If she broke any state laws anywhere, that won't help her. Presidential pardons don't affect state crimes, and state pardons don't affect federal crimes. It is the closest thing to a check and balance on the power.
It's not like state laws couldn't pertain to Pam Bondi, but the dominant framing around her is going to be federal officer exercising her powers, rightly or wrongly, over a federal office and while under the direction of the president.
I'm not worked up at all about the auto-pen. But presidents should not be pardoning friends and family (although friends seem to get pardoned quite frequently). If a president feels it's important to do so, that president should wait until they are an ex-president and petition the next person in power.
Trump's abuse of the presidential pardon is so hideous, I wouldn't be surprised if this power granted by the original US Constitution is amended after he leaves, in response to his unprecedented lack of respect for it. However, I also wouldn't be surprised if nobody in power ever possesses the strength of character or simple morality to do so.
Giuliani selling them was the chef's kiss of ultimate, naked transactional prerogative exploitation of a traditional mechanism for exceptional humanitarian redress.
I don't think we should change it. I think we as a nation need to understand the person we put in that office has that power, and choose accordingly. It's there for a reason. Sometimes, it's perfectly acceptable for the President to say "fuck this shit" for the good of the Nation. With that power though, comes the responsibility to wield it with respect. This country put the man abusing it in power. No one had second bloody thoughts. No one listened. No one looked ahead. Changing the system won't fix that. Only changing ourselves will. Now you have an undeniable example of the destructive potential of a truly, unrepentantly, criminally inclined President. Consider yourselves lucky if we actually have a peaceful transition of power out of this Administration. Then don't fuck up again. The stakes of statecraft are high. It's about damn time we started acting like it.
> I think we as a nation need to understand the person we put in that office has that power, and choose accordingly.
That's like taking the safety off a gun to remind people to be responsible. That doesn't work, and irresponsible people's decisions can negatively affect everyone (including other countries). We need all the safety measures we can get.
We had safety measures. It was called the Electoral College, and the entire reason it was put there was to get a small group of people separated from groupthink to really think " Are you SURE this is the right candidate?" Then states decided to pass laws to penalize the act of being a faithless elector, which is EXACTLY the mechanism of protection to keep a demagogue out of office. You can't sit here and whine about what a criminal demagogue President can do not being safe when the Safety got stripped not more than 4 Presidencies in by the machinations of political parties. You had the safety of the impeachment process by Congress. Your Senators refuse to rein the man in. You had the Safety of the Judiciary. Your Senators did everything to stack that too. There is no one else to delegate the responsibility of clemency oversight to. In fact, systemically, you can't. Not while maintaining the President's inherent check on the Legislature & the Judiciary and thereby creating problems elsewhere. You just weaken the system. We put a felon in the White House even after seeing what they did the first time. That's the effing problem. It isn't the position. It's who got put in it. That's the only damn thing you can fix. The only people who should be ashamed are the ones who got taken in by this idiot's campaign, and couldn't be arsed to understand the levers they were putting him in front of. I bloody well did. I didn't vote for him. Even if I had to swallow my disgust and vote for someone else I was somewhat less doubtful of the efficacy of. There is no blood on my hands for this Presidency. Not a drop. I did my part. Now I'm doing my part for the next one in hopefully galvanizing people to wake up and take this crap seriously, unless they wish to remain a laughing stock to the rest of the world for the foreseeable future, even though, to be quite honest, I'm pretty certain that ship has sailed. Alas, it is my civic duty, no matter how hopeless the chances of success.
For every problem there is always a solution that seems quick, simple, and is almost certainly, entirely wrong in the grand scheme of things. Dorking with the Pardon, is one of them. Is it controversial? Yes. Is it necessary? Yep. Sure is. Someone has to be able to stop the wheels of the System from continuing to grind when the System changes it's mind, and that's what the Pardon is for. It is vested in a single person. To the rest of the system, it doesn't even factor in. Take this as a lesson learned, and don't put it in front of manchildren to be abused with wild abandon. Then just as we move forward to recover from this turbulent learning experience, we'll just have to clean up the mess.
You can't fix stupid. You can only clean up after it.
I guess I wasn't paying enough attention, for what would she get charged? I know about the illegal appointments of US attorneys, the vindictive attempted prosecutions against Trump's perceived enemies, and some problems with the Epstein file releases, but I thought all those were under the category of "incompetency". Did she lie to congress or something like that?
