This Is Fine

12:03 AM

@murgatroid99 oh okay. See I had no idea who she was.

That makes sense though. Thanks.

> On Friday, President Trump said downloads of TikTok would be banned from mobile app stores on Sunday, potentially preventing users from receiving critical security updates.

> On Saturday, Trump said he supported Oracle’s bid to acquire a stake in TikTok and oversee some of its operations, and extended the ban date to September 27th. As part of the deal, he said, the companies involved had agreed to contribute $5 billion for “patriotic education.”

> On Sunday, everyone involved took a well deserved rest. And as Monday dawned, everything went to hell.

getrevue.co/profile/caseynewton/issues/…

Jolenealaska

12:22 AM

I don't think anything makes my blood run cold more than the idea of “patriotic education.”

It's not like we haven't done that forever.

But, calling it that begs for calls of "Great Leader".

Memor-X

1:25 AM

@Jolenealaska just going by Last Week Tonight, some parts of the US have a bit of an issue with that already

U.S. History: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

►

or atleast from an external viewpoint

i know when i was in Primary School when we learned about the first settlers, we were taught how White Settlers shot Aboriginals and how it was never a crime to do that but it was a crime vice versa

Eddie Kal

1:42 AM

Homeless in a City Buffeted by Plague: Boston’s most vulnerable citizens are experiencing a drastic reduction in places to eat, places to sit, places to use the bathroom, places to be safe, places to be.

Not news but a good read.

Eddie Kal

2:01 AM

> When the shit hits the fan the people of power run and hide, and they don’t care if the little or the poor live or die because all they do is look after themselves.

Memor-X

2:16 AM

@EddieKal reminds me of what i saw last night on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert where he was interviewing Bob Woodward and how Trump said when someone sneezed innocently everyone fled the room including him. can imagine Trump pushing people down and running ontop of them trying to escape

Tim Stone

2:29 AM

@Unionhawk Protect King Antifa

> Lindsey Graham: “We got the votes to confirm Justice Ginsburg’s replacement before the election. We are going to move forward in the committee. We’re going to report the nomination out of the committee to the floor .. so we can vote before the election.”

Narrator: There was not even a confirmed candidate, yet

Unionhawk

4:48 AM

@TimStone it's fun because like, often the truthful answer to "who is the leader here" is "I dunno"

Tim Stone

@Unionhawk relatedly

Unionhawk

they're looking for the sergeant of the protest thinking that every organization is like their own

Tim Stone

Extremely puzzled PD analyst: "Where's the head of the union that does the racism and stuff??"

Unionhawk

Oh god and there's that really funny document from 2005 about how does one infiltrate anarchists that concluded that 1) there's a lot of reading, and 2) you can't really cut the funding of what is essentially a collective of poor people

Nzall

12:13 PM

@BradC I thought collective punishment was unconstitutional

Wipqozn

12:33 PM

@Nzall lol the GOP don't care about the constitution.

Nzall

Louisville is hunkering down for a state of emergency in preparation for the Breonna Taylor decision

So the city is already expecting riots, which doesn't sound promising

Wipqozn

@Nzall I thought they were already charged?! wtf

Nzall

@Wipqozn no, the decision is today

Wipqozn

@Nzall Do you have a source for that?

Nzall

cbsnews.com/news/…

and eu.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/breonna-taylor/2020/09/…

Wipqozn

12:42 PM

@Nzall Unless I'm missing something, neither of those articles saying a decision is coming today.

Nzall

yeah, it may not be today

but it's most likely this week

Wipqozn

This specifically says there's no timetable: baytoday.ca/world-news/…

So we'll see

Tim Stone

1:08 PM

> this is amazing. on oan they blur out the signage on joe biden's podium. not even fox pulls that kind of thing. amazing!

lmfao, that should be the campaign slogan now

Biden | Harris: lewd

Memor-X

2:36 PM

Trump told a crowd of nearly all white supporters that they have 'good genes'

> At other points in the rally, Trump disparaged refugees and applauded a recent incident in which a reporter was struck in the knee with a rubber bullet fired by police.

