@garth@sh.itjust.works cover

garth

@[email protected]

I mean we’re looking
down on Wayne’s basement, only
that’s not Wayne’s basement.

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garth ,

And did she apply in the first place? Or is it some marketing scam, like she just "won" a chance to sit through a sales pitch for a timeshare condo.

'Beyond Crazy': FBI Summons State Election Officials to Secretive Meeting After Trump Threat to ‘Nationalize’ Midterms ( www.commondreams.org )

State election officials were left unnerved after being summoned by the FBI to a mysterious conference to discuss “preparations” for this year’s midterm elections, which President Donald Trump has recently called for Republicans to “nationalize” in violation of the Constitution. ...

garth ,

Per the Constitution, the executive branch of the federal government has no fucking business being involved in elections. We can only hope our state elections offices hold to that.

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

By its terms, Article I, Section 4, Clause 1, referred to as the Elections Clause, contemplates that state legislatures will establish the times, places, and manner of holding elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate, subject to Congress making or altering such state regulations (except as to the place of choosing Senators).1 The Supreme Court has interpreted the Elections Clause expansively, enabling states "to provide a complete code for congressional elections, not only as to times and places, but in relation to notices, registration, supervision of voting, protection of voters, prevention of fraud and corrupt practices, counting of votes, duties of inspectors and canvassers, and making and publication of election returns."

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S4-C1-2/ALDE_00013577/

garth ,

Future generations will never experience making this stuff with too little water to create a mixer that hides the taste of cheap booze.

garth ,

Alberta is Canada's Texas. It has a substantial population of populist conservatives that look and sound a lot like the US Republican base.

In recent weeks some Alberta separatists reportedly met with the Trump administration. Presumably, Trump and his followers are considering supporting their ambitions to split off from Canada.

The Freedom Convoy started as a group of truckers who demonstrated against COVID restrictions. Their actions quickly grew into a larger conservative anti-vaccine and anti-government protest.

garth ,
garth ,

If you saw a federal agent commit a crime, no you didn't.

-- Kash Patel

garth ,

I'm trying to verify this myself and coming up empty-handed. The screenshot says the photo was posted in r/fivethirtyeight 5 days ago, but I don't see it there. I tried multiple reverse image search tools and haven't found this exact picture posted anywhere prior to today. This feels like bullshit agitprop.

There are plenty of factual reasons to hate ICE. Let's not fall for stuff like this.

garth , (edited )

If you have a Google account, Google Sheets Docs is free and probably does everything you need.

MS Office is also really easy to pirate.

garth ,

It's basically Word lite: very similar interface, with a stripped-down feature set that covers most basic needs. You should have no problem diving right in and writing CVs and cover letters.

garth ,

How long until Fanone is labeled a "traitor" and disappeared by ICE?

garth ,

As I understand it, anarchism is less about eliminating laws and more about eliminating hierarchy. It's bottom-up governance that requires lots of participation from everyone involved. You and your peers can establish laws for your neighborhood/town/etc., but everyone affected by that law needs to directly participate in its writing and there must be broad consensus before it is enacted. Law enforcement must be communal; you cannot outsource it to a police force, lest the police become oppressive.

When I think of anarchism I sometimes think of colonial New England: small towns that are largely autonomous, where communal decisions are made at town hall meetings and the locals manage themselves. It's not a perfect analogy since there were higher levels of government, but day-to-day governance was very grass-roots.

garth ,

If we learned anything from 2025 it's that checks and balances only work when a critical mass of people agree to them. One of the US's major political parties has abandoned rule of law and sent ICE on a modern day witch hunt against immigrants and perceived enemies. If you don't like it, time to move. An anarchist would say this situation is a great example of why we shouldn't outsource governance to entities that have power over us.

garth ,

R

garth ,

https://icelist.is/

Though I'm having trouble loading the site. Hopefully it's being heavily used by legit users, and not being DDoS'd to prevent access.

US Senate advances war powers resolution to stop Trump from taking further military action in Venezuela ( www.theguardian.com )

The US Senate on Thursday advanced a bipartisan war powers resolution to prevent Donald Trump from taking further military actions against Venezuela, after he ordered a weekend raid to capture that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, without giving Congress advance notice. ...

garth ,

Meaningless legislative theater. It'll never pass the House. If it did Trump wouldn't sign it. And even if those things magically happened, the scope is too narrow. Congress needs to take back its constitutional war powers that it's ceded to the executive branch long ago.