It was also indefensible. A few years back she campaigned on prosecuting pedophiles and, well, as AG she refused to do that. She went as far as protecting them.
Republicans simply don’t use words the same way others do. If you say you like flowers in the garden you mean they should be there. If they say they like flowers in the garden, they mean they would like to be paid to control whether they are there.
I mean I'm not American so I can only talk from the perspective of an outsider, but partisan talk about your two parties has always confused me - esp. in such scenarios where both parties had countless opportunities to act but choose not to.
Our american friends are too deep on this polarization psychosis to understand that. They will just downvote us when we wonder how the fuck they got two senile pedophiles as president in sequnce.
We’re not that deep. One is bad enough. Biden was not senile or a pedophile. That was an obvious attempt to rub smear off of Trump. We do comprehend the existence of propaganda, it’s just that we can’t do anything about it anymore than you can.
Every power hungry maniac thinks their power of sycophancy is going to be better. If they had any shred of reflection they wouldn’t be working for this man.
Trying to argue the 14th amendment doesn’t read as plainly as it does was a no-win situation. The government would have to argue it does not have jurisdiction (subject to the jurisdiction thereof) over illegal immigrants which would seemingly (IANAL) mean they’re immune to prosecution for any crime.
You could probably find a hair splitting argument that the child must be born in an actual ‘State’, but aside from that, jus soli citizenship is pretty clearly part of the constitution.
That being said, Pam Bondi was very bad at her job.
2. Prosecute his enemies, such as Comey, Bolton, and Perkins Coie
3. Reward his allies, such as Eric Adams, everyone who violates the Hatch Act in a way that pleases him, and the people he tells to sue the USG so he can direct the DoJ to settle
4. Put crazy stuff like birthright citizenship and IEEPA in front of the Supreme Court
5. Slow roll the Epstein files, don't prosecute anyone
> That being said, Pam Bondi was very bad at her job.
Perhaps so. (In fact, I suspect so.) But having a boss that keeps putting you in impossible situations is not conducive to good performance reviews. She got fired for failing to deliver on Trump's fantasies of how the legal system ought to treat him. A different AG isn't going to do too much better, because too many of Trump's positions are legally insane.
People bring this up regularly, but I don't think it's that relevant. Studies regularly show that campaign contributions actually have very low influence on elections.
Trump notably had much smaller campaign budgets than his opponents in both winning elections, not even including the massive amounts of brazen fraud he used to pay himself with the money.
Fundamentally, it's presidential democracy that is flawed. We have a very powerful high office, and if enough people want to willing vote in a corrupt president, there's really not many checks against the damage that they can do.
Yes, it's possible to win with less money than your opponent, but why would anyone want to take that risk?
The problem with money in politics is not that money guarantees a win, but that the presence of large donations distorts the entire incentive structure of campaigning and governing: Courting big donations means spending time with big donors (who expect access in exchange for their money) and when it comes time to govern, studies have shown that campaign contributions and lobbying are dramatically more influential to what gets proposed and passed than the preferences of the general public.
Focusing on the problems with presidential campaigns re: money in politics is missing the forest for the trees: All politicians have limited time to spend between campaigning and governing, and if they're constantly raising money the governing gets delegated to lobbyists.
(This is why people are always so shocked when politicians who don't accept corporate PAC contributions have drastically different priorities than those who do. Of course they do! They don't have to spend all their time hanging out with corporate lobbyists!)
This doesn't really speak to Citizens United though. The nature of Dark Money is that no one knows where it comes from, so politicians cozying up to their donors is not actually the particular concern here.
(Also, there has been the opposite trend, which is that more money than ever comes from private donations from billionaires and other wealth.)
> if enough people want to willing vote in a corrupt president
Why do people do this though? Maybe it's inevitable, but I think there was a lot of pent up frustration with the government that led a lot of people to just say "fuck it". Not really excusing it (especially for his second term), but I feel like we're reaping years and years of a dysfunctional and ineffectual congress. Not that that's an especially easy problem to solve either.
I think this also explains a lot of the frustration with SCOTUS. In-theory, SCOTUS is supposed to just interpret and flesh out the policies decided on by congress. In practice, congress doesn't really do anything, and people started depending on SCOTUS's ability and willingness to make far-reaching and impactful decisions. Now a more conservative SCOTUS isn't doing that.
