The artist was commissioned to make the art. They didn't choose the card's color or name, which are what actually determine the multiverse ID

amazing

lol what

Come on, what a world

This is starting to feel real Truman Showish, are y'all actors?

@TimStone no effin way

I hated that movie because when my anxiety kicked in it made me consider if my life could be like that and this shit is feeling scripted, lol

@TimStone more likely is that when you get up in the elite circles, it's a very small circle so they all know each other

True, true

Still one hell of a coincidence

@TimStone the thread shows it's more than a coincidence

> One back channel is the fact that Kennedy’s son, Justin, knows Donald Trump Jr. through New York real estate circles. Another is through Kennedy’s other son, Gregory, and Trump’s Silicon Valley adviser Peter Thiel. They went to Stanford Law School together and served as president of the Federalist Society in back-to-back years, according to school records. More recently, Kennedy’s firm, Disruptive Technology Advisers, has worked with Thiel’s company Palantir Technologies.

Assuming the shooter's reported name is indeed correct, apparently:

@TimStone wtf

Oh wow I saw them complaining and was going to joke that ICE was going to abolish itself in a "You can't fire me I quit" type of deal but uhhh apparently

@GodEmperorDune so......this is good news for a change!

@Memor-X nah, upper management at ICE and DHS is extremely pissed at them for writing the letter

and the trump admin wants to reorg the govt into a more fuct way, not a less fuct way so....

hmmmmmm

what could it mean

Oh don't worry they're fully committed to making all those jobs and whatever but maybe later

Ah. Well

??

It's important not to think too hard about it because it's just a racist

the only way I can see this working was if he meant the first thing as a positive

Yeah it's literally "What's wrong about that? 🤷"

otherwise it's really something else

@TimStone ah ok

@TimStone i mean i agree with one of those things

the christian god as evangelicals describe is a racist white supremacist who made jesus white even though he was born in the middle east

@GodEmperorDune we know Jesus isn't real. Tree Jesus is and he would obviously be brown

@Memor-X i mean raptor jesus went extinct for our sins

@GodEmperorDune i don't believe that and if Raptor Jesus was real may i be mauled by Raptors

.....................ha! *gets mauled by raptors* DAM IT!

just had a thought. Jurassic World 3's logo will be Buddy Raptor Christ

in international news

this isn't unusual in Europe but still

oh, I searched with the tweet link...

oh, only 1 month is pretty tame compared to e.g. Finland

@quartata yeh, mine's from a different source so you wouldn't have found it with a Hill link

(wonder why they're bothering?)

if it's only a month

@quartata instill pride and discipline in unruly youth less they become Pauls

perhaps they're trying to get their foot in the door on this...

@Memor-X sounds like a waste of money to me

if they're not going to be around long enough to be real reserves

Leaving aside my moral objections and looking at it practically here

this is a great thread on dealing with all the terrible shit in the news

h/t @ash for finding

if y'all think that it is not news adjacent enough, fite me irl

> During a private meeting at the White House in late April, Trump was discussing trade with French President Emmanuel Macron. At one point, he asked Macron, “Why don’t you leave the E.U.?” and said that if France exited the union, Trump would offer it a bilateral trade deal with better terms than the E.U. as a whole gets from the United States, according to two European officials. The White House did not dispute the officials’ account, but declined to comment.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/…

How would Trump react if we just asked California why they don't secede from the US?

@MadScientist honestly he wouldn't care, he doesn't like california anyway

and this is the kind of dumb negotiating that trump does.... its embarrassing how amateur it is for someone who is supposed to be good at making deals

he understands hard costs and nothing else

@GodEmperorDune come on by! We can hang out afterwards

@MadScientist sounds like someone wants to create the UUA, the United Union of America

oh man

the vote to send national a letter with pointed questions about the national compassion fund has passed

53-4-11

let's go

occupy ICE PDX is still ongoing

@TimStone WHATISGOINGON

WHAT IS REALITY, WHAT IS REAL LIFE??!!

a racist clock is right every 3-5 business months

@GodEmperorDune I have been informed that yes he is a member of DSA LA

@Unionhawk hell yeah

Which means in addition to "it's free real estate" we also have "do you think Margaret Thatcher had girl power"

lmao mike huckabee has logged on

:/

"Imagine the outrage if Republicans called for violence against Democrats."

> In 'Stunning Indictment', ICE Officers Call for Own Agency to Be Dissolved Amid Growing Outrage Over Immigration Policy

... ICE, welcome to the resistance?

