It's worth pointing out, this sort of weird prosecutorial hatred and emphasis on things like this is almost always in death penalty cases. The prosecution decides 'I shall have this person put to death', and builds a picture of some sort of complete monster. A thing you can functionally do to any person if you investigate them enough and present a case against someone with a pro bono lawyer.
There are people on death row because they participated in a robbery that went wrong and someone got killed, and the prosecution decided to turn 'a previous robbery that they did' into 'a hardened violent criminal with no possibility of ever stopping', when it's just...that's someone who has tried to do two robberies. One went bad. And the prosecutor decided that this _particular_ one should be put to death, so went digging for all sorts of nonsense about their character. (Criminals generally don't have great 'character' to start with.) That's all. They picked one, and went on a detailed examination of tracking down every possibly bad sounding things to throw in front of the jury.
Here, the picture painted, 'This woman had some sex outside of carefully prescribed situations and seems to like it' is the sort of picture that we have decided we have problems with being painted in court. But it's not less accurate, or inaccurate, or more to the point, relevant when figuring out guilt when it's anything else, because these sort of 'take a bunch of incidents from someone's history and try to build something from them' is nonsense to start with, especially when it's done by complete roulette wheel of 1 out of every 5000 people or whatever. This one is just more egregious because the examples showing her to be a bad person are incredibly sexist.
As I've always pointed out about the JFK assassination, moronic conspiracies about the actual physical events of the shooting that try to make it somehow involving anyone but Oswald have obscured the fact that Oswald was likely working for _someone_, either the Russians or the mob. (Or, yes, even hypothetically the CIA.) Like, that's the actual thing we need to know, not gibberish about bullet trajectories.
I don't know to what extent that was even investigated. The Warren Commission concluded he 'acted entirely alone', which means, in theory, they investigated that. It will be interesting to see how much.
I mean, I know I'm late to the game, but 'threaten to invade other countries under no justification but They Should Be Part Of Our Great Nation' seems pretty Na.zi-like.
Greenland is the one issue that a) very obviously is not being pushed by either far right politicians or conservative think tanks (because it is fundamentally stupid), and b) one that Trump keeps bringing up, unprompted, and seems incredibly interested in.
I know everyone keeps trying to downplay it, but we really have stumbled across something that Trump _wants to do_. This isn't random crap he's saying, it's not even connected with the tariff thing. He just happened to look at it landmass that looks very large (because many dumbasses do not understand how map projection works) and decided that the US should have it, despite it being an almost completely barren wasteland that really doesn't do anything for anyone.
He does not have anyone who will stop him, he made sure of that this Administration.
And if you think what Trump is doing and saying about Greenland, and Canada for that matter, is not important, you haven't paid the slightest attention to foreign press. Other countries are freaking the hell out about this. Especially when you combine it with his belligerent over immigration, trade, and tariffs. If he will take Greenland just because he wants it, what will he do to a country that actually fights him on those?
I know it seems cliche to say this, because people said it in his first term and it wasn't really true, but the US is about to lose its geopolitical position in the world, because it has suddenly turned into, and I guess I need to keep saying this, a fascist belligerent Nation that threatens other nations for literally no reason except that it wants to seize them.
The people in this country have had almost a decade of the press normalizing this, so they don't understand what is happening. The rest of the world does.
(And while people are reading the important press, they might want to check out what the foreign press is saying about what Elon Musk did at the inauguration, because we seem to be the only country that is confused about that. Absolutely no one else is.)
I'm a little busy trying to do important things, like try to figure out if a friend of mine will be able to reenter the country on their non-binary passport if they leave.
But, how's everyone doing with the market crash? Wait, I guess that hasn't happened yet.
Do you think that the moral leadership will be willing to embrace some vulgar utilitarianism to get a handful more bedfellows? “Guys, guys, guys… we’re here to talk about fighting Trump. We’re not going to open with a Land Acknowledgment and we’re not going to talk about Gaza.”
Think you can get away with that?
Because I lean “no” for the moment.
Do you literally know any organizer or process or _anything_ on the left? Have you actually ever participated or even listened to a discussion on the left? Or is it just a bunch of stereotypes and parodies running around inside your head?
In a properly functioning Republic, we’d impeach him for this.
The prior argument for not convicting him in the Senate was 'He is out of office, and the court system will decide'.
The court system did not decide, it did not reach a decision on that. It ended due to his reelection.
He is now back in office. It is now time to convict.
Likewise, while he was out of office, the legal system asserted it could not question his decisions, implicitly saying the only way to punish him for a huge chunk of things he does as president is impeachment.
So, given that the only word shared in common is “future”, it would probably be difficult to convince most it’s a deliberate allusion. If it’s a deliberate reference it would be a “better” dogwhistle than the Sieg Heil was; it’s more ambiguous, more plausibly-deniable.
Yeah, if it wasn't said literally as an explanation of why he just did that gesture, I wouldn't even think twice about it.
But, like, it was.
Actually, I would think twice about it, but only in the sense that I would add up another tally to Musk's inherent bigotry and how he thinks about 'civilization'. It's the quiet part, but it's _not_ being said aloud, so it's just 'Yeah, I know what he was implying there, but that's how he is all the time. And people who understand this, understand it, and people who don't will just deny it.'.
But putting it next to a salute that was incredibly performative, so much so it was done twice, something clearly rehearsed with a explanation at the ready so as to claim people are _imagining_ things, and claiming that's why he was doing it...makes it somewhat obvious what he was doing.
Oh, and let's not forget the _next_ thing he said, as part of 'explaining' that he was throwing his heart to the crowd, was: "It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured."
