Love your optimism

You’re right. I was being very Ameri-centric. I subconsciously interchange free speech and the first amendment even though they are not equal.

I do believe that individuals and private institutions should have this right to react though. I don’t agree with how it was used in this situation, but I absolutely believe the hospital should have the right to terminate someone based on the opinions they openly share.

If this same employee was sharing an anti-vax opinion I would want the hospital to be able to remove them from the role.

That is not what free speech means.

Free speech means the government cannot prohibit free speech. A private institution can take any lawful action they want in retaliation/reaction.

I agree that it really sucks that saying something true can get you fired, but this isn’t an infringement of the first amendment.

The interesting thing about the court is their power comes from our belief in their legitimacy. They don’t have any repercussions if the executive and legislature completely ignores their rulings.

It’s a double edged sword. If they allow this to happen, democracy crumbles under a new admin. If they do anything to deter authoritarians getting into power is technically anti-democratic too.

Either this admin undermines the belief in democracy by stopping an authoritarian administration to participate in elections or they allow the authoritarians to run and hope the electorate aren’t complete idiots (in a voting system rigged towards the authoritarians via the electoral college).

I get the sentiment, but this is a pretty strawman argument.

But we can’t get a database for firearms?

Hard to tell if this is a proposal to fight over hardware or an offer for free stuff.

I choose to believe the former because it makes me chuckle more.

Can someone provide a summary on what this means? I thought there were malicious exploits in this. Why is it back up and the perpetrator unbanned?

Yay! We get to rename the drink “Irish Car Bomb” to “MAGA Tantrum”. At least something good came out of all this.

Fair point.

Yes, I’m being nit-picky. All I was trying to say was the original phrasing was “democracy at large says an insurrectionist cannot run for office” which is untrue. It is a US implementation of democracy specific case.

Another country could have no restrictions on candidates and it would be completely democratic for an insurrectionist to run for office.

Removing a proven insurrectionist from the ballot is DEMOCRACY following the rule of law in the United States. Exempting individuals from the rule of law is anti-democratic.

All people having representation and subject to the rule of law are fundamental principles of democracy.

They all have access to the Internet now. This would be much more detrimental to learning if other resources weren’t in everyone’s pocket.

Trump: “I have a Jewish friend that gave me Mein Kampf.”

Editor: “Close Mr Trump, but the Friend was not Jewish the book was not Mein Kampf.”

News: “Trump had a friend.”

Me: “Did anybody fact check this? … Well, I’ll be damned…”

Looks like the kid had a grip all on his own!

And this is why learning history matters. It gives context for these friggin bizarre norms that accumulate. It allows us to realize when the norms are useful, we’re useful and are no longer needed, or we’re always just humans being weird.

Russian assassination are pretty clear. Anyone with half a brain can put the pieces together, but there is just enough plausible deniability that there cannot be direct retaliation legally or politically. It is a clear threat but just barely veiled enough to avoid legitimate retaliatory action via legal or international responses.

This is such a stupid headline. It gives no context for that number. Is that big or small compared to other years? Is it big compared to other countries’s military contractors? What does ‘made’ mean? Is this revenue or profit?

It’s obviously intended to make us outraged because it’s a big number, but the article actually said it went down by 3% last year. Why wasn’t that the headline?

This whole article feels very click-baity to me.

This is an interesting take that some institutions have interest in keeping a slow and low level conflict going indefinitely. I have to admit I haven’t heard or considered this perspective. Most of the evidence provided though can quite easily be described by pure reactionary measures to the situation though. The examples provided like grain and oil speculation do not require a conspiracy of interests prolonging the conflict to explain why we saw those markets respond that way.

I do t doubt that some groups could benefit from a prolonged conflict, but I don’t see any direct evidence from your post, just a narrative that implies it’s possible. I think it’s a great idea to pursue this line of thinking, but I’m not personally convinced at this point.

Fantastic post, even though I don’t agree with your conclusions!