Nzall

2:54 PM

@TimStone uWu Biden-senpai, I wuv you

Eddie Kal

3:06 PM

@Memor-X Those racist "good" genes are a much bigger problem than Trump himself.

Yuuki

3:55 PM

> NIH official to 'retire' after being ID'd as author of anti-Fauci posts on right-wing blog

Eddie Kal

4:18 PM

Ginsburg Supreme Court: Republicans secure vote for replacement

Private Pansy

5:34 PM

@Nzall I want to flag this so hard

Nzall

5:46 PM

@PrivatePansy I mean, it's fully tongue in cheek

Private Pansy

I know, but it's still extremely cursed

Nzall

maybe a bit much

@PrivatePansy Post it to /r/cursedcomments and reap the karma

If I post it I'd probably get that tag they give to self-promoters

BradC

6:37 PM

So I clicked over to this article, intrigued by the headline, interested to see what this secret strategy might be:

Democrats have a better option than court packing

> However, there has been comparatively little attention to the simplest and easiest way to get around potentially tyrannical right-wing justices: just ignore them. The president and Congress do not actually have to obey the Supreme Court.

So.... just break everything, you're suggesting??

Think I'm going to go with "naw, dog". This is not a better option than court packing.

murgatroid99

6:49 PM

I don't think they've fully thought out the consequences of discarding judicial review. Suddenly every Supreme Court constitutionality ruling ever is up for grabs.

That would open the door for Republicans to start ignoring Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, which is one of the reasons they're doing all of this in the first place.

MBraedley

@murgatroid99 Which means basically every ruling as constitutionality is a key factor in whether the court decides to hear a case.

It's literally one of the first stepping stones to an authoritarian state.

Unionhawk

7:10 PM

@murgatroid99 they already do

murgatroid99

If they really were completely ignoring them, they wouldn't care so much about repealing them.

Unionhawk

7:32 PM

They don't control all 50 state governments is why they care

Where they do they've already got essentially "only catholic hospitals are allowed to perform reproductive care" or "you have to go on a tuesday between 2-3pm and there's only one location in the state"

and just get the thumbs up even though that should very obviously not be allowed

Mad Scientist

@BradC that option is entirely insane

the Republicans and Trump can do certain things because they don't care if they burn everything to the ground.

A party that actually wants a democratic state where the law means something can't just smash the entire board and ignore teh rule of law

Unionhawk

Since when is a permanent council of 9 with the power to literally steal presidential elections a feature of a democratic state

Mad Scientist

8:26 PM

@Unionhawk If the courts are that compromised, you're not a democracy anymore.

Nzall

@MadScientist whispers It’s not just the Supreme Court; McConnell has already successfully confirmed 200+ federal judges and each of those are lifetime positions too.

twitter.com/theferocity/status/1308447009603543043

Mad Scientist

@Nzall the lower courts don't steal elections. They do other terrible stuff

I was tempted to add this to my earlier comments, but the strongly partisan nature of US courts and law enforcement is a really bad sign to me independent of all the stuff that is happening now.

You need a process that at least makes an attempt to put somewhat balanced judges to your highest courts

I couldn't name a single supreme court justice in Germany, the whole thing is so different from the US. It's by far not as politicized (though I'd assume it isn't perfect behind the curtains either)

Nzall

8:46 PM

@MadScientist Trust me, shit like this happens in Belgium too. As an example: a Flemish university fired one of their professors about a year ago after he couldn't keep his hands to himself when near students. Then this year, the racist ultra-right party Vlaams Belang... Proposed he becomes the new headmaster of that same university. Fortunately the city council (which he still was a member off btw, under a different party) voted against

Mad Scientist

As far as I understand, you need a much larger consensus to appoint supreme court justices in Germany. So you don't get extreme ones, as they couldn't get enough votes.

We also don't have the same kind of heavily politicized issues. While I wouldn't say abortion isn't an issue, it's at an entirely different level than the US. And both sides seem to be able to live with the current compromise to the most part

Tim Stone

@MadScientist I meaaaaan

Mad Scientist

There's a bit of a difference in deciding extremely close elections and outright stealing one.