Now, that sounds like an innocuous statement, and maybe would be if not done immediately after that gesture. In fact, it probably went by a lot of people, the media included, especially if they were still shocked by that gestures.
But when done essentially _as_ part of that gesture, one cannot help but think of the 14 words: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.
Did he intend to obliquely reference that? I dunno.
Na.zis would think of 'white people' and 'civilization' synonymously, but that presumes the end result.
And the future of those things is 'assured' vs 'secured'. Coincidence, or deliberate change to sound very similar while not actually being identical?
It's not impossible for someone to say that sentence innocently. It feels saying that innocently _as part of doing a thing very similar to a Na.zi salute_ is somewhat more unlikely. Maybe? Hypothetically?
The thing is, again, Elon is a known troll who has no problem trolling white supremancy and Na.zism...because he is, in fact, supporters of those things. Benefit of the doubt is really not something that should be extended to him.
No, there wasn’t. Even before the 14th Amendment, citizenship under Anglo-American common law was based on jus solis rather than jus sanguinis, i.e., place of birth rather than parentage.
Yes, this.
The 14th amendment did not generally change who became citizen. The situation under US law is that almost all of them were citizens anyway.
Except for children of slaves, who were explicitly barred by law from being citizens. Along with a few other specific groups of immigrants. (1)
The 14th did not do anything laws could not have, and it didn't really change how we understood citizenship. It was written so we could never _exclude_ people from citizenship via the law.
1) Along with, interestingly, Native Americans, which the 14th did _not_ include because it said 'the United States' and that was understood to mean 'The group of actual States', and Indian reservations were not, and still are not to some extent, part of the jurisdiction of the states they are inside. And even moreso back then, where reservations were treated, in a sense, as sovereign nations that we had treaties with that was not under US jurisdiction but just happened to be inside the US.
This is much less true now, and it's an interesting question if the 14th would cover them _now_, but we passed a law in 1924 saying they were all citizens from birth anyway. (Which does, indeed, allow them to become president, although we've never had one.)
We have _tons_ of records about passing this bill, and absolutely no one, not even him, agreed with how you are interpreting that _single sentence_ said in a middle of a discussion about whether or not the amendment was a good idea because it made the children of foreigners into citizen.
Here is another quote from that debate:
The proposition before us, I will say, Mr. President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States.
The entire discussion over that bill, which was debated for months, literally due to the fact _it would include the children of foreigners. Both here legally and illegally.
The worry about then was about the Chinese (Who had a tendency to just sorta...get off the boat in California and start working.) and, pardon the slur, 'gypsies'.
--
And let's just look at how weird that sentence is if you try to parse it that way. It doesn't say that the _children_ of foreigners born in the US wouldn't be citizens, it says _foreigners_ born in the US wouldn't be citizens. What sort of gibberish is that? That doesn't mean anything. Also, how are foreigners born in the US? To be a foreigner, you have to be from somewhere else. (Foreigner, unlike 'alien', is not a legal terms. It just means 'someone who isn't from here'.)
Also that sentence, uh, is not a list. Firstly, a list has an 'or' in it or some other conjugation, and also you don't make a list that is 'All foreigners, all foreigners except stated differently, and some specific foreigners who are diplomats'. Does that sound like someone making a list?
It very obviously is not a list, it almost certainly is a correction or clarification, where he first starts with 'foreigner', realizes that is not really the correct word in a legal sense, and corrects to 'aliens who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States', which would be the correct way to say that.
But again, we don't need to guess the meaning, because it's a single sentence in a discussion that everyone operated as if the amendment meant that the children of foreigners would be citizens and had a huge discussion about it. You, or rather whoever fed you this, tried to cut a single awkward sentence out a discussion, pretended it's clearly a list despite it clearly not being a list, and basically just made a whole pack of lies.
John Bolton just had his secret service protection revoked by Trump.
You may be wondering why John Bolton, previous National Security advisor 2018-2019, had secret service protection, which is obviously not standard.
It is because Iran is trying to kill him. He was given that protection by Trump, and then Biden extended it, because even though John Bolton is, of course, a Republican, we probably should let Iran assassinate former US officials.
Anyway, then John Bolton wrote a book about how incompetent and criminal Trump was.
This isn't someone where we start with the benefit of the doubt. This someone who has been repeatedly critized, in just the last year, for flirting with Na.zism.
Notice how troll-ish the last one is. I would explain that Elon didn't do the Na.zi salute seriously, he did it to troll because he had an audience in front of the world, but I feel that some people would think that means it's less important. But it was.
Also, note that I do actually understand the difference between Na.zism and fascism. The Republicans are leading us into fascism, American's own brand of it. (Wrapped in the American flag and carrying a cross) It's not the same as Na.zism, just it's not the same as Italy's or Argentina's or Greece's or...any of the other places where fascism has existed. Fascism, like all political ideologies, change and evolves over time and from place to place.
Elon, meanwhile, is flirting with Na.zism. Just...straight out Na.zism.
And screaming “fascism!” every fifteen seconds doesn’t work anymore.
What frequency do you think people should be screaming 'fascism' as fascism happens?
Was the congressman making a joke in poor taste? Because if the congressman was making a joke in poor taste, I’m going to say “the guy made a joke in poor taste”. (I’d agree that he shouldn’t be a congressman anymore, if you’d like.)
Wow, the right wing has gotten you so well-trained you make justifications _for them_ that they themselves are not making.
No, it was not a 'joke'. We might have some indication it was a joke if, you know, he _said_ was a joke.
