out of the unfit,” Hoste wrote in 2011 for Counter-Currents, the white supremacist site.

“There is no rational reason,” he wrote, “why eugenics can’t capture the hearts and minds of policy makers the way it did 100 years ago.”

To make matters worse:

Hanania has his own podcast, too, interviewing the likes of Steven Pinker, the famous Harvard cognitive psychologist, and Marc Andreessen, the billionaire software engineer. Another billionaire, Elon Musk, reads Hanania’s articles and replies approvingly to his tweets. A third billionaire, Peter Thiel, provided a blurb to promote Hanania’s book, “The Origins of Woke,” which HarperCollins plans to publish this September. In October, Hanania is scheduled to deliver a lecture at Stanford.

For those you wanting to make a statement regarding publishing and promoting Nazi filth, here’s the link to contact the Stanford Ombudsman, the Harvard Ombdusman and here’s the contact info for Harper Collins Publishing:

ADDRESS
HarperCollins Publishers
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007

HARPERCOLLINS RECEPTIONIST
212-207-7000

HARPERCOLLINS CUSTOMER SERVICE
800-242-7737

Make sure they know exactly who they’re promoting and supporting, and that we know it now, too.

Don’t bother talking to Musk or Thiel, they’ll take it as encouragement.

Except that it’s never worked that way throughout the history of United States.

The Supreme Court itself is established by an act of Congress, the Judiciary Act of 1789. The Congress has always had the power to not only set the number of justices (last paragraph on that link), but to impeach them as well.

A misplaced comma doesn’t trump 240 years of legal precedent, no matter how much Alioto might wish it did.

Agreed - it’s clear he’s just trying to throw out something to take the heat off. I hope that this particular mangling of the Constitution will backfire on him, because even a first year law student would find the argument facetious and self-serving at best, and it gives his critics further fuel to not only attack his position as justice, but grounds to call for disbarment.

He’s flat out lying.

US Constitution Article 3, first fucking line:

Section 1

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

I also would like to point out the “good Behaviour” clause in the next line that determines the length of a justice’s tenure, and under which Alioto has clearly disqualified himself from serving as a justice.

Yeah, I know, it’s just not really worth the time, as it’s gonna be a completely unscientific poll anyway. Plus, looks like they’re tying your vote to the email address via the submission form - I’m guessing that’s a single post to the database, so not terribly convinced they have privacy in mind. That they’ve got a checkmark to confirm that you’re not an EU citizen means the submission form doesn’t meet GDPR privacy standards.

Heads up that they’re running the poll to get the email addresses of the recipients - can’t vote without giving them your info.

My pleasure and I completely agree - there’s not a single minority population that doesn’t suffer under one or more of these riders, and the full out assault on environmental protections is sickening given the climate devastation we’re experiencing.

The other thing that came to me while I pulled this out was that the Republican party hasn’t published a policy platform update since 2016.

This list of riders details what their unpublished policy is pretty thoroughly, and it’s clear why they won’t make it public.

And of course, it’s a political stunt to please Edrogan:

The Kurdish refugee journalist Vedat Yeler has called the eviction and destruction of the Lavrio camp a “NATO gift to [Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan.” The eviction took place only a few days before the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on July 11 in Vilnius, Lithuania, where both Greece and Turkey were to be present. The two NATO members have wrangled over the Cyprus conflict and territorial disputes in the Aegean Sea for many decades. In mutual populist slander, Turkish politicians have been accusing Greece of harboring “terrorists” in the Lavrio camp and pressuring the Greek state to close it down for years. However, since the re-election of both Erdoğan’s Sunni-nationalist regime in Turkey and Mitsotakis’ New Democracy government in Greece in May and June, 2023, respectively, there has been a shift in bilateral relations between the two countries. During a visit in Cyprus a few days before the eviction, the Greek Foreign Minister expressed a commitment to improve relations with Turkey. The attack on Kurdish political refugees in Greece can be understood as an attempt to showcase these efforts before the NATO summit.