Tim Stone

9:01 PM

Anyway it's super cool that we have courts that decide if you voted "correctly" as if that's a legitimate topic of debate

Like ambiguity is one thing but this dumb shit in Pennsylvania is insane

> Pennsylvania uses a two-envelope mail ballot system: A completed ballot goes into a “secrecy envelope” that has no identifying information, and then into a larger mailing envelope that the voter signs.

Mad Scientist

@TimStone but that's how all mail elections work, or?

Tim Stone

No, ours just had one envelope you put the ballot in and sign

Mad Scientist

Though I've no idea what they do with votes that omit the inner envelope here, never heard of that being an issue

Tim Stone

Which has theoretical problems but none probably bigger than discarding votes

Mad Scientist

You shouldn't discard the votes in my opinion

Tim Stone

9:04 PM

Yeah, so the PA Supreme Court ruled that these ballots don't count because uhhh reasons

Mad Scientist

But I find it odd that you have mail votes without this feature. That does seem to violate the secrecy of the vote

Tim Stone

My state doesn't typically allow arbitrary mail-in voting so that's probably a contributing factor

Mad Scientist

Every single vote by mail I've received used that system. And I'm including useless votes for university student representation in this

Tim Stone

The intent of the feature seems fine but it's extremely confusing what rejecting the ballot on this basis accomplishes aside from the actual goal of disenfranchisement

Like obviously someone now knows how you voted because they had to open the envelope to find you didn't use the secrecy envelope but actually you didn't vote because that shit's going in the trash

Mad Scientist

The stuff I find completely incomprehensible and insane is voter registration and all related weird shit. That simply isn't an issue here at all. And stuff like comparing signatures for votes, that also isn't a thing here at all

There's a register of residents, that is used to mail the invitations to vote. And you can generally also request a vote by mail, if you want to. When you vote via any channel, your name is crossed off the list of voters. And that's all that is to it, very low tech and works very well

Tim Stone

9:09 PM

Look if the government automatically knew who you were (which they do, because birth records and social security numbers) they could uhhh checks notes I dunno, I guess send you a thank you card for supporting the police when they curbstomp a protester?

Just an extremely unhinged country we have, honestly

None of it makes sense unless you accept that the goal is being cruel

Mad Scientist

The other thing I really don't get is how few polling places there seem to be. I've never waited more than 5 minutes in an election, an no polling place was further than ~500m from my home (that part is probably not representative, but just luck)

Tim Stone

9:26 PM

16 mins ago, by Tim Stone

None of it makes sense unless you accept that the goal is being cruel

Do you also have more structure around poll workers aside from "whoever randomly decides to volunteer", or?

Mad Scientist

@TimStone Not that much. But as far as I understand, each party generally sends someone, so you have some balance there. And anyone is free to observe the polls and the counting if they wish to

BradC

I'm curious whether congress could pass a minimum-number-of-polling-stations-per-citizen requirement, or perhaps a max-distance-to-a-voter requirement

Tim Stone

10:12 PM

> Maine's Supreme Court has sided with the state's Democratic secretary of state and rejected a Republican challenge to ranked-choice voting in the upcoming election

Uhhh

I mean, great, but also this framing?

Ranked-choice was enacted in Maine in 2016 by referendum!

So it was kind of Republicans v. the people of Maine not just the SoS who happened to be a Democrat

Tim

10:38 PM

If any of you want to donate the elections, it is a good investment in several close senate races: WV, GA, TX, IA, and several swing states

WV has a progressive challenger to a republican incumbent. Not many polls are about that race.

SC, NC, KS, ...

Wipqozn

10:56 PM

Majority of Canadians say wearing a mask during coronavirus pandemic is a civic duty: poll globalnews.ca/news/7350128/…

> The online survey by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies says 83 per cent of respondents feel governments should order people to wear a mask in all indoor public spaces.

Excellent

> Even more — 87 per cent — felt wearing a mask was a civic duty because it protects others from COVID-19 while 21 per cent felt it was an infringement on personal freedoms, a decline of six per cent from July.

> As for the anti-mask protests that have happened in various parts of the country in recent weeks, 88 per cent of respondents said they opposed the demonstrations while 12 per cent supported them.

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