Think of all the energy used in collecting the plastic (gas, oil, and emissions from dump trucks that pick it up, for example), sorting it, disposing of what isnt recyclable, and actually recycling the stuff.
Im no expert but I believe that overall recycling as we do it is actually a net negative on the environment. We’re probably doing more harm than good.
In that scenario, each state delegation has 1 vote- and the GOP has enough state-level gerrymanders to control enough state delegations that if it comes to pass that the 12th Amendment process decides the presidency, they are very likely going to be able to install whoever they want.
I’m not so sure of this. On paper, the split is 27-23 in favor of Republicans. However, there are 3 Republican governors in Democrat states that voted for Biden: Nevada, Vermont, and New Hampshire. The question becomes whether those 3 Republican governors would override the votes of the people in their state and install Trump even though the voters voted for Biden? I’m not so sure any of them would want to go down in history as having effectively ignored the election and installing a dictator. I mean…they could. Anything’s possible. But if you’re a Republican governor in a Democrat state that voted for the Democrat nominee, do you really want to be the one to ignore that, essentially tell the public that their votes don’t matter, and install Trump as a dictator?
If all 3 Republican governors in Dem states honor the will of the people, it would essentially be a 26-24 split in favor of Democrats. Even if only two of the 3 states do, we’d end up in a tie. Either way, I don’t think that sending it to the governors would be a guaranteed win for Trump. Significantly more likely, yes. But a slam-dunk win? No. There would be absolutely enormous pressure on those 3 governors who would basically be deciding the election.
At the rate it’s going, these won’t even be penny stocks by the time he cashes out. Anyone with a functioning brain knows what’s coming. The only people who are even interested in the stock right now are either the truly stupid/gullible/MAGA rubes and people who think they can make money shorting the stock.
I’m sure we weren’t the first generation to question religion, I’m your age and my dad did, and there were hippies and beatniks and I’m sure some version of freethinkers before that.
Oh there were plenty. But I think our generation was really the first generation to start questioning things en masse, to the point where it was actually impacting church attendance and causing even more people to start questioning their own religion.
And we are definitely missing the social group aspects of society. It’s been replaced by social media and we as a society are suffering for it. A tool that was supposed to usher in the free flow of ideas ended up instead just giving everybody their own fortified echo chamber to live in, and it shows when you see how people act with one another today; they have no idea how to handle it when someone is telling them something they don’t want to hear.
And my kids said the same thing. Outside of a few who were born into theirs and a handful of old-school religious parents, the overwhelming majority all see religion as who’s imaginary friend is pretending to be better than who’s.
Well that makes sense because Islam and Judaism are religions that people are typically born into. Baptism and other religious ceremonies aside, nobody is Christian by birth. So it’s not a surprise to see those religions grow as the population grows.
And don’t forget that Catholics can simply just stop going to church. Even considering that option in some Islamic countries is punishable by death. Which means there are probably at least some Muslims that aren’t Muslims by choice.
Trump may be accellerating the issue, but people have been turning away from religion for at least the 5 decades I’ve been on this planet. I think it’s more that younger people take a more critical eye to the idea and realize that if you look at organized religion in general, none of it makes the least bit of sense.
I’d love to see a CinemaSins style video on the Bible.
This is my own personal experience, so your experience may vary significantly. But I was born in the early 70s and I think my generation was really the first generation that may have had strict, God-fearing parents, but were the first generation to actually start thinking critically about it instead of just blindly accepting the religious ideas being passed down by our parents even if we know they don’t make sense. In turn, we raised our children either without religious influence at all, or at least a heavily scaled down emphasis on religion, while allowing our children to make their religious decisions on their own, assuming they bother practicing religion at all. All things considered, the increasing trend of abandoning religion entirely should not only be no surprise, but should also accellerate as the next generation will likely be raised by mostly atheist parents, or at least non-practicing parishioners, who’s children will look at religion as a relic of the past that their great grandparents cared about back in the day.
I think in a few short generations, our descendants will look at religion the same way we look at medieval practices of using leeches to cure disease.
The article completely dismisses what is stated by researchers, that 2-8 percent of sexual assault and rape allegations are false.
Yes, and I think given the subject matter, it is important to note that this discussion should be centered around people who are caught actively lying about sexual abuse allegations. There’s a difference between making an accusation that you unfortunately cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt, and actively just spinning allegations from whole cloth. The former is just an unfortunate by-product of our justice system and the high bar required to secure a conviction, and the other is a crime that should be punished.
Is society simply meant to let those 2-8 percent of false reports potentially ruin the lives of the victims of those false allegations?
The problem is that “she’s lying!” is the first go-to defense of any alleged abuser. The other problem is that, at least in the court of public opinion, the victim is to be taken at her word by default, and any attempt to even question the details is often met with fierce, sharp, and severe blowback. Attempt to poke holes in the victim’s story (Even in cases where the details are sketchy at best) will just get you labelled as a victim-blaming bigot.
