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dhork

@ dhork @lemmy.world

Posts
4
Comments
2156
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Trump floats pulling Blanche's nomination for attorney general to avoid conceding to GOP demands

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  • I view it a bit differently than "he doesn't want to lose".

    The Senators asked Blanche directly to limit the scope of the audit settlement specifically to the parties in the original suit (Trump and his family), and to already filed returns, not new ones. Blanche verbally agreed, but the Senators want it in writing.

    That is what Trump is arguing about - he wants the freedom to commit tax fraud with impunity in the future. It's important enough to him that he wants to gamble on Republicans retaining the Senate after the election to preserve it.

    This kind of gambit has worked for Republicans in the past. It's how they stacked the SCOTUS, after all. McConnell pulled that off because he was politically shrewd, and knew it was a good gamble to take. But let's face it, McConnell is probably never coming back to the Senate, and Trump has managed to bankrupt several casinos, so I doubt he is a good gambler.

  • Senate’s latest effort to halt Trump’s Iran hostilities fails in 49-50 vote as some Republicans side with Democrats – live

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  • The normal split in the Senate is 53R / 47D. With Mitch out of order, it's down to 52/47. So three R's voting the for it would have been enough to make the measure pass, if all D's voted as well. But the vote got Fettermaned, and failed 49-50.

  • Trump Has Made Billions in Office. Will His Party Pay Politically?

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  • The President is only accountable to half the US House and 1/3 of US Senators. As long as 218 House members back him, he won't get impeached. And even failing that, as long as 34 Senators back him, he won't get punished.

    It turns out he has enough support within Congress to keep grifting. Is he giving them a cut?

  • AI companies are anonymously buying and destroying millions of books through middleman services to avoid headlines about AI companies buying and destroying millions of books

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  • But the destruction is the essential part, ironically, that makes this copying kosher for copyright purposes:

    Destroying books, it turns out, isn't just cheaper than maintaining them: The presiding judge also ruled that it's transformative enough to constitute fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act.

    So, somehow, destroying the books afterwards makes it all legal. In spite of the fact that no author who wrote a book in all of human history before about 3 years ago had to worry about a chatbot sucking up all of its work, and vomiting it back out, without compensation.

  • Kentucky Governor to McConnell: Prove Fitness to Serve or ‘Resign’

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  • It is entirely fitting that McConnell is fillibustering his own obituary.

  • Kentucky Gov Orders McConnell to Give a Real Update or Resign Already

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  • I am reminded of the situation around Dianne Feinstein in 2023, who held on to her seat until her death, even though rumors were swirling that she had dementia that was only getting worse. She actually gave power of attorney over her personal affairs to her daughter a few months before her death, while still serving as Senator.

    (But, even through all that she still had lucid moments, and actually voted to prevent a government shutdown just before she died, which is more than Mitch has done recently.)

    We really need some way to get these people to step aside when the time comes.

  • Kentucky Gov Orders McConnell to Give a Real Update or Resign Already

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  • No. Kentucky law specifically says Beshear cannot appoint a replacement. But he can call a special election, which might have different candidates than the general election for his seat in November. The August 3 date is floating around as the deadline after which Beshear can't call that election.

  • Cops Went After Dem Star Because of ‘Mentally Unstable’ Tipster

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  • Mentally unstable and untrustworthy? That basically narrows it down to any Republican.

  • First Kenyan-born NFL player deported, ICE says

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  • I wonder how many ICE agents have similar infractions in their past, and how they justify calling these people "dangerous" when their past has the same shit in it....

  • Transcript: Angry Trump Urges GOP to Rig Midterms as Polls Turn Brutal

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  • The Senate literally makes it's own rules, and chooses how to organize itself. The rules are so convoluted that the Senate established its own office, the Parliamentarian, to advise on those rules. This is a non-partisan office that serves the Senate as a whole. They get no actual vote, but their decisions affects how work in the Senate progresses. (In particular, they are the ones who make decisions on these "reconciliation" bills that provide a way around the filibuster.

    Trump can't fire her, because she works for the Senate Leadership. The Majority Leader can fire her, but won't (at least so far), because once the rules start breaking down, it's impossible to get anything done in the Senate. Republicans could just dispense with the rules to give the majority more power, but they are terrified of what Democrats would do with that power if they ever gained the majority afterwards.

    So, if we ever do get to the point that Republicans fire the Parliamentarian, or further restrict the filibuster, it will be because Republicans are counting on never having to give up control of the Senate again.