Trump Administration Live Updates: President Expects Impeachment if G.O.P. Falters in Midterm Elections ( www.nytimes.com )

Impeachment: President Trump told House Republicans at a party retreat that they must retain control of the chamber in the midterm elections, saying he expected to face a third impeachment if Democrats retake the majority. “They’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ll get impeached.” He warned about ...

garth ,

As we have seen in the past, impeachment is meaningless if we can't get a proper trial in the Senate. And it would take one hell of an election night for the Dems to get enough seats in the Senate to possibly remove Trump from office.

As much as I want Trump to face consequences for his actions, I'm not holding my breath.

garth , (edited )

The Democrats win a majority in the House and appoint a half-decent Speaker, then impeach and remove both Trump and Vance. The Speaker of the House then becomes the President and they can appoint a whole new cabinet.

If all the Dems can do is remove Trump then we get President Vance, and all the cabinet positions stay the same.

garth ,

Correct. I was thinking about the presidential chain of succession and didn't mention the Senate. A simple majority in the house is needed to pass articles of impeachment. Then two-thirds of the Senate must vote to convict and remove the president.

garth ,

I was referring to the fact that hypothetically one lemmy.world admin could essentially make people disappear.

Which is what ICE is for.

Are you seriously comparing being banned from a small social media site, where you could simply create another account in 5 minutes, to being arrested and imprisoned by a government agency?

garth ,

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese?

garth ,

All of it.

garth ,
garth ,

This is a greenwashing PR stunt, not a serious product that will ever see the light of day.

garth , (edited )

In the broader world of politics, "liberal" usually refers to "classical liberalism": representative democracy, a capitalist market economy with limited government involvement, and an emphasis on individual liberty over communal well-being. This is the ideology the US was founded upon (for white people, at least) and that it still largely embraces. Both major US political parties are liberal parties.

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

Within the US, the use of the term is very different. Republicans use "liberal" as a pejorative to describe anyone even slightly to their left. You could be a progressive, a social democrat, a communist, an anarchist, or simply a pragmatic individual who wants to fund libraries and public schools, and you would be branded a "lib."

garth ,

The infidelity will continue until morale improves.

garth ,

Not if he complies.

garth ,

This is not a lemmy.world issue. All Lemmy instances do this, assuming they're running up-to-date builds. The devs added it to the Lemmy code base earlier this year:
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/pull/5318

If you don't like it, then move to a PieFed or mbin instance. Then you have access to all the same content without any connection to dessalines or nutomic.

garth ,

Sitting at a desk all day, starting at screens, can become so banal. Variety is the spice of life, no? If you aren't using black-market RPGs to blast vaguely identified boats from the open side of a Vietnam-era helicopter then are you even living?

garth ,

Please look away for a moment while I wash my groin.

garth ,

two guys and their enby buddy

I love it. The woke Holy Trinity.

Why do you need, want and/or have a gun/guns?

If you don't, no need to reply telling me you don't. I live in the woods with some critters. I live pretty far from neighbors/police so having a gun gives me peace of mind. I also hunt and consider myself a gun hobbiest. I enjoy shooting targets, cleaning/organizing, reloading and earning food with guns.

garth ,

I grew up in a family of overly-armed suburban conservatives, so inheriting a significant number of guns was always a given. A few pieces have sentimental value tied to the relatives who originally owned them. I don't use any of them, though. Hunting never interested me. Target shooting is fun once in a while, particularly trap and skeet, but I have too many other priorities vying for my time and money. If I were to get back into target shooting I would switch to archery.

garth ,

Is it possible there are some SNAP recipients taking advantage of the system? I'm sure there are. Is the problem so bad that we need to make life harder for all the other people who truly need that assistance? No, absolutely not. I'm not losing sleep over the possibility that some people might be saving money on groceries. Let them have it. There are so many bigger issues to worry about.

garth ,
garth ,

The news is about Canada, not the United States.

garth ,

Hey Grok. Make me "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" except The Spot is called The Butt and he's covered in butts instead of spots. And Gwen's big coming out to her dad is actually about how she lost the ability to fart, and she has kept it a secret out of shame. And all the Spider-People have funny butts, and their dialogue between each other is mostly just farting sounds.

And, after a bit of churning, the model births a masterwork.

The future is so bright we gotta wear shades.

garth ,

Since the mid-20th century, North Korea's domestic politics have centered on the idea that the whole world is out to get them, and therefore they must be fiercely independent from outside influence. Openly asking for international aid would be like admitting defeat against all their political enemies, real and imagined. Nobody in power is going to do that.

garth ,

I don't understand the downvotes. This is a totally reasonable viewpoint IMO. Biden was crap. At best he was a placeholder candidate from a spineless party that just wants to continue the status quo.

But there is a spectrum of crappiness. And Trump is so, so far in the septic tank that he makes Biden look great in comparison.