@Yuuki That's a pretty big claim where is that from?

Though I guess "ICE Officers" is just someone somewhere who works for the agency?

source

Yeah, a number of ICE agents but it's not like the whole agency is calling for its own dissolution.

> The agency's targeting of undocumented immigrants has weakened its employees' ability to carry out other work, argued 19 officers who signed the letter, which was obtained by the Texas Observer.

So 19 officers.

Also, these officers are with the HSI division, not the ERO.

Also, not so much complete removal as it is splitting up its two divisions.

> The officers suggested that ICE be dissolved and its work divided among two new separate agencies, one focused on HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) and one focused on Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO)—the unit which has enforced President Donald Trump's hardline immigration policy.

@Yuuki After following a couple reposts it looks like this is the op: texasobserver.org/…

Specifically with the letter

lmao

@quartata Eh, moderates seem to be okay with super far right, so why not super far left?

Noted contributor of conservative site RedState

btw

the writer is conservative yeah lmao

that's why it's hilarious

filed under "advice from my mortal enemies definitely made in good faith"

there's a lot in that file the past few days

including a reason dot com article lmao

@uni probably

source

fuckin roasted

he's finished now

wait

I think someone predicted a while ago that he'd vote in favor of destroying public sector unions and then walk out like "hell yeah my life's work is done" weeks ago

whether or not someone predicted these things it is indeed how it has played out

thread

@GodEmperorDune I would go further than @Ash: this is completely unreasonable. He's over 80 years old and he served on the Supreme Court for 30 years. He doesn't have an obligation to be there for all of eternity just to prevent the wrong president from appointing his successor

Can you imagine looking at a person in any other job who's 15 years past the national retirement age and has 30 years on the job and saying "Oh no, you can't retire yet. We need you for another couple of years"?

That's the kind of neocapitalist dystopian bullshit people in this room are always complaining about

He got all of his career goals done. Can't blame him for going out on a high note.

So, to be clear, he was a Supreme Court justice for 30 years and you're summarizing his career goals as one specific decision that happened to be his last?

I'm sorry, Justice Kennedy thank you for your service sir, I'm sure you did lots of really good things, and definitely not more bad things than good things

you're right he did more than just destroy public sector unions and make a disingenuous read on "it's despicable to use religion to justify intolerance"

He also made rulings that protected free speech, allowed gay marriage and protected homosexuality in general, and restricted the death penalty.

congrats on sometimes making the right decision anthony

best of luck with whatever you're going to spend you time with now

To be clear, those decisions are all very important, and I would take "sometimes does the right thing" over "probably a neil gorsuch clone"

however

@murgatroid99 I think this being a kind of neocapitalist dystopian bullshit is exactly why people are complaining.

I still think it's all right to think "Kennedy retiring is probably going to have Bad Consequences" without being accused of "so you want him to stay on the Court forever?".

@Yuuki Did you look at the comic I was responding to?

That's not "this is going to have bad consequences", it's "Kennedy is forsaking his duty to America"

That was an aside, not a response. If you notice, I didn't respond.

There’s also the weird connection between his son and Trump

I've been thinking about Supreme Court appointments. It's true that the lifetime appointment is meant to prevent justices from being unduly influenced by the administration that appointed them and it has definitely worked out that in the past such as with former Chief Justice Warren. At the same time, the nomination and approval process hasn't been effective in weeding out problematic appointees, Justice Thomas is probably the most notable, and lifetime appointments are, well, for a lifetime.

Tried to put "recent" somewhere in the last part but it would make it go over length.

At the same time, I'm not advocating term limits for Supreme Court justices. I'm just thinking about how the Supreme Court works.

> Wisconsin man injured after upskirting shoe camera explodes

... are you telling me that his Canon misfired?

I have many questions

@Yuuki delete this

yeah

lithium battery malfunction

lol

what are the odds

> His shoe camera exploded before he took any pictures and he turned himself in anyway.

he turned himself in to police but since he never actually got anything before blowing up his foot they just gave him a stern talking to about how that would have been a felony

Looks like he probably built the rig himself.