It's worth noting that an ineffective and gridlocked congress is specifically a problem of presidential-style democracies. Parliamentary systems with a prime minister have some of their own shortcomings (notably a weak executive), but the government is actually controlled by the legislature.
Countries that follow the presidential model regularly succumb to strong man type leaders. Ironically, in the modern era when the US had a hand in helping other countries establish their governments, we specifically helped them establish parliaments.
Citizens United affected far more than campaign contributions. Non-campaign political spending (aka "outside spending") has increased nearly eightfold and shows no signs of slowing down.
I'd argue it died during the civil war. The removal of secession as an option removes the most powerful check on federal power and set the cards for a collapse of constitutional constraints. Obligatory worth it cuz muh no more slavery (as if the white powers that be were ever really willing to die as a favor to the slaves themselves, one of the most laughable but widespread myths about the civil war).
Ever read "the history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire" by Gibbon? It's actually quite amusing until you realise humanity hasn't changed one iota.
Most likely the truth. History-wise, it’s business as usual.
A few people thinking they are better than the rest meet the same fate everyone in the history of humanity met if they step on enough toes.
The people enabled Hitler to do Hitler things.
The people enabled Trump to do Trump things.
It was all laid out in plain sight what Hitler wanted before he got the power from the people to do so. He was largely supported by the people who enjoyed living their lives right next to the concentration camps.
It was all laid out in plain sight what Trump wanted before he got the power from the people to do so. He was largely supported by the people who enjoyed living their lives right next to the deportation camps.
This just feels important, special, and new to us because it’s the first time for most people dealing with an insane man in power, as our lifespan as humans is rather short.
There are always three options for any citizen that goes through these kinds of historic repeats.
You can resist. You will most likely die doing so without accomplishing your goals as there is no more secrecy even offline with everything leaving a digital footprint and 24/7 surveillance with AI support. They will end your bloodline in retaliation, so resisting means being okay with having everyone you love murdered by the group of people who want to profit, likely working in a government position.
You can profit. Swim along and use the opportunity to gain generational wealth by supporting the goals of the insane man in power, or using the opportunities the cruelty he creates allows.
Dozens of families got rich selling the gold from the teeth of Jews who were murdered. There is a value chain in the deportation industry Trump is building. You really think people get deported with all their belongings and ICE agents not cashing in robbing people blank and then still deporting them?
Or you can decide to look the other way. You know exactly what happens, but neither want to risk your life and that of the people you love by resisting, nor do you want to profit from the cruelty value chain.
Either way, just like every German in 1933 and beyond that was of voting age, every us citizen is part of one of the three groups, and if you’re not resisting or profiting, you are no less responsible for what happens to your neighbours and fellow citizens than the people who profit from it.
So the only universal truth is, humans are evil, miserable creatures that do evil and miserable things. You decide for yourself where your place is in all this and then deal with the consequences of your actions.
Nobody is coming to save you. There is no "right" decision. You only have one life and the freedom to decide what to do with it.
Everyone has to figure this out for himself.
That’s the downside of having free will.
I support this. We should prosecute these people and Bondi's excuse that the economy would collapse was so ridiculous as to be insulting. If crimes were committed the perpetrators must be prosecuted no matter who they are.
MTG claims Trump said exposing the client list would hurt his friends. Elon said Trump is implicated in them and we all know he was extremely Epstein-adjacent. Trump also cares about the impact of the market indexes on his ego so he'd probably want to avoid a major shakeup.
Any of these reasons or the unmentioned ones is enough to be pretty confident Trump will nominate someone who will want to make the files go away quietly.
They might be, but that’s not really a reason to let bad people stay in jobs they shouldn’t have. Otherwise e might as well give up any pretense of accountability and just let them do whatever they want.
I'm not sure about the "bad people" characterization though. Certainly she is a terrible person but if you are interested in having the least terrible AG you need to worry about her replacement. If by "bad people" you mean people who betrayed the electorate, I think she's been an extremely faithful advocate of the MAGA agenda.
Considering the president is unable to acknowledge anything that could be regarded as unflattering, I think it's safe to say we voted away the pretense of accountability.
I think that was just a meaningless rally chant like "build the wall" and "no new wars". Why would they vote for the guy's friend and possible client if they actually wanted the files released (and predators prosecuted)?