Just like we might have an indication that Elon's gesture was a not a Na.zi salute if he _said it wasn't_.
We still might not believe those thing, but the fascism-enablers like you would look less completely ridiculous as you would no longer have to invent justification that they don't even bother to use.
Define it broadly enough and anything right-wing is “fascism”.
So you don't think there's any actual meaning of 'fascism' at all, there's no difference in kind, just degree. That Na.zi Germany and Fascist Italy were examples of the normal right wing going too far. That wanting to murder huge swaths of people based on who they are is just...normal right wing stuff, but normally it should be dialed down a little.
That is an interesting concept.
Anyway, my former congressman (1) has just suggested deporting a reverend (2) for expressing concern about LGBTQ people in a sermon.
Religious freedom, yee-ha.
1) To clarify, he is still a congressman, I just do not live there anymore.
2) Who, to be clear, is a US citizen born in the US. It is unclear where we would deport her to.
No one in the universe gestures 'throwing to an audience' as 'overarm extended rapidly upward at an angle'. That gesture is 'grab imaginary heart, pivot arm forward, palm up'. This allows you to 'spray' the audience with what are throwing, like you're throwing confetti.
There is a slight variation where your palm is down, making throw more solid, but even that doesn't have the hand go _up_. Or you could literally pretend to be baseball or softball pitcher, make an underhand or overhand throw. Again, motions that don't end up vaguely near where he got.
Also, a reminder that the audience is _down_ when you're on the stage. (Unless you're in a stadium...which he was not.) You do not gesture _up_ at people _below_ you to give them things.
If you were to make the throw he pretended to make, the heart would go way way off almost directly to the right and way too high. It's nowhere near the audience. (I mean, the audience is all around him, but you make gestures to people you are looking at at the moment, not the people off to the side.)
Also...throwing things don't end with with a flat hand. The end result of a metaphoric throw is 'halfway curved hand', just like...well, just like you've just thrown a baseball. It's not even an analogy, we know how _hands_ work, we can all pretend to throw a baseball or a baseball-size heart and see how it ends up. Every gesture is going to end that way, with a half open hand.
Do you know something you move your hand upward for and usually keep it open? Acknowledging someone. Saluting them, waving at them, etc. (The hand sometimes isn't fully open for a wave, we're lazy, but it is mostly open.) It's basic human movement, possible even one of the actual 'evolutionary psychology' things that actually exists, instead of what people pretend exists under that 'science'. (Maybe we're showing our hand is empty and away from any weapons? I dunno.)
It's why that salute, which the Na.zi did not invent, exists, it's why all salutes exist.
Salutes are also fast, like what he did. Snappy things you repeat by rote. Metaphoric gestures are a _lot_ slower, even slower than normal movement, so people can follow them. Do literally any metaphorical movement, mime anything, you'll notice that you do it slowly and deliberately.
What he is doing is _way_ too fast, and he notable explains it _afterward_. Or, to put it in the obvious way: He's trying to get away with something, so he does it quickly, twice, to make sure people see it. And then rushes out the explanation he's sure will let him get away with it. He is, again, a known troll, it's basic troll behavior.
We are at the point where a good chunk of people are now allowing the GOP to troll with Na.zi symbolism. (A reminder: There is no difference between trolling as a Na.zi and being a Na.zi, because Na.zis are, themselves, trolls.)
Yes, Jaybird, everyone is aware how the fascists deny they are doing things, or that they mean them, until those things become too obvious, at which point it becomes 'Those things have always been fine'.
It really is interesting watching you carry water for them, though.
I've asked before: When do you actually start admitting fascism is happening? What is the actual line that they cannot cross?
The line doesn't seem to be 'threaten to invade other countries'.
And doesn't seem to be what is, at best interpretation, 'refusing to _reject_ Na.zi imagery'. Even if we take someone who is a) known for liking a _lot_ of antisemitic tweets and has been repeatedly criticized for it, b) is a straight-up eugenicist and was raised in that environment, and c) is well known for 'trolling' with alt-right Na.zi adjacent stuff...even if we decide to, for some reason, give him the benefit of the doubt...as even you admit, he hasn't even said 'Oh, sorry, that was in no way intended.'. He hasn't even said 'I am sorry that _you_ read it that way.', the non-apology apology.
Or to put it another way, and this is a pattern: The right (and even other people) sometime do things that the Na.zis think are supporting them. Including this.
When accused of that, people have an _obligation_ to say 'No, you're wrong, I do not support you Na.zis'.(1) Otherwise, they not only are courting Na.zi support, but it's impossible to tell if they have started doing those 'accidents' _deliberately_. And the correct assumption is, at that point, that they have.
In fact, that tweet makes it _worse_. A Na.zi reading that xhit, who thinks he _did_ 'cleverly' pull off doing a Na.zi salute in front of everyone, will read that xhit as _confirmation_. (Note I have not said whether it is or not, my point is it literally the opposite of rebuking their support.)
1) And you're about to start yammering about 'bad faith accusations', but there's a difference between nonsense out-of-context things that people try to make an issue about and the solution is to ignore them, and pretty overt gestures that people do during actual speeches to the nation. Especially, as I said, from someone who actually has no benefit of the doubt at this point because he's done and said a _lot_ of really bad stuff. This isn't some random guy.
The argument is that people who pass over the argument illegally (or unknown to the government) aren’t covered.
Yes, people who are extremely ignorant of what jurisdiction means do argue that. It is a nonsense argument.
