IHeartBadCode

In all fairness, McCarthy is the one who changed the rules from requiring a motion to vacate from "on behalf of a political party or caucus" to "any member of the House".

There was an entire reason there was a stopgap in place. McCarthy's thirst for power brought him to this. So at the end of the day, "a bed was made by someone, and now a few folks are asking that person to head on to bed."

Also, all this does is really reinforce the GOP mantra of "no honor among thieves."

I think the most surreal part is that they’re wanting to impeach Biden on something that Trump very vocally did for Jared Kushner.

And worse yet, they established no link between Hunter Biden’s actions and Joe Biden outside of, “Of course he knew! He’s Joe Biden’s son!”

That was literally the maximum extent of connection they established. That they’re related to each other so obviously they’re all in on it.

The level of projection from this whole affair, especially seeing how the government is about to shut down, really indicates that the GOP in general has lost the entire point of governance.

Gaetz accused McCarthy of hiring social media influencers to trash him online

The Messages people received:

(Hey {{FirstName}}, g | Howdy! G)ot an advocacy campaign with budget. Do you do paid posts? If so how do you work? By the way, the issue is against Gaetz and government shut down. Let me know asap!

So it's a paid campaign that's cold calling. Which sounds amateur at best. Most high ranking political folks have campaign lists that have tight contacts that step in line. The cold calling and the automation having few {{FirstName}} values really indicates to me this is someone who hasn't ever done this before or someone scripting out the messages perhaps via Selenium API.

Either way, no way this was from Kevin McCarthy reasonably. The Speaker has way better methods than just going virtually door to door and asking folks.

Gaetz is too delusional to grasp that plenty of people hate him enough to trash him without a check from McCarthy

Bingo. This is very likely the answer and now that it is a story, it at least got the person who was running it attention and verification of which parts of their scheme worked. Sowing discord is a thing and I doubt person messaging had money so likely was to get some whispers out there.

And they say there's no reason to monitor web traffic for elections. HA! But, I mean I'd expect nothing less from Gaetz to blindly accept anything being feed to him. One time he entered into the record Chinese propaganda without vetting it. And was summarily called out on it. Dude is soft clay and various other nations manipulate him like he's their plaything.

I think this might have more to do with the beating that Epic took from Apple in court. The 2021 decision in favor of Apple, of their lawsuit for anti-competitive behavior was upheld this year. That was not cheap to litigate that and was a major loss for Epic.

I think the Bandcamp sell off is a good indicator of all of this. Epic obtained Bandcamp in March 2022, to explicitly have their IAP system integrated into it. Google shut them down and told them they would start collecting the 30% usual due. Epic filed suit and Google gave them an exception for the time being with the agreement that 10% would be held in escrow until the conclusion of the trail. With many of the arguments in the Apple case similar to Google's case, I'm pretty sure Epic sees the loss coming from a mile away.

All in all, what I think can be drawn from this. Epic made a big bet on "their store" and that's fading away with mobile devices locking people into a marketplace that is "distinctly not Epic". While putting such a bet wouldn't normally kill a company, Epic sextupled down on it and I think how hard they went for "their marketplace" is what's done them in.

Can you explain the timeline that all your evidence revolves around 2017-2020 and Biden was not VP nor President during that period.

I see you'll just never believe us.

I loved the snap back the reporter had, I'm open minded, I just need you to explain it to me.

I cannot pinpoint any one item.

IT'S YOUR EVIDENCE!! — Literally the NBC reporter saying exactly that.

Holy fucking shit that was fucking hilarious. The House Ways and Means Committee chairman was fidgeting like an alcoholic at an AA being held in a Las Vegas casino. Holy shit, and what's crazy was the NBC reporter was literally going out of their way to give benefit of the doubt and dude was like two nanoseconds from sweating buckets.

Moreso. Everyone started getting honey bees that it’s now having an impact on native bees.

Honey bees got hyped up as a problem because the large agricultural industries that relied on them was having a problem. It is an actual problem but not just honey bees. Everyone got so hyped that we’ve note got the old problem and a new problem too.