This means the Epstein connection must be much deeper
than we already knew. We kind of need a global movement
here that investigates all of those party-goers. Invading
another country also serves as an ideal distraction.
Let's hope she doesn't get a pardon before he leaves office.
If she broke any state laws anywhere, that won't help her. Presidential pardons don't affect state crimes, and state pardons don't affect federal crimes. It is the closest thing to a check and balance on the power.
It's not like state laws couldn't pertain to Pam Bondi, but the dominant framing around her is going to be federal officer exercising her powers, rightly or wrongly, over a federal office and while under the direction of the president.
> Presidential pardons don't affect state crimes
What good has this done in any of the hundreds of scumbag drug and human trafficker cases that have been let free via Presidential pardons?!
Did a State come step in afterwards, in any, ever?
While not directly connected to Jan 5, a surprising amount of the rioters ended up with state crimes.
It’s almost as if they were criminals all along.
I would imagine that’s SOP at this point.
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I'm not worked up at all about the auto-pen. But presidents should not be pardoning friends and family (although friends seem to get pardoned quite frequently). If a president feels it's important to do so, that president should wait until they are an ex-president and petition the next person in power.
Even that doesn't seem appropriate. Nixon resigned knowing that his VP would take over and pardoned him. It still seems self-serving.
Even referencing the auto pen nonsense pens(ha) you as irrational.
yep. Politicians have been using them for over 100 years, including Thomas Jefferson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopen
When are they going to release Hunter Biden's laptop? The FBI has it. (supposedly)
Nawh, they don't think that far ahead. Instead, she got a consolation-prize invented demotion job to keep her loyal to Mafia Don.
Trump's abuse of the presidential pardon is so hideous, I wouldn't be surprised if this power granted by the original US Constitution is amended after he leaves, in response to his unprecedented lack of respect for it. However, I also wouldn't be surprised if nobody in power ever possesses the strength of character or simple morality to do so.
Giuliani selling them was the chef's kiss of ultimate, naked transactional prerogative exploitation of a traditional mechanism for exceptional humanitarian redress.
I don't think we should change it. I think we as a nation need to understand the person we put in that office has that power, and choose accordingly. It's there for a reason. Sometimes, it's perfectly acceptable for the President to say "fuck this shit" for the good of the Nation. With that power though, comes the responsibility to wield it with respect. This country put the man abusing it in power. No one had second bloody thoughts. No one listened. No one looked ahead. Changing the system won't fix that. Only changing ourselves will. Now you have an undeniable example of the destructive potential of a truly, unrepentantly, criminally inclined President. Consider yourselves lucky if we actually have a peaceful transition of power out of this Administration. Then don't fuck up again. The stakes of statecraft are high. It's about damn time we started acting like it.
> I think we as a nation need to understand the person we put in that office has that power, and choose accordingly.
That's like taking the safety off a gun to remind people to be responsible. That doesn't work, and irresponsible people's decisions can negatively affect everyone (including other countries). We need all the safety measures we can get.
We had safety measures. It was called the Electoral College, and the entire reason it was put there was to get a small group of people separated from groupthink to really think " Are you SURE this is the right candidate?" Then states decided to pass laws to penalize the act of being a faithless elector, which is EXACTLY the mechanism of protection to keep a demagogue out of office. You can't sit here and whine about what a criminal demagogue President can do not being safe when the Safety got stripped not more than 4 Presidencies in by the machinations of political parties. You had the safety of the impeachment process by Congress. Your Senators refuse to rein the man in. You had the Safety of the Judiciary. Your Senators did everything to stack that too. There is no one else to delegate the responsibility of clemency oversight to. In fact, systemically, you can't. Not while maintaining the President's inherent check on the Legislature & the Judiciary and thereby creating problems elsewhere. You just weaken the system. We put a felon in the White House even after seeing what they did the first time. That's the effing problem. It isn't the position. It's who got put in it. That's the only damn thing you can fix. The only people who should be ashamed are the ones who got taken in by this idiot's campaign, and couldn't be arsed to understand the levers they were putting him in front of. I bloody well did. I didn't vote for him. Even if I had to swallow my disgust and vote for someone else I was somewhat less doubtful of the efficacy of. There is no blood on my hands for this Presidency. Not a drop. I did my part. Now I'm doing my part for the next one in hopefully galvanizing people to wake up and take this crap seriously, unless they wish to remain a laughing stock to the rest of the world for the foreseeable future, even though, to be quite honest, I'm pretty certain that ship has sailed. Alas, it is my civic duty, no matter how hopeless the chances of success.