  • Tesla Stock in Freefall After Disastrous Earnings Report

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  • The stock is hovering at around $324 at the time of writing, down over 15 percent over the last five days and about 28 percent year to date.

    That ain't free fall, it has a ways more to go

  • Transcript: Angry Trump Urges GOP to Rig Midterms as Polls Turn Brutal

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  • The parliamentarian simply advises the Majority Leader, all of their rulings only constrain the Senate because the Leader lets it happen. Trent Lott fired the Parliamentarian in 2001 because Lott was angry about his rulings (although Lott didn't go as far as to ignore those rulings....)

  • Major Supreme Court changes proposed by Pete Buttigieg: 3 reform ideas

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  • Applying a set term to Justice's tenure will greatly reduce the amount of time a justice is in any particular role. Once we have those terms in place, no justice will be sitting there for 40 years without any further discussion of their fitness for office. Even if we allow justices to be re-nominated for more terms, they would at least be subject to another Senate vote.

    But your comment about their finances is a whole different matter. Did you know that the SCOTUS justices are not formally bound by any code of ethics? There is a code imposed on lower court justices, and SC justices tend to follow those because they were all lower court justices at one point, but they have no formal accountability to anyone but themselves. Congress has threatened to withhold their funding if they don't adopt a formal code of ethics, but that hasn't gone anywhere.

  • GrapheneOS duress PIN could land a man in prison

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  • US citizens have an unequivocal right to enter the country, eventually, just not necessarily on a flight they booked (or any flight in the next few weeks, until the goons are done with them....)

  • Major Supreme Court changes proposed by Pete Buttigieg: 3 reform ideas

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  • This balanced bench thing is a horrible idea. Because if one party gets to have a run where voters trust their candidate to be President for four or five terms in a row, then why should the party that lost those election retain control over any seats?

    Straight term limits are a better idea. If each President was guaranteed to be able to appoint a few justices during their 4-year term, it would minimize the impact of additional appointments. (It would also reduce the number of justices who have to be replaced because they die while serving).

    If the Presidency continues to ping-pong between the parties every term or two, then the balance would come naturally. But if voters favor one side for a stretch eventually the court would come around to reflect that....

    ... And the idea that the sitting justices would appoint more is a non-starter too. It would just serve to further enhance partisan control, because the party with partisan advantage would get to appoint more partisans.

  • Trump Threw Expletive-Laden Tantrum Over Iran War Failures - Donald Trump is freaking out behind closed doors.

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  • He should be careful. A man of his age having a temper tantrum might be too much for his heart to handle. What a shame that would be....

  • Trump Invents the Corporate Pardon

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  • No, you dont get it. My objection isn't that the outcome is uncertain, it's that if the US military stages a coup in the US, it's not clear to me which side it would be fighting for.

  • Trump Invents the Corporate Pardon

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  • We need to stop worshipping a piece of paper that's become so bulky and cumbersome, and which was disingenuous, from the beginning. Portugal did that, and so can any other state.

    I agree with you in principle, but I will note that in the US it is hard to agree on anything new, and at least the Constitution has stood for 200+ years as something we all agree on, even as we disagree on how to interpret it.

    And please expand on what you mean about Portugal. I am ignorant on their history, but according to Wikipedia they got their current constitution 50+ years ago, after a military coup. I would like to avoid a coup here, because I can't really guarantee which side the military would pick....

  • Trump Invents the Corporate Pardon

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  • This notion of corporate personhood is purely for our own convenience, so corporations can enter into contracts, have bank accounts, and so on. In no universe did the folks who wrote that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" mean to include corporations on that. After all, corporations were not created by the same Creator as people, were they*?

    I would be 100% in favor of an amendment that clearly spells out that the rights enumerated in the Constitution are limited to actual humans, and any corporation or other group of people are not entitled to any more inherent rights than the humans who make up the corporation are entitled to collectively. You don't get more rights simply by paying a filing fee to Delaware!

    This does not remove all of the privileges that we have granted corporations to make it easier to organize, but does mean that corporations have no inherent "right" to anything. Humans have those!

    Edited to add: someone has proposed it already! https://www.movetoamend.org/amendment

    = Yes, this is Lemmy, so some snarky person will come along and say "of course they are! We made up both corporations and God!". But, the founders were deists and believed in a Creator, so let's try to look at it from their point of view, because that's what our backwards Supreme Court does....