Yeah, this is why I don’t agree with capital punishment. Sure, many victim’s families will want the perp to die. That doesn’t mean we as a society have to be a place where we grant the wishes of blood lust. It doesn’t make the world a better place, just a bloodier place.

When he’s being actively undermined by Republicans the whole way, just cleaning up Trump’s mess can be an accomplishment. The Inflation Reduction Act went against heavily entrenched interests to restart the US federal government’s response to climate change. It took real finesse to get that through Congress.

Nah, that’s a bit reductive. There’s internal dissent within the conservative movement. Not everyone’s willing to go full fasc with Trump. A good chunk of the judges that were ruling against him in the 2020 election were Federalist Society members.

The Federalist Society handpicked the the conservative majority, not the Heritage Foundation.

Why did it take a Constitutional amendment to allow non-white Americans to vote?

For that matter, why did it take a Constitutional amendment to consider Black Americans as citizens?

I can’t help but think that’s why Putin invaded Ukraine. He needed something to keep the masses distracted. He’s afraid that he’ll get assassinated if he ever leaves power, whether voluntarily or by violent overthrow.

America has always had racism, but America has never been a racist country

I’m really quite stunned by this claim. She seems to be parsing words to dodge reality. The US wrote slavery into its Constitution, engaged in a series of racist genocides of the indigenous people, and excluded immigrants of various ethnicities throughout its history. We’ve certainly improved, but to say we’ve never been governed by racism is either ignorant, revisionist, or pandering to some of the worst people.

It’s paid off sometimes in the Senate, like with the bipartisan infrastructure bill. That was passed in the Democrat-controlled House and then negotiated in the Senate. The problem is the current Republican-controlled House, where extreme right wingers hold much greater sway.

Yeah, it’s just a bad headline.

There’s certainly no need to tussle over it in California. Trump wouldn’t win in California anyway and it would just feed into the persecution narrative among his fan base.

Bingo. Letting people get strong armed into these sorts of “agreements” is a perversion of free markets.

This is the case I try to make to people on the left who complain about corporate white washing, or whatever they want to call it. Mainstream corporations feel like it’s advantageous to have their symbols out there in pride parades, environmentalist goals, anti-racism, and anti-sexism. Corporations are obligated at a certain level to follow the money, and they have read the signs and chosen to align themselves with these progressive causes. If nothing else, this is a good sign of where the country is headed.

It sounds like it was the bomber, Serhiy Batryn, that was reported as dead. Conflicting reports as to whether he has actually died. This was not related to Russia from what I could gather. He had a long standing feud with members of the local council.

Are you sure Judge Gen, Almighty Judge on High of All Beings Living and Dead for All Eternity, is not the more appropriate judge of this sort of thing?

What’s the relationship to the Burrito Supreme? Does it come with sour cream?

I just upgraded to the Pixel 8 Pro when the Pixel 5 went out of official support. The screen fingerprint reader works fine. Where it is flawed is that it’s not as quick to unlock from the front. I’m looking forward to the greatly improved support period. Three years was ridiculously short. I know something like GrapheneOS is always an option, but I’m hesitant to do so when I don’t have a backup phone.

The Pixel 8 Pro has been treating me well. Great photos and video, snappy UI, good feature set. And it sounds like I’ll be getting feature drops for the next few years, so that’s nice. The battery life is good. I added on Peak Design’s case and mini tripod, so I can quickly set it up on a surface to take videos or make a video call.

Oh lawd.

Judge, jury, and executioner, apparently.

Giraffic Park

My understanding is this lie was used by Hamas to isolate Israel from Arab nations where much of the public was frankly horrified by the brutal violence Hamas had aimed specifically at civilians. So no, it wasn’t just “the one relatively inconsequential thing,” it is a lie that has had serious consequences.