For every problem there is always a solution that seems quick, simple, and is almost certainly, entirely wrong in the grand scheme of things. Dorking with the Pardon, is one of them. Is it controversial? Yes. Is it necessary? Yep. Sure is. Someone has to be able to stop the wheels of the System from continuing to grind when the System changes it's mind, and that's what the Pardon is for. It is vested in a single person. To the rest of the system, it doesn't even factor in. Take this as a lesson learned, and don't put it in front of manchildren to be abused with wild abandon. Then just as we move forward to recover from this turbulent learning experience, we'll just have to clean up the mess.
You can't fix stupid. You can only clean up after it.
[dead]
> This country put the man abusing it in power.
Twice. I can forgive the mistake once, but this is the second time in 10 years that America is facing this nonsense with the exact same demagogue.
I guess I wasn't paying enough attention, for what would she get charged? I know about the illegal appointments of US attorneys, the vindictive attempted prosecutions against Trump's perceived enemies, and some problems with the Epstein file releases, but I thought all those were under the category of "incompetency". Did she lie to congress or something like that?
I guess the Dow is not at 50,000 anymore?
I don't know why you are getting downvoted for this comment. Bondi's promoting the DOW during a hearing was bizarre.
It was also indefensible. A few years back she campaigned on prosecuting pedophiles and, well, as AG she refused to do that. She went as far as protecting them.
Republicans simply don’t use words the same way others do. If you say you like flowers in the garden you mean they should be there. If they say they like flowers in the garden, they mean they would like to be paid to control whether they are there.
Neither do Democrats though?
I mean I'm not American so I can only talk from the perspective of an outsider, but partisan talk about your two parties has always confused me - esp. in such scenarios where both parties had countless opportunities to act but choose not to.
Our american friends are too deep on this polarization psychosis to understand that. They will just downvote us when we wonder how the fuck they got two senile pedophiles as president in sequnce.
We’re not that deep. One is bad enough. Biden was not senile or a pedophile. That was an obvious attempt to rub smear off of Trump. We do comprehend the existence of propaganda, it’s just that we can’t do anything about it anymore than you can.
> two senile pedophiles as president in sequnce
two? Who was the one other than Trump? (Which we don't even know that one for sure. We just know he protects them from prosecution)
The bus is always idling at the curb; Trump cronies never seem to realize that eventually, everyone gets thrown under it.
Bondi lasted a record 38 Scaramuccis
I forgot: the Curb-to-Bus (CtB) transit time is measured in Scaramuccis.
Every power hungry maniac thinks their power of sycophancy is going to be better. If they had any shred of reflection they wouldn’t be working for this man.
Yes, it always ends in tears.
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I suspect many do, but you can grift a lot before that happens
I wonder what she refused to do?
She let too much slip re: the Epstein files. Definitely hearsay.
The timing coincides with her office getting embarrassed in front of the Supreme Court, with Trump in artendance.
P2025 had a plan but it was always going to struggle against the president's personality issues.
Also with Swallwell becoming aware the FBI had him under investigation. And he and Bondi are buds.
[dead]
Trying to argue the 14th amendment doesn’t read as plainly as it does was a no-win situation. The government would have to argue it does not have jurisdiction (subject to the jurisdiction thereof) over illegal immigrants which would seemingly (IANAL) mean they’re immune to prosecution for any crime.
You could probably find a hair splitting argument that the child must be born in an actual ‘State’, but aside from that, jus soli citizenship is pretty clearly part of the constitution.
That being said, Pam Bondi was very bad at her job.
Her job (under the current president):
1. Be unquestioningly loyal to the president
2. Prosecute his enemies, such as Comey, Bolton, and Perkins Coie
3. Reward his allies, such as Eric Adams, everyone who violates the Hatch Act in a way that pleases him, and the people he tells to sue the USG so he can direct the DoJ to settle
4. Put crazy stuff like birthright citizenship and IEEPA in front of the Supreme Court
5. Slow roll the Epstein files, don't prosecute anyone
6. Expedite deportations by any means necessary
How much more can you ask of her?
> That being said, Pam Bondi was very bad at her job.