There should absolutely be severe recourse for attempting to ruin an innocent persons life, for wasting resources and diminishing the likelihood that real allegations are taken seriously.
But there isn’t. Our society has determined that some victims of false rape allegations having their lives ruined is considered the better alternative than putting women in a position where they even think they may be prosecuted for bringing up false charges if they are ultimately unable to prove their case in court. Whether or not that’s fair is a matter of personal opinion, but it is what it is, and the only thing you can do is just hope and pray you never end up on the wrong side of that equation.
There is obviously a problem with how police deal with any sexual assault or rape report but ignoring victims of false allegations and refusing to give them justice won’t solve that.
Again, this is true, but our society as a whole has determined doing anything to alleviate that problem would cause even more victims of sexaul assault to not come forward, which would just end up making the problem worse in the long run. So basically, this is “least shitty option available”. Again, whether you think it’s the best option available is a personal opinion, but it’s what we’ve got to work with, because there is absolutely no real support for protection from false rape allegations at the legislative level, so it’s not going to change any time soon.
None that would matter to Trump. Even an extraordinary contempt fine wouldn’t even qualify as pocket change to Trump. The guy just got slapped with one judgement for the E Jean Carroll case and had to cough up $5 million, and he was live on TV 24 hours later disparaging her again. If that’s how he treats a $5 million fine, the few tens of thosuands he would have to pay for a contempt of court citation would absolutely not matter.
I think he does. Not for a long time, mind you. But even an overnight stay on a contempt of court charge…I guarantee you he would not be put in a regular holding cell with the rest of the prisoners. He’d be “held” at an off-site location where he would be far more comfortable and still able to communicate with the outside world (And I’m not saying this because it’s Trump; there’s no way the Secret Service would ever allow for anything else.). At best he’d be mildly inconvenienced for a night or two. Mildly. Trump would accept that in a minute if it meant that he got to paint himself as a martyr for the rest of the campaign and fundraise off of it (Because you know the money would be flowing from the rubes like wine).
Worst case scenario for Trump is that the judge backs down on any threat to hold him in contempt, and Trump gets a new weapon to use: He can just play a game of chicken with them and dare them to do something about it. Any scenario would be a win for Trump.
Whether he’s right or wrong, I think Trump sincerely wants to be thrown in jail right now, as long as it’s not for the crimes he committed. He wants to be thrown in jail for something (relatively speaking) petty that he can use to paint himself as a martyr that is being politically persecuted. Because he knows that going down this path, one or more of the following things will happen:
He starts daring more judges to hold him in contempt. Judges, already going out of their way to bend over backwards for Trump, back down out of either fear of general violence or out of fear for their own or their family’s safety. Once he shows their unwillingness to follow through on their threats, he can ignore further gag orders pretty much with impunity.
A judge actually does hold him in contempt of court. Let’s say even if it’s overnight just to send a message that Trump’s behavior won’t be tolerated. Then violence breaks out as it gets the MAGA crazies all sorts of riled up. Good luck holding Trump accountable for anything ever again. You think people are gunshy now, imagine what will happen if there’s a mass shooting incident in response to Trump being arrested. Or if someone who was targetted by Trump got killed by one of his followers.
The MAGA base will become energized and rally around Trump, sending him soaring in the polls (Keep in mind, every indictment so far has actually seen his polling numbers rise). The MAGA crazies (Jordan, MTG, Gaetz, etc.) are going to try to run interference on his behalf. Downticket Republicans are essentially told by their base (which in many areas is still large enough to dictate political careers) to vote in lockstep with Trump or be primaried/voted out themselves. This leads to the very real possibility that not only does this help propel Trump back to the white house, it may even lead to more crazies getting elected to Congress to help Trump on the Trump Revenge Tour.
It will keep the attention on Trump 24/7. A former President of the US being put in jail for any reason would be the biggest story of the year, and it wouldn’t even be close. And there is not a single second that would go by without mainstream media covering it parked right in front of the jail. This means 24/7 coverage about Trump being in jail. Not policies. Not Biden. Not Ukraine. Not Gaza. Trump. Trump will get free publicity from the entire mainstream media industry as all they tell people is that “Trump is in jail!” all day, every day. They will be talking about nothing but Trump. And that’s exactly what he wants. As long as they’re talking about him, that’s all he wants. Good or bad, doesn’t matter. If they’re talking about him being in jail, they’re not talking about his policies, or his facism, or Biden’s accomplishments. And he will be sending his base to the ballot box after months of hearing about how their dear leader has been suffering in jail all this time.
Because the situation has literally never come up before.
Jack Smith’s refusal to demand her recusal months ago is going to prove to be a fatal mistake in this case.