Legally the laptop would belong to John Paul Mac Isaac per Delaware's Abandoned Personal Property laws (25 Del. C. § 4001). He would have a right to ownership of the laptop. That said, the data contents of the laptop should have been wiped (that's customary, not a legal requirement) before the transferring of ownership.

All of that said, 18 USC § 1030 covers the data that is hidden behind a Windows login. Yes you can boot up a system with an unencrypted drive and read the contents of it, but that's circumventing. Now where this and everything else differs, is that in a lot of prior cases a warrant was obtained to gain discovery of the information. In this case, Giuliani just circumvented the login, and post facto indicated evidentiary data.

It's a good question to bring before the courts. Can someone circumvent a protection, find incriminating data, and then after the fact present it to law enforcement? Because we don't have a lot that goes down this road of questioning. Kind of the reason law enforcement needs to be the one that bypasses those kinds of protections legally is because, your average person, can do things that "tamper" with evidence. And with digital data, can do so without knowing they have done so, like last access timestamps and what not.

and if so, how is that not illegal access to someone else’s data

I mean that's the central question of the suit. Which you can find as case 2:23-cv-8032 in the Central District of California. And I can't off the cuff think of a good prior that answers this. And there's parallels that can be drawn for both ways this can go. You cannot just randomly break into a house, discover illegal shit going on, and then report that (I mean you can, but you've also violated the law with your B&E) But if you reasonably suspect something is going on (like you heard a scream from the house), you can break into a house, discover illegal shit going on, and then report that (that is you haven't violated the law with your B&E in some situations).

Basically the case doesn't negate the laptop as evidence in some other case, it just implicates Giuliani into what amounts to digital breaking and entry. Which given the case, even if Giuliani was found guilty the sentence is usually a fine for first offense when the information obtained is not property of the US Government proper. So even if the courts do find Giuliani should have contacted the FBI before actually attempting to get the data, the most he would be face (if they really wanted to throw the book at him) is one year in prison AND a fine.

It is an interesting case though, we don't have laptops screaming for help to justify breaking legally protected locks on data. So, it an interesting case to see what the courts lay down as lines for "reasonable belief that an illegal activity is happening" if Giuliani decides to go down that road. But I don't hold much hope for that, they'll likely argue that the data on the laptop is theirs to begin with, which no court is going to accept that. But we'll just have to see.

How about instead of establishing this via the regulatory process we have Congress actually pass law that enshrines fundamental rights online? Don't get me wrong, I'll take whatever, but as we've seen rule making can change these things based on who the President has selected to seat on the committee and if they seat just the right person, boom, all those rights are now gone again.

Bringing back NN via the regulatory process is a step, but as has been demonstrated, even long standing precedent before the courts is NOT an indicator of any long standing policy of the United States. That the only means by which any of us can have any kind of long standing right is via legislation (for the simple fact that usually there's too much confusion to entirely undo anything once passed, but even then every so often the cards come up in just the right combination) and Constitutional Amendment.

That's it. That about covers all the means by which the US has long standing position on anything. Which that's pretty shitty because having a "direction" is slightly important for a nation, but that is where we are now. So great, glad to hear the FCC wants to implement rule making to add regulation that gives us "Net Neutrality", but that's going to last all the way up till some former Verizon lawyer becomes chairman of the FCC (Ajit Pai), who will unsurprisingly, dismantle all regulatory process of the FCC. And round and round we go.

Actually neat thing about the 14th amendment. It gives rise to the doctrine of Incorporation of the Bill of Rights.

The 14th amendment fundamentally modified the separation of Federal and State governments a bit, which makes sense given the background of the whole “it’s a result of the Confederates losing the Civil War.”

However all this said, the first amendment doesn’t extend into infinity. No right does that. The various Courts have agreed that speech is not protected in the commission of a crime.

Speaker of the House literally indicated he’d do this in his Inauguration speech

Nuh-uh! His hands are just naturally fire engine red!

I’m starting to think this jam session’s got too many licks and not enough comps.