Fun fact: If the US does not have jurisdiction over people in this country, the people arresting them or deporting them or detaining them in any manner are kidnapping them. It's literally kidnapping, it's detaining and moving someone without any legal authority. (Possibly even over international borders, which is _especially_ a crime.)
To lawfully detain someone, you have to have jurisdiction over them. (Well, a political entity that has jurisdiction over them must have granted you authority to do arrests, for that specific set of crimes. But let's simplify a bit.)
In fact, those people can commit any crime and no one can stop them...I guess self-defense and defense-of-others still applies, but not beyond that.
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it is, because there is already a situation where governments do not have jurisdiction over people within their borders: Diplomatic immunity. You are literally arguing that people in this country without permission have diplomatic immunity, but it's somehow worse because real diplomatic immunity is a thing we grant and can order their host county to remove them and then revoke it, whereas here you're arguing it exists _naturally_.
Before you ask, no, this does not work in reverse. You cannot do things to people merely because the country you are in does not have jurisdiction over them, jurisdiction over victims is not required for crimes. (Try killing a diplomat, or defrauding someone in another country.)
Or to put it another way: It is entirely reasonable for the ADL to read Elon's apology for how the gesture looked and that he didn't intend it to be read that way, and that he would never do such a salute, and say 'We believe him'. Like, that is a semi-reasonable thing to say.
The ADL talking about all that political stuff is...not.
...
Oh, wait. Elon _hasn't_ clarified any of this? He's made no response at all? And certainly hasn't before they said that.
So, um...we have the ADL asserting it was an 'awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm', despite the fact Elon has not, in fact, said that? Just...preemptively defending him. Preemptively defending the guy who has repeatedly like antisemitic conspiracy theories.
This is a delicate moment. It’s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety.
It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Na.zi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge.
In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.
In case anyone was wondering what the purpose of the ADL was, there you have it: Defending the richest man in the world. A man that, I remind people, defends the AfD in Germany, and has endorsed antisemitic conspiracy theories on Xitter, repeatedly.
Also, what the hell are they talking about, 'all sides'? They're the Anti-Defamation League, their concern is theoretically just antisemitism, almost with other forms of bigotry. None of that requires a political position, except against those things, which they obviously should not talk about with regard to 'unity'. Talking about 'all sides', trying to manage how the sides feel about each other makes them sound overtly political. Which...I mean, they are. But should be pretending not to be. Because, again, their supposedly narrow concern is bigotry.
And that's not even getting into the nonsense of 'a new beginning'. What the hell is that supposed to be about? What new place do you think the country just got to? We already had Trump as president once. (Antisemitism and other bigotry, very notable, went up.)
There are, admittedly, a lot of people concerned that the country is about to slide almost directly into fascism, with no checks on Trump, which could be a 'new beginning', but those people are not talking about how we have a 'new beginning with healing'. That sounds like directly defending Trump, and you somehow promising that _this time_, he'll be better.
I'm pretty certain that isn't what you, the ADL, are supposed to be doing. I'm pretty sure that _you_ should be the people that he is making that promise _to_, and you try to force him to keep that promise. Not you making the promise. You are literally on the wrong side of this discussion. It's almost as if you're acting as a part of the Republican party.
For those who think it's obvious the amendment can't be considered ratified because the time lime is passed, there are two reasons why time limits are not valid:
The first is that expiration is part of the preamble and not the amendment itself. Preambles don't actually do anything. This is the one people seem to know.
The second is...the constitution, extremely clearly, says amendments _will_ be part of the constitution if enough states say so. Not 'Will part if the conditions in the amendment are meet'. An amendment gets no say in whether or not it is made part of the constitution, because it is, duh, not part of the constitution yet.
This is actually pretty easy to prove with just basic logic. Here's the preamble, for reference, which is the 'law' that is Congress passing the amendment, and not the actual amendment itself:
That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission by the Congress: (The actual amendment follows)
Now, I ask people, what if that had said that it would be part of the constitution when ratified by one-half of the states? Or nine-tens? Congress, very obviously, cannot do that. It wouldn't matter what they wrote there, they cannot redefine the constitutional requirements for an amendment.
So why would they be able to add a time limit?
In fact, Congress is not in charge of the amendment process at all. It's a process that requires enough of both the states and Congress to pass an amendment, but there's no requirement that Congress does it first. Yes, Congress has generally written them, but states can also. It is a dual process, equally shared by Congress and the states.
So this would be Congress not only trying to set rules for something laid out explicitly in the constitution that it has not authority to change, but setting rules for the _individual state governments_ part of the process! One of the areas that states have actual constitutional sovereignty. Holy crap.
Congress really, really cannot do that. I cannot stress that enough. Congress cannot alter the amendment process of states by writing things next to amendments as they pass them. (In fact, you might have better logic in arguing that conditional passages like that don't count as actual passage...and exactly that was argued in Dillon v. Gloss. It failed. 100 years ago.)
Now, whether or not States can _rescind_ the passage of the amendment is another issue, one that doesn't impact their sovereignty. The constitution is silent on that. I would argue no, because it's rather unclear why they could only rescind _unpassed_ amendments and not passed one., and that way lies madness. But that one is debatable.
The Supreme Court ruled in Dillon v. Gloss (1921) that (1) Article V of the Constitution implies that amendments must be ratified, if at all, within some reasonable time after their proposal. (2)
Um, the 27th amendment would like a word with you.
We are 100% sure that amendments do not _implicitly_ expire.