The whole point of all of this is specifically so they won’t have to hunt people down for the money. If they allow this bond to stand, all it will do is give Trump some cannon fodder to throw in front of the AG when he inevitably loses the appeal. They will attempt to collect the bond, KSIC will disappear (and probably flee the country), and the AG will have to spend years going after them for the money while Trump walks away.
What should happen is that the AG seize personal properties at their actual appraised value and have them locked in escrow until the appeals play out. If he wins, he gets his properties back, untouched. If he loses, he can either pay up the cash in exchange for the properties or lose them.
Could Smith split the pile of stolen files in half and simply pursue charges on half the files?
Only if the cases are separate criminal acts. If I murder someone in Philadelphia and six months later, I murder someone else in Pittsburgh, the DA can prosecute me for one of the two murders and keep the other case in his back pocket in case something goes wrong to ensure that I stay in jail.
But let’s say I only killed one person. On a typical murder charge, there’s usually a small list of felonies (Murder, assault, illegal weapon possession, civil rights violations, etc. etc. etc.). The DA can’t bring a weak case against me for murder, then decide to try again and charge me for a weapons violation in order to keep me in jail, and then an assault charge if that fails too, etc. That is essentially an end-run around double jeopardy and is explicitly forbidden. If it weren’t, the double jeopardy protections of the 5th amendment would cease to exist as the lawyer could just divvy up the charges among an endless stream of cases until something finally sticks.
I don’t know much about the US legal system, but I don’t understand how this affair has any bearing on the legitimacy of the case being brought against Trump?
It doesn’t. From Trump’s point of view, this was the equivalent of Trump standing at Mar-a-Lago, trying to score a hole in one on a golf course in New York by hitting the ball by way of Tokyo and just hoping the wind shifts direction, and actually hitting it. Her affair itself has absolutely zero bearing on the Trump case, but the facts that have been unearthed surrounding the affair have brought her general ethics and motives into question. This is typically the death knell of a lawyer’s career.
I presume Fani Willis could be removed, but the case against Trump would still continue under a new DA?
It assumes a number of things:
Actually, yes it was an affair. They started having a romantic relationship in 2019, and he was married until 2021. That’s the literal definition of an affair. They also snuck around to hotel rooms and played all sorts of shell games with money to cover it up. They freely admitted it all on the stand, and even after that the judge still doesn’t believe they were fully forthcoming.
With that said…yes, they are consenting adults. Yes, their affair has absolutely nothing to do with Trump’s case. But that’s actually kinda the point. Regardless of the cases before her, she engaged in unethical (at best) conduct, was not forthcoming under testimony, and should consider herself lucky if she doesn’t get disbarred. If she weren’t the one who was the lead on the Trump case, I’d be willing to bet there would be a lot less support for her and a lot more calls for her resignation. She is likely benefitting because others don’t want to see the Trump case fall apart entirely by having her removed.
That case is, far and away, the biggest case that she will have in her career. Probably the biggest and most consequential case in US history. In a case of this magnitude, you get one shot. You cross every T, dot every I. You engage in exactly fucking nothing that would even tangentally affect this case or hint at even a whiff of impropriety. To take on this case while engaging in that kind of unethical (if not outright illegal) conduct just shows hubris, a complete lack of judgement, and a complete disregard for the importance of the case that she herself brought or the impact that her actions could have on her career, the case, and even the country as a whole.
Here’s the thing. I’m on Smith’s side and all of that, but he’s bluffing on this and Cannon knows it. Since she is in no legal jeopardy (The only thing that can happen to her is impeachment, which is impossible in today’s political environment), there is absolutely nothing stopping her from simply ignoring Smith until the trial, waiting until the jury is seated, then essentially dismiss the case for whatever reason she wants once double jeopardy is attached and the dismissal is not appealable. If she is willing to endure the professional fallout from that decision, there is literally nothing Smith can do to stop her.
Mark my words:
From the day Trump came down that escalator, he has been playing our government, our judicial system, and our press system like a god damned fiddle. They continue to play Trump’s games by Trump’s rules and wondering why they keep getting dragged down to his level and beaten to death with experience. And as long as those in charge of just about every facet of our society continues to allow Trump to play by his own rules, there is no reason to believe that anything is going to change any time soon.
Part of the problem with AI is that it does not have to concern itself with the side effects or consequences of what it is suggesting. You ask the question of what is the most efficient way to do XYZ. It is going to tell you what the most effective way to do XYZ is. The fact that you’ll go to jail, or kill yourself, or cause an even bigger problem is not strictly relevant to the question of “What is the most effective way to do XYZ?”. Since the AI will never know, care about, or suffer the consequences of its suggestions means that those side effects can be completely ignored because they do not impede the task at hand.
Yeah. The amoeba leads by 1.
Worked IT. Can confirm.