Perhaps so. (In fact, I suspect so.) But having a boss that keeps putting you in impossible situations is not conducive to good performance reviews. She got fired for failing to deliver on Trump's fantasies of how the legal system ought to treat him. A different AG isn't going to do too much better, because too many of Trump's positions are legally insane.
"Pam Bondi? Hardly knew her, never met her. Terrible person."
I hate this administration as much as the next (european) guy, but what has this got to do with hackernews ?
The US DoJ is relevant to a great many things. Posts don't only have to be about AI.
If there are still history books in the future... what will they think of all this?
The fairness doctrine needed to apply to political commentators on Cable and not just public airwaves.
It turns out if you can spend decades saying things unchallenged people believe it.
That the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling may have been the single worst thing to happen to the US.
???
People bring this up regularly, but I don't think it's that relevant. Studies regularly show that campaign contributions actually have very low influence on elections.
Trump notably had much smaller campaign budgets than his opponents in both winning elections, not even including the massive amounts of brazen fraud he used to pay himself with the money.
Fundamentally, it's presidential democracy that is flawed. We have a very powerful high office, and if enough people want to willing vote in a corrupt president, there's really not many checks against the damage that they can do.
Yes, it's possible to win with less money than your opponent, but why would anyone want to take that risk?
The problem with money in politics is not that money guarantees a win, but that the presence of large donations distorts the entire incentive structure of campaigning and governing: Courting big donations means spending time with big donors (who expect access in exchange for their money) and when it comes time to govern, studies have shown that campaign contributions and lobbying are dramatically more influential to what gets proposed and passed than the preferences of the general public.
Focusing on the problems with presidential campaigns re: money in politics is missing the forest for the trees: All politicians have limited time to spend between campaigning and governing, and if they're constantly raising money the governing gets delegated to lobbyists.
(This is why people are always so shocked when politicians who don't accept corporate PAC contributions have drastically different priorities than those who do. Of course they do! They don't have to spend all their time hanging out with corporate lobbyists!)
This doesn't really speak to Citizens United though. The nature of Dark Money is that no one knows where it comes from, so politicians cozying up to their donors is not actually the particular concern here.
(Also, there has been the opposite trend, which is that more money than ever comes from private donations from billionaires and other wealth.)
> if enough people want to willing vote in a corrupt president
Why do people do this though? Maybe it's inevitable, but I think there was a lot of pent up frustration with the government that led a lot of people to just say "fuck it". Not really excusing it (especially for his second term), but I feel like we're reaping years and years of a dysfunctional and ineffectual congress. Not that that's an especially easy problem to solve either.
I think this also explains a lot of the frustration with SCOTUS. In-theory, SCOTUS is supposed to just interpret and flesh out the policies decided on by congress. In practice, congress doesn't really do anything, and people started depending on SCOTUS's ability and willingness to make far-reaching and impactful decisions. Now a more conservative SCOTUS isn't doing that.
It's worth noting that an ineffective and gridlocked congress is specifically a problem of presidential-style democracies. Parliamentary systems with a prime minister have some of their own shortcomings (notably a weak executive), but the government is actually controlled by the legislature.
Countries that follow the presidential model regularly succumb to strong man type leaders. Ironically, in the modern era when the US had a hand in helping other countries establish their governments, we specifically helped them establish parliaments.
I don't think parliamentary systems help the legislature remain effective, since they're still elected in roughly the same way, no?
But yeah, it prevents an ineffective legislature from leading to strong-men, which does seem nice. :)
Citizens United affected far more than campaign contributions. Non-campaign political spending (aka "outside spending") has increased nearly eightfold and shows no signs of slowing down.
Can you include references for the studies you mention?
> Trump notably had much smaller campaign budgets than his opponents in both winning elections
I'm not sure where you're getting this information.
> Fundamentally, it's presidential democracy that is flawed.
No disagreement
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02613...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240633007_Measuring...
TL;DR: Spending might matter up to a certain point, but becomes very inefficient. It's also more effective for challenges than incumbents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_in_the_2024_United...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_in_the_2020_United...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-electi...
Thanks!
Chapter 3 - United States of America
b. July 4, 1776, d. January 20, 2024. It was good while it lasted.
> January 20, 2024
Everybody loves a good off-by-one error.
I'd argue it died during the civil war. The removal of secession as an option removes the most powerful check on federal power and set the cards for a collapse of constitutional constraints. Obligatory worth it cuz muh no more slavery (as if the white powers that be were ever really willing to die as a favor to the slaves themselves, one of the most laughable but widespread myths about the civil war).