The question is if they can _explicitly_ expire, if having a time limit makes them expire.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “SCOTUS Grants Reprieve to ‘Slut Shamed’ Woman on Oklahoma’s Death Row”
It's worth pointing out, this sort of weird prosecutorial hatred and emphasis on things like this is almost always in death penalty cases. The prosecution decides 'I shall have this person put to death', and builds a picture of some sort of complete monster. A thing you can functionally do to any person if you investigate them enough and present a case against someone with a pro bono lawyer.
There are people on death row because they participated in a robbery that went wrong and someone got killed, and the prosecution decided to turn 'a previous robbery that they did' into 'a hardened violent criminal with no possibility of ever stopping', when it's just...that's someone who has tried to do two robberies. One went bad. And the prosecutor decided that this _particular_ one should be put to death, so went digging for all sorts of nonsense about their character. (Criminals generally don't have great 'character' to start with.) That's all. They picked one, and went on a detailed examination of tracking down every possibly bad sounding things to throw in front of the jury.
Here, the picture painted, 'This woman had some sex outside of carefully prescribed situations and seems to like it' is the sort of picture that we have decided we have problems with being painted in court. But it's not less accurate, or inaccurate, or more to the point, relevant when figuring out guilt when it's anything else, because these sort of 'take a bunch of incidents from someone's history and try to build something from them' is nonsense to start with, especially when it's done by complete roulette wheel of 1 out of every 5000 people or whatever. This one is just more egregious because the examples showing her to be a bad person are incredibly sexist.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/20/2025”
As I've always pointed out about the JFK assassination, moronic conspiracies about the actual physical events of the shooting that try to make it somehow involving anyone but Oswald have obscured the fact that Oswald was likely working for _someone_, either the Russians or the mob. (Or, yes, even hypothetically the CIA.) Like, that's the actual thing we need to know, not gibberish about bullet trajectories.
I don't know to what extent that was even investigated. The Warren Commission concluded he 'acted entirely alone', which means, in theory, they investigated that. It will be interesting to see how much.
"
I mean, I know I'm late to the game, but 'threaten to invade other countries under no justification but They Should Be Part Of Our Great Nation' seems pretty Na.zi-like.
On “Trump Doesn’t Have a Monopoly on Lawlessness”
Greenland is the one issue that a) very obviously is not being pushed by either far right politicians or conservative think tanks (because it is fundamentally stupid), and b) one that Trump keeps bringing up, unprompted, and seems incredibly interested in.
I know everyone keeps trying to downplay it, but we really have stumbled across something that Trump _wants to do_. This isn't random crap he's saying, it's not even connected with the tariff thing. He just happened to look at it landmass that looks very large (because many dumbasses do not understand how map projection works) and decided that the US should have it, despite it being an almost completely barren wasteland that really doesn't do anything for anyone.
He does not have anyone who will stop him, he made sure of that this Administration.
And if you think what Trump is doing and saying about Greenland, and Canada for that matter, is not important, you haven't paid the slightest attention to foreign press. Other countries are freaking the hell out about this. Especially when you combine it with his belligerent over immigration, trade, and tariffs. If he will take Greenland just because he wants it, what will he do to a country that actually fights him on those?
I know it seems cliche to say this, because people said it in his first term and it wasn't really true, but the US is about to lose its geopolitical position in the world, because it has suddenly turned into, and I guess I need to keep saying this, a fascist belligerent Nation that threatens other nations for literally no reason except that it wants to seize them.
The people in this country have had almost a decade of the press normalizing this, so they don't understand what is happening. The rest of the world does.
(And while people are reading the important press, they might want to check out what the foreign press is saying about what Elon Musk did at the inauguration, because we seem to be the only country that is confused about that. Absolutely no one else is.)
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I'm a little busy trying to do important things, like try to figure out if a friend of mine will be able to reenter the country on their non-binary passport if they leave.
But, how's everyone doing with the market crash? Wait, I guess that hasn't happened yet.
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Weird no one mentioned Trump threatening war with Greenland
On “Trump Term Two, Day One, Executive Orders”
Yeah, um, this thread needs to be archived and pulled out in about a month, I think. Maybe two.
Because what people seem to think is going to happen is not what is going to happen.
BTW, I've seen literally no one here mention that Trump is including going after accessibility as part of this.
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Do you literally know any organizer or process or _anything_ on the left? Have you actually ever participated or even listened to a discussion on the left? Or is it just a bunch of stereotypes and parodies running around inside your head?
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The prior argument for not convicting him in the Senate was 'He is out of office, and the court system will decide'.
The court system did not decide, it did not reach a decision on that. It ended due to his reelection.
He is now back in office. It is now time to convict.
Likewise, while he was out of office, the legal system asserted it could not question his decisions, implicitly saying the only way to punish him for a huge chunk of things he does as president is impeachment.
Like, all the excuses are laid bare.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/20/2025”
Yeah, if it wasn't said literally as an explanation of why he just did that gesture, I wouldn't even think twice about it.
But, like, it was.
Actually, I would think twice about it, but only in the sense that I would add up another tally to Musk's inherent bigotry and how he thinks about 'civilization'. It's the quiet part, but it's _not_ being said aloud, so it's just 'Yeah, I know what he was implying there, but that's how he is all the time. And people who understand this, understand it, and people who don't will just deny it.'.
But putting it next to a salute that was incredibly performative, so much so it was done twice, something clearly rehearsed with a explanation at the ready so as to claim people are _imagining_ things, and claiming that's why he was doing it...makes it somewhat obvious what he was doing.
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Oh, and let's not forget the _next_ thing he said, as part of 'explaining' that he was throwing his heart to the crowd, was: "It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured."