Greece should be ashamed of itself - evicting innocent families at gunpoint to appease a foreign autocrat. I’m not familiar with EU law, but I’m hoping someone in the comments has an analysis and legal case for the Lavrio residents - given that the camp was established community for over 50 years, there has to be some legal recourse they can use to push back.

Part 4:

Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies

• The Independent Contractor Rider would require that no funds be used to block a Trump-era rule published in the final days of his administration that made it easier for employers to misclassify workers as independent contractors, removing them from minimum wage and other labor protections. This would include blocking a rule currently still being finalized by the U.S. Department of Labor that would replace the previous one with clearer protections from misclassification for workers.
• The Federal Employee Benefits ESG Investing Rider would block implementation of the U.S. Department of Labor’s ESG investing rule for the Employee Benefits Security Administration, which has been the subject of failed Congressional Review Act attempts.
• The H-2A Visas Rider would block implementation of the Labor Department’s rule on H-2A visas to strengthen protections and wage calculations for temporary foreign workers. This rule is facing a Congressional Review Act challenge. Overturning it would take away an estimated $38 million wage increase from impacted H-2A farmworkers.
• The Gun Control Rider would block any funding for the advocacy or promotion of gun control.
• The EcoHealth Rider would block funding for the EcoHealth Alliance, which leads scientific research into the connections between human, animal, and environmental health and develops solutions to prevent pandemics and promote conservation.
• The Medicare and Medicaid Vaccines Rider would block funding for a rule requiring Medicare and Medicaid providers to ensure COVID-19 vaccination of their staff and offer vaccines and educational information to patients, clients, residents, and staff.
• The ACA Discrimination Rider would block funding for a rule that bans discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability in certain health programs and activities under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
• The School Prayer Rider would block funding to prevent the implementation of voluntary prayer and meditation programs in public schools.
• The Embryo Research Rider would ban research on human embryos.
• The Drug Legalization Rider would ban funding to promote the legalization of any Schedule I controlled substance, including marijuana, except in cases when there is significant medical evidence of a therapeutic benefit or federally funded clinical trials are underway.
• The Health Research Rider would prohibit funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology and any lab controlled by China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela or any gain-of-function research involving a potential pandemic pathogen in these countries.

Legislative Branch

• The Same-Sex Marriage Rider would prohibit denial of funds to anyone with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage should be a union of one man and one woman.

Military, Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies

• The Gender Affirming Care Rider would prohibit funds for surgical procedures or hormone therapies for the purposes of gender affirming care.
• The Same-Sex Marriage Rider would prohibit denial of funds to anyone with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage should be a union of one man and one woman.

State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs

• The Pride Flag Rider would restrict which flags can be flown over federal facilities – and notably excludes pride flags.

Transportation, Housing, Urban Development and Related Agencies

• The Same-Sex Marriage Rider would prohibit denial of funds to anyone with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage should be a union of one man and one woman.
• The Pride Flag Rider would restrict which flags can be flown over federal facilities – and notably excludes pride flags.

-END-

Part 3:

Homeland Security

• The COVID Vaccine Rider would block funding for any requirement that employees of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) receive COVID-19 vaccines.
• The COVID Travel Rider would block funding for any rules current or future that advance safer travel to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
• The Guantanamo Bay Rider would block the transfer or release of any prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay since June 2009 or setting up alternative detention facilities.
• The ICE Prosecutorial Discretion Rider would block funds for implementing the Biden administration’s “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law’’ that the U.S. Supreme Court approved as lawful on June 23, 2023.
• The Border Wall Rider would prohibit any funds being used or transferred to any other federal agency, board, or commission to dismantle existing parts of the current border wall.
• The CBP One Application Rider would block funds being used for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) One Application or any successor application to parole immigrants into the U.S.
• The ICE Detention Rider would direct DHS to prioritize detention of immigrants and ensure that the average daily population of detainees is maintained at full capacity throughout the year. It also specifies that immigrants in the Alternative to Detention program have mandatory ankle monitoring throughout the duration of all immigration proceedings.
• The Same-Sex Marriage Rider would prohibit denial of funds to anyone with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage should be a union of one man and one woman.

