France on Sunday took a step closer to delivering what was once seen as an unthinkable nightmare: a far-right government taking power in Paris for the first time.

Well… the first time in a while. And just as the last time was exiting living memory.

They need a format that breaks the debate up into sections and actually includes fact checking, and a cross examination after each section. Have a team scrambling to find the records, studies, video clips and other evidence that they can bring up. Someone who is mostly honest gets lay ups and affirmation. Someone who lies constantly gets called out and put on the defensive.

Wouldn’t happen of course. Even if the hosts were down to have someone take on a more adversarial role, Trump would never agree to something that actually holds him accountable for spewing nothing but bullshit. It’s his entire strategy, if he can’t sell snake oil he has nothing to sell at all.

This means that anyone who doesn’t like a particular rule or regulation can pick a venue with a friendly judge, challenge it in court, and likely get the outcome they want. Even if judge shopping wasn’t a major problem right now, this would still be a bad idea. The reason Chevron told judges to defer to agencies in matters where the interpretation is ambiguous is because those agencies have the experience and and expertise to understand the issues involved far better than a judge who has to try to master the subject from inside the courtroom.

This is all the more crazy in light of the recent racial gerrymandering decision, where Alito not only ignored the deference that appeals courts are supposed to show to trial courts (where the case is actually experienced and not just summed up in a brief) but then says that the judicial branch must defer to the legislators when they claim that they are being fair. So judges can just override the executive branch in subjects that they likely do not understand, but they can’t actually contradict the legislature over something like whether a policy is violating someone’s constitutional rights, despite that being one of their core functions for the past couple of centuries.

Precedents get overturned from time to time, and the way that generally happens is when a new case comes along challenging that precedent.

Maybe this goes nowhere. Maybe a conviction gets overturned on appeal. But maybe we could see a new precedent set. Might as well try, you’re probably not going to find a better case to do it any time soon.

Trump was the keynote speaker at the Faith & Freedom Coalition in Washington DC, a gathering of politically influential conservative Christian activists who advocate for strict abortion restrictions and a tougher stance on the southern border.

Yes, I often reflect upon Jesus’s teachings regarding the border. And all those times he talked about how we should crack down on immigrants. He was so famously against things like, the poor, foreigners, and your neighbors. Clearly these people are doing God’s work.

At this point I’m almost surprised that Trump’s lawyers haven’t tried filing motions going through all the classic sovereign citizen arguments. Think of how long they could delay by spending a week arguing about tassels on the flag, and another week on whether the charges apply to Trump or if they only apply to TRUMP.

Seems like the first step should be taxing those personal loans that are being used as income. That seems like a simple fix (simple by tax code standards, I’d still expect such a law to be ridiculously complex).

I do worry about the unintended side effects a of a wealth tax targeting stock ownership directly. That just gives the rich an incentive to squeeze more value out of their investments in order to cover their tax bill. And it seems like it would likely push private companies into selling out more as they grow since the money has to come from somewhere, thus giving even more incentive to cave in to investors who just want to make a quick buck and don’t care about the long term survival of the company.

Sounds to me like a way of backing down from their saber-rattling and threats of invasion while trying to not look like they are backing down from anything.

[Realizes he’s talked up a war that would be disastrous, win or lose] “We’re not going to do that, it’s exactly what they want us to do”

Of course, that could also just be Xi being full of shit for diplomatic reasons. It’s not like he’d be bound by this in any way. “We’re not going to be tricked by their provocations” can always be followed by a “but now they’ve forced our hand.”

They also usually have two months of transition planning, which didn’t happen since Trump wasn’t planning on leaving. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of Trump era shit continued a while into the Biden administration simply because it took time to get caught up on it all and shut it down.

Ah, so they do remember what standing is. Surprising, given their selective amnesia on the topic during the student loan forgiveness case.

I find it interesting that guys like this who want to start a race war always think that this is the thing that’s going to do it. Like we’ve made it through all the other hate crimes, injustices and large scale protests without erupting into a race war, but one more incident will do the trick.

Also interesting is how closely his plan is tied to the election. He isn’t just trying to send a message before the election, he specifically thinks that his side needs a specific outcome in the election for his plan to succeed. This plan seems to be a direct consequence of current political environment and the messages coming from his preferred candidate and his supporters.

