ignirtoq

joined 1 year ago
[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 1 points 1 year ago

The 10th amendment doesn't change the supremacy clause. It simply makes explicit what's implicit in the supremacy clause: federal law takes precedence over any and all state laws and constitutions when they are made in pursuance of the US Constitution, so the 10th amendment clarifies that if it's not a power granted to the federal government by the US Constitution, then it's reserved for the states. To invoke the 10th amendment in this case you would have to prove the federal government is acting beyond its constitutional scope, which would require either proving it's going beyond EMTALA or that EMTALA itself is unconstitutional. They are not making either claim in this case.

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

They're not animal or plant.

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

and whether you like it or appreciate it or not, he's got a history of public service

Would that be the charity that's a front for embezzling charitable donations, or the presidency that he used to enrich himself by vacationing in his own properties, requiring the federal government to pay exorbitant, arguable falsely inflated, prices with taxpayer money for housing the Secret Service in Trump properties and selling national secrets to hostile governments?

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

That's part of what makes Trump's talk of a 3rd term both ridiculous and terrifying. It would violate the Constitution, so a radical change to our country would have to happen for that to happen. All of our "inalienable rights" are guaranteed by the Constitution, so if they throw it away for a 3rd Trump term, they can throw it away for anything else they want. Want to go back to only white men who own land voting? It's the Constitution blocking that. Making treason a crime? The Constitution. Once they break that, we're hosed.

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 25 points 1 year ago

When his form was released to the public, Justice Thomas included an unusual addendum, a statement defending his acceptance of gifts from Harlan Crow, a real estate magnate in Texas and a donor to conservative causes. He had “inadvertently omitted” information on earlier forms, the statement said, which also sought to justify his decision to fly on private jets. He stated that he had been advised to avoid commercial travel after the leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

So saying he has "acknowledged" them is being very generous. He's still making excuses and not taking responsibility for breaking the rules.

Including the advise about avoiding commercial travel after the Dobbs draft leaked is a non sequitur I'm having a really hard time not interpreting as a dog whistle to a political audience. Sure, avoid commercial travel, but include the gift of travel in your documentation. Why bring up Dobbs except to hint that he believes he's being persecuted for doing his job, despite the fact that the binding, precedent-setting opinion has no legal basis at all. That's not my conclusion, because my personal conclusion would be garbage since I'm not an expert. That's the conclusion of countless legal experts and the dissenting justices.

But sure, you were so rattled by this unprecedented persecution of a sitting justice that you "inadvertently" omitted huge gifts from conflicts of interest in your disclosure forms. You still did it, so take responsibility.

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Republicans in Idaho asked the Supreme Court to decide whether state bans or federal law take precedence.

This is absurd. Federal law always takes precedence, even if it's a section of a state constitution versus a law passed by Congress. Period. It's the supremacy clause of the US Constitution, and it's quite clear. The supremacy clause doesn't cover executive order, but this case is about EMTALA, a law passed by Congress.

Now if they want to argue the Biden administration's enforcement of that law is going beyond the bounds set by the law, that would be something SCOTUS would need to decide. But as far as I can tell they aren't arguing that. They're saying if the Court lets the Biden administration require emergency abortions in opposition to state law, then that will let them require elective abortions as well, which is an even more absurd claim since the scope of EMTALA is strictly for medical care when the health or life of the patient is at risk without it.

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Carbon capture is like geo-engineering in the sense that we should definitely be researching it, but we should definitely not be talking about it in the political space because there are much more effective solutions that are cheaper and can be implemented now. Carbon capture is only worth talking about doing once we've radically altered our economy to no longer produce carbon emissions and are ready to undo the carbon we've already pumped into the atmosphere.

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 89 points 1 year ago (7 children)

This will be an unpopular opinion here, but Biden has been backed into a corner on this. The immigration system is fundamentally broken and not equipped to deal with modern needs, but that has to be fixed by Congress. Biden had legislation he was favoring, and regardless of what your opinion on it was, Republicans made it clear they won't let absolutely any changes to immigration happen with a Democrat in the White House, no matter how much they may agree with them.

His options under executive action are extremely limited. The strategy of letting the system flounder to illustrate the need for reform has only worked against him, so now he's trying something else. I don't agree with the current system, the reforms that he proposed, nor this executive order, but man, there just isn't a good solution here, and he's feeling the political pressure on it, which while it may be misdirected is nonetheless real.

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 42 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I find the very term "content" fascinating, because the exact definition you choose puts it on a kind of spectrum with "useful" at one end and "measurable" at the other.

When Daniel Ek talks about "content," he means any pile of bits he can package up, shove in front of people, and stuff with ads. From that definition, making "content" is super cheap. I can record myself literally screaming for 30 seconds into the microphone already in my laptop and upload it using the internet connection I already have. Is it worth consuming? No, but I'll get to that. And content under that definition is very measurable in many senses, like file size, duration, and (important to him) number of hours people stream it (and can inject ads into). But from this view, all "content" is interchangable and equal, so it's not a very useful definition, because some content is extremely popular and is consumed heavily, while other content is not consumed at all. From Daniel's perspective, this difference is random, enigmatic, and awe inspiring, because he can't measure it.

At the other end of the spectrum is the "useful" definition where the only "content" is good content. My 30 seconds of screaming isn't content, it's garbage. It's good content that actually brings in the ad revenue, because it's what people will put up with ads to get access to. But what I would consider good content is not what someone else would consider good content, which is what makes it much harder to measure. But we can all agree making good content is hard and thus almost always expensive (at least compared to garbage passing as content).

And that's what makes Daniel Ek look like an out of touch billionaire. The people who make good content (that makes him money) use the more useful definition, which is difficult to make and expensive and actually worth talking about, while he uses the measurable definition that's in all the graphs on his desk that summarize his revenue stream.

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But this is Trump. Even Merchan has allowed Trump to play by a completely different set of rules (violating the gag order 10 times and still not being thrown in jail, as an example). He has also been openly hesitant about the idea of throwing Trump in jail.

During the trial. The argument I have seen for why Trump has gotten away with playing by completely different rules is that if the judge or prosecution makes absolutely any wrong step in procedure, the kind of lawyers Trump hires will jump on that and can push for all sorts of ways to shut down the case on procedural grounds (mistrial? Forgive me I'm not an expert), and based on the nature of this case, that would shut it down for good. But the trial is now over, so that argument should no longer apply. The options on the table for Trump's lawyers interfering with the sentencing are significantly reduced compared to trial, so the judge should be able to go for a really harsh sentencing, particularly for the reasons in this article. We'll see if the procedural mistrial argument really was the explanation, or just another rationalization of the 2-tiered justice system.

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 29 points 1 year ago

And this horrible story of uprooting not only your life but your entire community and its history to flee the rising tide is going to be one of the better stories. These islands are "lucky" to be part of a nation that is based on a continent and has room it can move these people to.

There are many entirely island countries that will have to evacuate to other countries. Maybe some other countries will offer some of them somewhere to go, but I guarantee it won't be enough. And it's going to accelerate. And it's going to be happening at the same time some continental nations in the equatorial region will be evacuating north due to extreme heat or other extreme weather.

Scientists have been warning this was coming for as long as they've been warning about climate change. And it's here. It's starting now.

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 4 points 1 year ago

Oh absolutely. With the rising food prices, my family has had to shift to making those rotisserie chickens a regular part of our weekly plans to keep our grocery bills down. (We eat the meat and then boil the bones/carcass into broth, which we can have as another meal of soup.) As prices continue to rise, they become a better and better deal.

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