Interior, Environment and Related Agencies

• The Glacier National Park Reservation Rider would prohibit the park from implementing a reservation system to address overcrowding.
• The Bison Rider would prohibit the U.S. Department of the Interior from establishing a working group to help restore bison populations.
• The Mercury and Air Toxics (MATS) Rule Rider would block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from finalizing and implementing its new rule to reduce mercury and other toxic air pollution, including lead, chromium, arsenic, and soot from coal- and oil-fired power plants.
• The Lead Ammunition and Tackle Rider would prevent agencies charged with wildlife protection from banning toxic lead in ammunition and fishing tackle on federal lands unless an impossible set of criteria are met.
• The Carbon Pollution Rule Rider would block the EPA from finalizing and implementing new carbon pollution limits for coal- and gas-fired power plants.
• The Same-Sex Marriage Rider would prohibit denial of funds to anyone with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage should be a union of one man and one woman.
• The Smithsonian Rider would prevent the museum from partnering with the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices
• The Dunes Sagebrush Lizard Rider would prohibit listing the animal under the Endangered Species Act.
• The Ethylene Oxide Emissions Rider would block the EPA from enforcing its proposed rule to limit the hazardous air pollutant.
• The Rat Poison Rider would block the EPA from restricting rodenticides that pose health risks to humans and other mammals and birds.
• The Tailpipe Emissions Rider would block the EPA from implementing its proposed rules to reduce harmful air pollutants from light, medium, and heavy-duty vehicles.
• The Conservation Land Use Rider would prohibit the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from implementing the Conservation and Landscape Health rule, which allows the agency to better prioritize conservation of public lands.
• The Grizzly Bear Rider would delist the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population of Grizzly Bears under the Endangered Species Act.
• The Pride Flag Rider would restrict which flags can be flown over federal facilities – and notably excludes pride flags.
• The Health Research Rider would prohibit funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology and any lab controlled by China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela.

Part 2:

Defense

• The Guantanamo Bay Rider would block the transfer or release of any prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay since June 2009 or setting up alternative detention facilities.
• The Guantanamo Bay Closure Rider would block the closure or realignment of Guantanamo Bay.
• The Health Research Rider would prohibit funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology and any lab controlled by China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela.
• The Armed Forces Anti-Extremism Rider would block funding for the appointment of a deputy inspector general in the U.S. Department of Defense whose job is to prevent and respond to supremacist, extremist, and criminal gang activities by members of the Armed Forces.
• The Defense Contractor Climate Emissions Rider would block funding for a rule to require federal defense contractors to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risks and set science-based targets to reduce their emissions.
• The Pride Flag Rider would restrict which flags can be flown over federal facilities – and notably excludes pride flags.

Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies

• The Strategic Petroleum Reserve Rider would require the U.S. Energy Secretary to sell one million barrels of refined petroleum from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and then permanently close the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve. The Northeast Reserve protects consumers by having a federal backstop available to be released into the northeast market to combat high prices or provide supply in an event of a disruption.
• The Energy Loan Guarantee Rider would through funding cuts effectively shut down the U.S. Energy Department’s Title 17 Clean Energy Financing Program – a critical tool for accelerating deployment of clean energy and decarbonization technologies.