Now the article doesn’t actually say which candidate needs to win in order to embolden violent white supremacists. But if you need 2 guesses, you should probably consider going back into the coma you’ve been in for the past decade, you’re not going to like the future.

It’s a small town in a swing state that doesn’t lean heavily to either side of the political spectrum. It’s nothing special. Given how many small towns exist, it would be weirder to not have any that voted with the majority in the last several elections.

Cease and desist or he will “consider his legal options” which is about the emptiest threat possible.

Oh no! He’s going to think about how he has no case because everything they’re reporting is factual and he’s a public figure.

Nearly three decades ago, I remember my grandpa being pissed about proposed changes to social security which were supposed prevent it from going bankrupt. When I asked what his solution was, he said that he paid into the system his whole life, and they owe him the full benefits he was promised. He got a lot more pissed when I asked if he was fine with me paying into the system my whole life and getting nothing, but he didn’t really have an answer. And somehow, I’m sure he thought he won that argument.

To be clear, I was just pointing out that the savings aren’t coming from eliminating the death penalty, they are coming from reducing the number of appeals, and therefore increasing the likelihood that an innocent person will spend the rest of their life in prison, which is a bad thing. I’m not advocating for or against the death penalty, but I do think that a life sentence should come with just as many safeguards as a death sentence. The fact that you could release someone who was wrongfully convicted only matters if you actually allow those mistakes to be corrected.

We could use improvements at every part of the process. The appeals process however can be particularly awful, and is full of arbitrary restrictions and limitations that have little effect other than making it harder to correct mistakes and injustices. Some of them were put in place for no reason other than because politicians wanted to look tough on crime, and apparently overturning convictions looks bad for the justice system’s track record. But really I was only bringing it up because it’s relevant to the cost argument.

Isn’t the reason it costs more to keep someone on death row largely due to the appeals they get?

I’d much rather we spend more making sure we aren’t destroying the lives of innocent people than save money by not giving them as many chances to get an unjust sentence overturned. Which isn’t necessarily a pro-death penalty position, as it could also be a call to reform the appeals process for everyone else.

Specific laws are often needed in order to enforce the constitution. Legislation can go into greater detail and eliminate ambiguities and grey areas. And it can add an actual enforcement mechanism, since the constitution doesn’t generally include any actual penalties.

That also means that law enforcement agencies can pursue those cases. That’s a hell of a lot better than relying on congress to impeach someone.

This particular bill might be redundant, but only if existing laws adequately cover these issues. I’m not familiar enough with current laws on the topic to say one way or the other. Not that it matters much when this bill has no chance of becoming law anyway.

I don’t doubt that the intent is not specifically to harass people who are wearing a mask for health reasons and just going about their normal routine. But only because I’m certain the intent is to use it as an excuse to harass and arrest peaceful protestors even when they aren’t breaking any laws. Because speech should only be free when they agree with it.

But even if the intent isn’t to go after people that choose to value human life, they are leaving that door open and they fucking know it. All they have to do is make the law a modifier that can be tacked on to existing felony charges, but can’t be charged separately. But they aren’t doing that, or anything else to prevent the law from being used to target people for not belligerently opposing anything that might benefit public health.

They argued his actions were justified as self-defense. Perry told police during an interview that he believed Foster was going to aim the firearm at him, according to CNN affiliate KEYE.

Fucking open and shut case right there. If he was afraid that someone was going to aim a gun at him, it means that the person didn’t aim a gun at him.

Yes?

In this case it’s corporate being especially protective of Batman, and terrified of anything that might affect toy sales (among other things). IIRC Justice League unlimited had quite a few episodes shot down or rewritten because of various Batman related edicts from on high. And parental backlash after Batman Returns is part of why we got Joel Schumacher. Hell, it’s how we got Robin and the no killing rule, because they wanted to make the comics more marketable to kids.

Shit on the other side of the 4th wall is often the biggest problem superheroes face, and not just through censorship. It’s why Spider-Man made a deal with the devil. And it’s why Arkham has a revolving door, since popular and marketable villains need to keep coming back (which is why the “Batman should kill people” argument is idiotic, as any villain that won’t stay in jail will also refuse to stay dead).

These are corporate owned characters. The company in charge is going to care far more about making money and protecting their brand than they will about art, consistency, or even whether their policies are rational. Hell, they canceled a Green Lantern show that was popular and successful because they weren’t happy with the fucking toy sales.