Now, that sounds like an innocuous statement, and maybe would be if not done immediately after that gesture. In fact, it probably went by a lot of people, the media included, especially if they were still shocked by that gestures.
But when done essentially _as_ part of that gesture, one cannot help but think of the 14 words: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.
Did he intend to obliquely reference that? I dunno.
Na.zis would think of 'white people' and 'civilization' synonymously, but that presumes the end result.
And the future of those things is 'assured' vs 'secured'. Coincidence, or deliberate change to sound very similar while not actually being identical?
It's not impossible for someone to say that sentence innocently. It feels saying that innocently _as part of doing a thing very similar to a Na.zi salute_ is somewhat more unlikely. Maybe? Hypothetically?
The thing is, again, Elon is a known troll who has no problem trolling white supremancy and Na.zism...because he is, in fact, supporters of those things. Benefit of the doubt is really not something that should be extended to him.
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Yes, this.
The 14th amendment did not generally change who became citizen. The situation under US law is that almost all of them were citizens anyway.
Except for children of slaves, who were explicitly barred by law from being citizens. Along with a few other specific groups of immigrants. (1)
The 14th did not do anything laws could not have, and it didn't really change how we understood citizenship. It was written so we could never _exclude_ people from citizenship via the law.
1) Along with, interestingly, Native Americans, which the 14th did _not_ include because it said 'the United States' and that was understood to mean 'The group of actual States', and Indian reservations were not, and still are not to some extent, part of the jurisdiction of the states they are inside. And even moreso back then, where reservations were treated, in a sense, as sovereign nations that we had treaties with that was not under US jurisdiction but just happened to be inside the US.
This is much less true now, and it's an interesting question if the 14th would cover them _now_, but we passed a law in 1924 saying they were all citizens from birth anyway. (Which does, indeed, allow them to become president, although we've never had one.)
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Hey, Jaybird, have you ever, like, Googled anything? Instead of just sorta repeating right-wing talking points?
https://www.mediamatters.org/ann-coulter/did-author-citizenship-clause-really-say-it-would-exclude-children-foreigners
We have _tons_ of records about passing this bill, and absolutely no one, not even him, agreed with how you are interpreting that _single sentence_ said in a middle of a discussion about whether or not the amendment was a good idea because it made the children of foreigners into citizen.
Here is another quote from that debate:
The entire discussion over that bill, which was debated for months, literally due to the fact _it would include the children of foreigners. Both here legally and illegally.
The worry about then was about the Chinese (Who had a tendency to just sorta...get off the boat in California and start working.) and, pardon the slur, 'gypsies'.
--
And let's just look at how weird that sentence is if you try to parse it that way. It doesn't say that the _children_ of foreigners born in the US wouldn't be citizens, it says _foreigners_ born in the US wouldn't be citizens. What sort of gibberish is that? That doesn't mean anything. Also, how are foreigners born in the US? To be a foreigner, you have to be from somewhere else. (Foreigner, unlike 'alien', is not a legal terms. It just means 'someone who isn't from here'.)
Also that sentence, uh, is not a list. Firstly, a list has an 'or' in it or some other conjugation, and also you don't make a list that is 'All foreigners, all foreigners except stated differently, and some specific foreigners who are diplomats'. Does that sound like someone making a list?
It very obviously is not a list, it almost certainly is a correction or clarification, where he first starts with 'foreigner', realizes that is not really the correct word in a legal sense, and corrects to 'aliens who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States', which would be the correct way to say that.
But again, we don't need to guess the meaning, because it's a single sentence in a discussion that everyone operated as if the amendment meant that the children of foreigners would be citizens and had a huge discussion about it. You, or rather whoever fed you this, tried to cut a single awkward sentence out a discussion, pretended it's clearly a list despite it clearly not being a list, and basically just made a whole pack of lies.
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John Bolton just had his secret service protection revoked by Trump.
You may be wondering why John Bolton, previous National Security advisor 2018-2019, had secret service protection, which is obviously not standard.
It is because Iran is trying to kill him. He was given that protection by Trump, and then Biden extended it, because even though John Bolton is, of course, a Republican, we probably should let Iran assassinate former US officials.
Anyway, then John Bolton wrote a book about how incompetent and criminal Trump was.
And then Trump because president.
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I think you left out 1a) Elon has actually been called out for liking overt antisemitic messages before on Xitter.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/elon-musk-george-soros-anti-semites/674072/
Repeatedly.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/business/elon-musk-reveals-his-actual-truth/index.html
And again:
https://newrepublic.com/post/189752/elon-musk-far-right-troll-x-profile-change-pepe-frog
This isn't someone where we start with the benefit of the doubt. This someone who has been repeatedly critized, in just the last year, for flirting with Na.zism.
Notice how troll-ish the last one is. I would explain that Elon didn't do the Na.zi salute seriously, he did it to troll because he had an audience in front of the world, but I feel that some people would think that means it's less important. But it was.
Also, note that I do actually understand the difference between Na.zism and fascism. The Republicans are leading us into fascism, American's own brand of it. (Wrapped in the American flag and carrying a cross) It's not the same as Na.zism, just it's not the same as Italy's or Argentina's or Greece's or...any of the other places where fascism has existed. Fascism, like all political ideologies, change and evolves over time and from place to place.
Elon, meanwhile, is flirting with Na.zism. Just...straight out Na.zism.
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What frequency do you think people should be screaming 'fascism' as fascism happens?
Wow, the right wing has gotten you so well-trained you make justifications _for them_ that they themselves are not making.