Financial Services and General Government

• The Outbound Investment Review Rider would prohibit funds for the U.S. Treasury Department outbound investment review program until a briefing is provided.
• The Standalone Authority Rider would prevent the Federal Trade Commission from abandoning its guidance on “standalone” Section 5 authority.
• The Prior Approval Rider would prohibit funds to implement, administer, or enforce the Federal Trade Commission’s “Use of Prior Approval Provisions in Merge Orders,” which would negatively impact the mergers process.
• The D.C. Policing Rider would prohibit the District of Columbia from implementing its policing bill, the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022.
• The Out-of-State Gun Permits Rider would allow an individual with a valid weapons carry permit from any state or territory to possess and carry a concealed handgun in areas governed by the District of Columbia and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
• The Retail Investor Information Rider would prohibit funds for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to collect retail investor personal information even when there is evidence of wrongdoing and would require that an analysis of privacy concerns be submitted to Congress. The SEC collects this information for tax purposes.
• The Small Business Rules Rider would direct the U.S. Small Business Administration to issue an economic impact report on small business concerns stemming from rules issued by the agency during the last two fiscal years.
• The Cocaine Discovery Rider would require the White House to submit a report on the investigative materials associated with the cocaine discovery on July 2, 2023.
• The IRS Guns Rider would prevent the IRS from purchasing firearms or ammunition above the levels in the agency’s possession as of July 13, 2023. This rider stems from the right-wing conspiracy theory that the IRS is stockpiling firearms to initiate an assault against Americans and to prevent Americans from accessing ammunition during an ammo shortage.

So because this gets more evil the further you delve into it, here’s the full breakdown of the riders from the cleanbudget.org report referenced in the article. Broken into subsequent comments to get the full list - here’s part 1:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – At least 74 new poison pill policy riders were added to or spotted in appropriations bills drafted in the U.S. House over the past week, according to the Clean Budget Coalition, which is tracking them, bringing the total number of new poison pill riders to at least 291.

Coalition members are calling on lawmakers to remove all of them and oppose passage of any legislation that includes these unpopular and controversial special favors for big corporations and ideological extremists. Below is a list of new poison pills added or found in the past week:

Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies

• The Health Research Rider would prohibit funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology and any lab controlled by China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela.
• The Packers and Stockyards Act Report Rider would falsely claim that the act requires farmers to meet the impossible burden of proving that harms they experienced from meatpackers or poultry companies also harmed competition in the entire industry.
• The Same-Sex Marriage Rider would prohibit denial of funds to anyone with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage should be a union of one man and one woman.

Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies

• The “Politically Sensitive Investigations” Rider would block funding for any politically sensitive investigation until the U.S. Department of Justice establishes a policy requiring non-partisan career staff to oversee such investigations. The potential targets of such investigations would include elected officials or their family members, political candidates or their family members, political organizations, religious organizations, and members of the media.
• The Merger Guidelines Rider would block funding for revising the Merger Guidelines issued by the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department. The previous guidelines allowed unprecedented monopolization, creating massive corporations at the expense of small businesses, startups, and consumers. The agencies issued updated merger guidelines aimed at strengthening enforcement against illegal mergers on July 19, 2023.
• The EU Digital Markets Rider would block funding for any action that supports the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which aims to ensure a higher degree of competition in European digital markets by preventing large companies from abusing their market power and allowing new players to enter the market.
• The Antitrust Employees Rider would block the Justice Department from using funds to add new employees to its Antitrust Division. This rider would ensure that the department is even more outmatched by enormous corporations willing to spend princely sums for lawyers to protect their monopoly positions.
• The COVID Vaccine Rider would block funding to enforce any COVID-19 vaccine mandates or passports.
• The China Coordination Rider would block the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the National Space Council from coordinating in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company without explicit authorization by law or by the FBI.
• The Guantanamo Bay Rider would block the transfer or release of any prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay since June 2009 or setting up alternative detention facilities.
• The Red Snapper Rider would delay urgently needed fisheries management measures in the South Atlantic potentially for years. South Atlantic red snapper is overfished and needs new management measures to rebuild fish stocks.
• The Firearms Registry Rider would block funding for a federal firearms registry.
• The Health Research Rider would prohibit funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology and any lab controlled by China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela.
• The Solar Imports Rider would block funding to implement a two-year delay on imposing anti-dumping and other countervailing duties on solar panels imported from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
• The Iran Rider would ban funding for any formal or informal negotiations with the government or representatives of Iran.
• The Transgender Lawsuits Rider would block funding for suing a state or local government over transgender laws.
• The Student Religious Beliefs Rider would block funding to discriminate against or denigrate the religious or moral beliefs of students who participate in programs for which financial assistance is provided or the parents or legal guardians of such students.