Ever read "the history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire" by Gibbon? It's actually quite amusing until you realise humanity hasn't changed one iota.
Probably that we lacked proper means to control the oligarchs.
One only has to look at the stock market - some with insider knowledge are pocketing away a lot of profit right now.
Most likely the truth. History-wise, it’s business as usual.
A few people thinking they are better than the rest meet the same fate everyone in the history of humanity met if they step on enough toes.
The people enabled Hitler to do Hitler things. The people enabled Trump to do Trump things.
It was all laid out in plain sight what Hitler wanted before he got the power from the people to do so. He was largely supported by the people who enjoyed living their lives right next to the concentration camps.
It was all laid out in plain sight what Trump wanted before he got the power from the people to do so. He was largely supported by the people who enjoyed living their lives right next to the deportation camps.
This just feels important, special, and new to us because it’s the first time for most people dealing with an insane man in power, as our lifespan as humans is rather short.
There are always three options for any citizen that goes through these kinds of historic repeats.
You can resist. You will most likely die doing so without accomplishing your goals as there is no more secrecy even offline with everything leaving a digital footprint and 24/7 surveillance with AI support. They will end your bloodline in retaliation, so resisting means being okay with having everyone you love murdered by the group of people who want to profit, likely working in a government position.
You can profit. Swim along and use the opportunity to gain generational wealth by supporting the goals of the insane man in power, or using the opportunities the cruelty he creates allows.
Dozens of families got rich selling the gold from the teeth of Jews who were murdered. There is a value chain in the deportation industry Trump is building. You really think people get deported with all their belongings and ICE agents not cashing in robbing people blank and then still deporting them?
Or you can decide to look the other way. You know exactly what happens, but neither want to risk your life and that of the people you love by resisting, nor do you want to profit from the cruelty value chain.
Either way, just like every German in 1933 and beyond that was of voting age, every us citizen is part of one of the three groups, and if you’re not resisting or profiting, you are no less responsible for what happens to your neighbours and fellow citizens than the people who profit from it.
So the only universal truth is, humans are evil, miserable creatures that do evil and miserable things. You decide for yourself where your place is in all this and then deal with the consequences of your actions.
Nobody is coming to save you. There is no "right" decision. You only have one life and the freedom to decide what to do with it.
Everyone has to figure this out for himself. That’s the downside of having free will.
I heard it's because she wouldn't settle his 10 billion lawsuit grift.
I support this. We should prosecute these people and Bondi's excuse that the economy would collapse was so ridiculous as to be insulting. If crimes were committed the perpetrators must be prosecuted no matter who they are.
I wouldn't hold out any hope that her replacement will be any different on this particular point.
Alas I am trying to be optimistic but you may be closer to reality.
MTG claims Trump said exposing the client list would hurt his friends. Elon said Trump is implicated in them and we all know he was extremely Epstein-adjacent. Trump also cares about the impact of the market indexes on his ego so he'd probably want to avoid a major shakeup.
Any of these reasons or the unmentioned ones is enough to be pretty confident Trump will nominate someone who will want to make the files go away quietly.
They might be, but that’s not really a reason to let bad people stay in jobs they shouldn’t have. Otherwise e might as well give up any pretense of accountability and just let them do whatever they want.
And I didn't say she should remain.
I'm not sure about the "bad people" characterization though. Certainly she is a terrible person but if you are interested in having the least terrible AG you need to worry about her replacement. If by "bad people" you mean people who betrayed the electorate, I think she's been an extremely faithful advocate of the MAGA agenda.
Considering the president is unable to acknowledge anything that could be regarded as unflattering, I think it's safe to say we voted away the pretense of accountability.
I think quite a lot of MAGA wanted the complete release of the Epstein files, so maybe not extremely faithful to the electorate...
I think that was just a meaningless rally chant like "build the wall" and "no new wars". Why would they vote for the guy's friend and possible client if they actually wanted the files released (and predators prosecuted)?
Can you share a link to her saying that?
This means the Epstein connection must be much deeper than we already knew. We kind of need a global movement here that investigates all of those party-goers. Invading another country also serves as an ideal distraction.
I think the UK has been handling their end shockingly well, fwiw
Arresting Andrew does kind of indicate that they're taking it seriously...