No, it was not a 'joke'. We might have some indication it was a joke if, you know, he _said_ was a joke.
Just like we might have an indication that Elon's gesture was a not a Na.zi salute if he _said it wasn't_.
We still might not believe those thing, but the fascism-enablers like you would look less completely ridiculous as you would no longer have to invent justification that they don't even bother to use.
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So you don't think there's any actual meaning of 'fascism' at all, there's no difference in kind, just degree. That Na.zi Germany and Fascist Italy were examples of the normal right wing going too far. That wanting to murder huge swaths of people based on who they are is just...normal right wing stuff, but normally it should be dialed down a little.
That is an interesting concept.
Anyway, my former congressman (1) has just suggested deporting a reverend (2) for expressing concern about LGBTQ people in a sermon.
Religious freedom, yee-ha.
1) To clarify, he is still a congressman, I just do not live there anymore.
2) Who, to be clear, is a US citizen born in the US. It is unclear where we would deport her to.
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Dude, have _you_ tried making that gesture?
No one in the universe gestures 'throwing to an audience' as 'overarm extended rapidly upward at an angle'. That gesture is 'grab imaginary heart, pivot arm forward, palm up'. This allows you to 'spray' the audience with what are throwing, like you're throwing confetti.
There is a slight variation where your palm is down, making throw more solid, but even that doesn't have the hand go _up_. Or you could literally pretend to be baseball or softball pitcher, make an underhand or overhand throw. Again, motions that don't end up vaguely near where he got.
Also, a reminder that the audience is _down_ when you're on the stage. (Unless you're in a stadium...which he was not.) You do not gesture _up_ at people _below_ you to give them things.
If you were to make the throw he pretended to make, the heart would go way way off almost directly to the right and way too high. It's nowhere near the audience. (I mean, the audience is all around him, but you make gestures to people you are looking at at the moment, not the people off to the side.)
Also...throwing things don't end with with a flat hand. The end result of a metaphoric throw is 'halfway curved hand', just like...well, just like you've just thrown a baseball. It's not even an analogy, we know how _hands_ work, we can all pretend to throw a baseball or a baseball-size heart and see how it ends up. Every gesture is going to end that way, with a half open hand.
Do you know something you move your hand upward for and usually keep it open? Acknowledging someone. Saluting them, waving at them, etc. (The hand sometimes isn't fully open for a wave, we're lazy, but it is mostly open.) It's basic human movement, possible even one of the actual 'evolutionary psychology' things that actually exists, instead of what people pretend exists under that 'science'. (Maybe we're showing our hand is empty and away from any weapons? I dunno.)
It's why that salute, which the Na.zi did not invent, exists, it's why all salutes exist.
Salutes are also fast, like what he did. Snappy things you repeat by rote. Metaphoric gestures are a _lot_ slower, even slower than normal movement, so people can follow them. Do literally any metaphorical movement, mime anything, you'll notice that you do it slowly and deliberately.
What he is doing is _way_ too fast, and he notable explains it _afterward_. Or, to put it in the obvious way: He's trying to get away with something, so he does it quickly, twice, to make sure people see it. And then rushes out the explanation he's sure will let him get away with it. He is, again, a known troll, it's basic troll behavior.
We are at the point where a good chunk of people are now allowing the GOP to troll with Na.zi symbolism. (A reminder: There is no difference between trolling as a Na.zi and being a Na.zi, because Na.zis are, themselves, trolls.)
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Yes, Jaybird, everyone is aware how the fascists deny they are doing things, or that they mean them, until those things become too obvious, at which point it becomes 'Those things have always been fine'.
It really is interesting watching you carry water for them, though.
I've asked before: When do you actually start admitting fascism is happening? What is the actual line that they cannot cross?
The line doesn't seem to be 'threaten to invade other countries'.
And doesn't seem to be what is, at best interpretation, 'refusing to _reject_ Na.zi imagery'. Even if we take someone who is a) known for liking a _lot_ of antisemitic tweets and has been repeatedly criticized for it, b) is a straight-up eugenicist and was raised in that environment, and c) is well known for 'trolling' with alt-right Na.zi adjacent stuff...even if we decide to, for some reason, give him the benefit of the doubt...as even you admit, he hasn't even said 'Oh, sorry, that was in no way intended.'. He hasn't even said 'I am sorry that _you_ read it that way.', the non-apology apology.
Or to put it another way, and this is a pattern: The right (and even other people) sometime do things that the Na.zis think are supporting them. Including this.
When accused of that, people have an _obligation_ to say 'No, you're wrong, I do not support you Na.zis'.(1) Otherwise, they not only are courting Na.zi support, but it's impossible to tell if they have started doing those 'accidents' _deliberately_. And the correct assumption is, at that point, that they have.
In fact, that tweet makes it _worse_. A Na.zi reading that xhit, who thinks he _did_ 'cleverly' pull off doing a Na.zi salute in front of everyone, will read that xhit as _confirmation_. (Note I have not said whether it is or not, my point is it literally the opposite of rebuking their support.)
1) And you're about to start yammering about 'bad faith accusations', but there's a difference between nonsense out-of-context things that people try to make an issue about and the solution is to ignore them, and pretty overt gestures that people do during actual speeches to the nation. Especially, as I said, from someone who actually has no benefit of the doubt at this point because he's done and said a _lot_ of really bad stuff. This isn't some random guy.
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Yes, people who are extremely ignorant of what jurisdiction means do argue that. It is a nonsense argument.
