Down payment on a bribe.

It’s an orwellian term for a package of anti-worker and anti-union laws. The centerpiece where the name comes from is making it illegal for a union shop to require workers to pay union dues.

If not for the fact that a felon is about to become President again, I would want some form of justice in the law for the assassin.

Maybe we should run him in 2028. I think it would be a landslide.

“Deny, Defend, Depose 2028!”

Making exceptions is never a good idea.

Why not? The whole reason we have judicial discretion is that every crime departs from the platonic ideal in one way or another.

The working class has been losing a class war for decades without ever properly noticing that it was happening. Working Americans have been dying in that war, and now someone struck back.

I’ll be sold on the “no exceptions” ideal when we haul in the corporate murderers alongside the people who fought back.

Jury nullification is the other acceptable option.

It’s actually made a little worse by EVs because of battery weight.

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

I’ve always thought this was one of the most dangerous ideas ever to gain widespread acceptance, and we are currently seeing exactly why. If somebody’s politics are so terrible that civil discussion is impossible, why on earth would you want to associate with them? This is how we coddle terrible ideas and let them quietly fester with a vanier veneer of false civility. The seeds of MAGA should never have been allowed to take root.

We can absolutely afford to shore up the SS and Medicare trust funds. We just don’t. American oligarchs just prefer that workers are dependent on jobs until they fall over and die. Just raise the cap, and it’s fixed.

That’s an accurate summation for my understanding as well. Things that the judge should look at when considering a minimum sentence are defendant cooperation, displays of genuine remourse, and indications that the defendant is unlikely to continue breaking the law. If the judge can find any of that, it’s beyond me how.

None of his current convictions are expected to come with a custodial sentence

Strict adherence to sentencing guidelines actually would see him jailed on his current convictions. If he isn’t given some kind of imprisonment it will be because the judge was afraid of the aftermath.

I’m not so sure he’s much of a security risk, unless he is still in possession of sensitive documents. I sincerely doubt he is capable of remembering anything in the way of valuable secrets. Anyways, even if he did, any adversary would be daft to trust he remembered correctly.

Their interests aren’t generally all that aligned, so that helps. It’s pretty obvious that the garbage coming out of the cable news networks is at a minimum deeply sympathetic to American corporate interests, if not straight up misinformation.

From a US perspective, I see these tactics being used far more extensively by wealthy individuals and corporate interests than I do Chinese interests. Unfortunately, our government and especially our politicians are often directly involved in spreading misinformation and suppressing the truth. We need strategies that function outside of government to close the gaps between reality and public perception.

The most valuable asset that China has to gain from Taiwan is it’s advanced microchip fabrication industry. Knowing that it would be destroyed greatly alters the value equation.

Defense planning of any kind is never about making it impossible for an adversary to succeed. In most cases that’s not even possible. The goal is to make the adversary believe (based preferably on reality) that it will cost them more than they can hope to gain.

I believe the US has said that it will engage with Russian forces in Ukraine if Russia uses any nukes.

They preselected them so well that a CIA spy worked in the bunker. I wonder where else along the chain there might be CIA spys.

Using nukes is probably the fastest way for Russia to end sanctions. There would be no need for sanctions once NATO ends Putin’s government.

He has a lot of good opinions, but not consistently good opinions. He reminds me a lot of how many viewed Russell Brand or maybe Joe Rogan years ago. When good opinions come from a shallow philosophical framework, always expect things to go sideways eventually.

It might be a schtick, but their public facade never entirely detached from their actual identity. Also, isn’t that what everyone does to some extent?

My experience as a suburban white kid growing up in the Reagan era was that racism was just something to learn about in history class. Part of me really misses being that naive.