They at least used to be …

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party

I am souring on mainstream, respected news outlets

What do you suppose their job is?

Historically, angry Marxist-Leninists with guns have been very useful allies in dealing with NAZIs! But history suggests that things didn’t work out too well afterwards, for those ruled by the angry Marxist-Leninists with guns …

You’d want a stronger girder than they used.

This dumb bitch seems to think outright lying - when video shows a completely different story - is the way to go.

All available evidence suggests she’s correct (about lying, that is … it’s never stopped any of her MAGA superiors).

I know what they are, spent pocket money on them, and loathe them. Ring caps are far more reliable (albeit more expensive; always a topic of debate when said pocket money was $3 / month).

The article led with calling them fucking stupid, although they used the polite euphemism “leftwing militants”.

(Note that “rightwing militants” means the same thing)

Mattermost user here, I self-host an instance for friends and family (and their children).

To upgrade and discover I’d lost access to the message history on my own instance was infuriating. I’m investigating alternatives right now.

So far Zulip seems reasonable - although Google and especially Apple being shits about push notifications means you can’t self-host push notification servers 🙄 So I’m considering forgoing push notifications altogether and leaning on email notifications instead.

That was a power that the court effectively granted to itself in Marbury v. Madison, in 1803.

Jesus that does go back a while.

… reads …

Huh. I always sort of assumed, as a non-American, that that was the one of the main purposes of the Supreme Court.

It does seem like a good idea, though, to have some court responsible for deciding the Constitutionality of laws.

Since FDR stacked it to push through the New Deal, if not earlier.

Your friendly reminder that the Democrats helped to set up the levers of power that Trump and his fascist ilk are now cheerfully pulling.

Speaking as a non-American with an interest in politics and philosophy: I really hope that if (if!) you have free elections again, and if the Democrats win, that you start taking your Constitution seriously for the first time in a century.

That means no more going to war without Congressional approval. No more extrajudicial executions of American citizens. No more commerce clause loopholes to regulate that which clearly shouldn’t be a matter for the Federal govt. to regulate. No more executive orders as an end-run around Constitutional limitations, instead of Constitutional amendments.

Someone will always argue that it’s just pragmatic politics. That you couldn’t have had the New Deal, or the EPA, or Obamacare, or the War on Terror, whatever, without court-stacking, executive orders, illegal invasions, etc.

But you know what? Every time you did that, every time you got what you wanted despite the Constitution and laws in the way, you weakened the system, and you weakened respect for it amongst voters and their elected representatives.

In the end, you got Trump and MAGA wielding power that you helped to normalize.

Please don’t make that mistake again.

“Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for,” she said.

But the current President is one of those rich powerful men raping the trafficked. What did she expect would happen?