Fun fact: If the US does not have jurisdiction over people in this country, the people arresting them or deporting them or detaining them in any manner are kidnapping them. It's literally kidnapping, it's detaining and moving someone without any legal authority. (Possibly even over international borders, which is _especially_ a crime.)
To lawfully detain someone, you have to have jurisdiction over them. (Well, a political entity that has jurisdiction over them must have granted you authority to do arrests, for that specific set of crimes. But let's simplify a bit.)
In fact, those people can commit any crime and no one can stop them...I guess self-defense and defense-of-others still applies, but not beyond that.
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it is, because there is already a situation where governments do not have jurisdiction over people within their borders: Diplomatic immunity. You are literally arguing that people in this country without permission have diplomatic immunity, but it's somehow worse because real diplomatic immunity is a thing we grant and can order their host county to remove them and then revoke it, whereas here you're arguing it exists _naturally_.
Before you ask, no, this does not work in reverse. You cannot do things to people merely because the country you are in does not have jurisdiction over them, jurisdiction over victims is not required for crimes. (Try killing a diplomat, or defrauding someone in another country.)
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You have to be exceptionally dumb to think to ADL is not part of the Republican party at this point.
You know who _hasn't_ said it wasn't a Na.zi salute?
ELON MUSK.
On “Ordinary Times Watchalong: The Inauguration of Donald Trump”
Or to put it another way: It is entirely reasonable for the ADL to read Elon's apology for how the gesture looked and that he didn't intend it to be read that way, and that he would never do such a salute, and say 'We believe him'. Like, that is a semi-reasonable thing to say.
The ADL talking about all that political stuff is...not.
...
Oh, wait. Elon _hasn't_ clarified any of this? He's made no response at all? And certainly hasn't before they said that.
So, um...we have the ADL asserting it was an 'awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm', despite the fact Elon has not, in fact, said that? Just...preemptively defending him. Preemptively defending the guy who has repeatedly like antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Mmm hmm.
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Don't worry, the ADL has promptly responded with:
In case anyone was wondering what the purpose of the ADL was, there you have it: Defending the richest man in the world. A man that, I remind people, defends the AfD in Germany, and has endorsed antisemitic conspiracy theories on Xitter, repeatedly.
Also, what the hell are they talking about, 'all sides'? They're the Anti-Defamation League, their concern is theoretically just antisemitism, almost with other forms of bigotry. None of that requires a political position, except against those things, which they obviously should not talk about with regard to 'unity'. Talking about 'all sides', trying to manage how the sides feel about each other makes them sound overtly political. Which...I mean, they are. But should be pretending not to be. Because, again, their supposedly narrow concern is bigotry.
And that's not even getting into the nonsense of 'a new beginning'. What the hell is that supposed to be about? What new place do you think the country just got to? We already had Trump as president once. (Antisemitism and other bigotry, very notable, went up.)
There are, admittedly, a lot of people concerned that the country is about to slide almost directly into fascism, with no checks on Trump, which could be a 'new beginning', but those people are not talking about how we have a 'new beginning with healing'. That sounds like directly defending Trump, and you somehow promising that _this time_, he'll be better.
I'm pretty certain that isn't what you, the ADL, are supposed to be doing. I'm pretty sure that _you_ should be the people that he is making that promise _to_, and you try to force him to keep that promise. Not you making the promise. You are literally on the wrong side of this discussion. It's almost as if you're acting as a part of the Republican party.
On “President Biden Affirms the Passage of the ERA”
For those who think it's obvious the amendment can't be considered ratified because the time lime is passed, there are two reasons why time limits are not valid:
The first is that expiration is part of the preamble and not the amendment itself. Preambles don't actually do anything. This is the one people seem to know.
The second is...the constitution, extremely clearly, says amendments _will_ be part of the constitution if enough states say so. Not 'Will part if the conditions in the amendment are meet'. An amendment gets no say in whether or not it is made part of the constitution, because it is, duh, not part of the constitution yet.
This is actually pretty easy to prove with just basic logic. Here's the preamble, for reference, which is the 'law' that is Congress passing the amendment, and not the actual amendment itself:
That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission by the Congress: (The actual amendment follows)
Now, I ask people, what if that had said that it would be part of the constitution when ratified by one-half of the states? Or nine-tens? Congress, very obviously, cannot do that. It wouldn't matter what they wrote there, they cannot redefine the constitutional requirements for an amendment.
So why would they be able to add a time limit?
In fact, Congress is not in charge of the amendment process at all. It's a process that requires enough of both the states and Congress to pass an amendment, but there's no requirement that Congress does it first. Yes, Congress has generally written them, but states can also. It is a dual process, equally shared by Congress and the states.
So this would be Congress not only trying to set rules for something laid out explicitly in the constitution that it has not authority to change, but setting rules for the _individual state governments_ part of the process! One of the areas that states have actual constitutional sovereignty. Holy crap.
Congress really, really cannot do that. I cannot stress that enough. Congress cannot alter the amendment process of states by writing things next to amendments as they pass them. (In fact, you might have better logic in arguing that conditional passages like that don't count as actual passage...and exactly that was argued in Dillon v. Gloss. It failed. 100 years ago.)
Now, whether or not States can _rescind_ the passage of the amendment is another issue, one that doesn't impact their sovereignty. The constitution is silent on that. I would argue no, because it's rather unclear why they could only rescind _unpassed_ amendments and not passed one., and that way lies madness. But that one is debatable.
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Um, the 27th amendment would like a word with you.
We are 100% sure that amendments do not _implicitly_ expire.
The question is if they can _explicitly_ expire, if having a time limit makes them expire.
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