And probably wired the batteries poorly or something.

oh shit

that's some dedication

@Yuuki i think we should replace it with specific predictable terms. 18 years, offset so that new justices rotate out every 2 years (so that each president gets to nominate 2 justices per presidential term). The justice currently on their final 2 years gets to be chief justice. if someone dies in office, current president appoints a replacement to serve out the rest of the dead justice's term (so the replacement still retires on the schedule).

also put in some concrete timelines for senate to vote up/down on each nominee, to avoid mcconnell style games

this way we get fresh blood on the supreme court, justices don't feel like they have to retire at politically opportune times, and replacing dead justices is not as dramatic

@murgatroid99 yeah the current system of "gotta retire under the right president" is dumb, my suggested replacement is in the above messages

but yeah, i am under no illusions that how we do the supreme court will be changed in major ways, the court resists even minor things like video recording the arguments and decisions for posterity

@GodEmperorDune I've never liked the idea of making political parties are a recognized part of the government (this is why I have issues with MMP), but that kind of idealism is pretty much untethered from reality.

@GodEmperorDune every president gets one, is another I've seen

something to that effect

9 is not constitutionally set, it's made up

@Unionhawk Used to be 7, right?

And then FDR added two? Or am I confuzzling my history?

@Yuuki yeah the house and senate already have bylaws and whatnot about majority and minority parties so that ship kinda sailed

> Over the years, various Acts of Congress have altered the number of seats on the Supreme Court, from a low of five to a high of 10. Shortly after the Civil War, the number of seats on the Court was fixed at nine.

@Unionhawk with potential 8 year terms that is a very long time to force a justice to keep working

@Yuuki FDR packed it to get new deal done yeah

@Unionhawk well he tried initially then backed off and then ended up being president so long that it happened through retirements

lmao kessler won his suit vs a cville activist who called him a murderer (under some weird anti-dueling statute)

but the judge also ruled that since he wasn't actually damaged by these things, awarded him just $5

@Unionhawk wtf

yeah

@Unionhawk hue

?

Incidentally, there's a good piece in VICE on the now former justice

@Unionhawk technically not former for another month or so

whatever

close enough

sure

@GodEmperorDune rekt

hell yeah, the EFF is suing to kill FOSTA

friendship ended with bernie now the EFF is my best friend

@Unionhawk AOC tho

I CAN HAVE MORE THAN ONE FRIEND

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/…

@Unionhawk best friend tho

Another interesting thread on how to change the Supreme Court

tl:dr; stop filling the pipeline with elite law school grads

@GodEmperorDune BAH. That site is blocked in EU (by themselves) for reasons of GDPR

@Arperum sorry :(

@GodEmperorDune Not your fault

@Unionhawk I was sick yesterday, so catching up from 2 days behind, but I was surprised to learn this when you said it. Figured Coast Guard would be Defense since it's military.

@Yuuki To protect against water bears.

@GodEmperorDune Very nice.

@puzzlepiece87 it was originally DOT when established in 1915, but was transferred to DHS in 2002

they do also act under the direction of the navy if asked

transportation honestly makes sense

@GodEmperorDune Any thread on how to change the Supreme Court is a bit disingenuous given that the only people involved in the appointment of justices is the President and the Senate.

I mean, I guess I could print out and mail this thread to my senators every day but that's about the extent of my influence on the Supreme Court.

@Yuuki i mean we ostensibly live in a representative democracy so if we don't like how things currently are, our job is to bug our representatives and make them change it

, but like in a way they can easily ignore

civily

civilly?

whatever

spelling

YO

The courts are not going to save us long term (with or without Anthony Kennedy)

However:

A federal judge has thrown Kentucky's Medicaid work requirements back to HHS

@GodEmperorDune Booooooo. Look, people retire.

@Unionhawk Temporary good news, better than nothing.

@murgatroid99 Exactly.

@Unionhawk This wasn't a fair reply.

@puzzlepiece87 this is literally what he did though

That's not my fault

@GodEmperorDune Assumes the parties are unchanging and each always represents about half the populace, so I disagree with this part.

@Unionhawk murgatroid wasn't commenting on how closely Kennedy agreed with your personal politics, so yes, not a fair reply, your fault

@Yuuki There are other concerns about this - parties do birth and die and change and represent different populace fractions over time.

Incidentally, the FCC and Federal Reserve operate under a party appointee system and while the Fed has been somewhat quiet, the FCC is noticeably terrible right now.

@puzzlepiece87 supreme court justices are not ideologically neutral and I will not judge them as such

to state that his primary goals and function were to expand right wing power while occasionally staring into that abyss and deciding not to is accurate

@Unionhawk When you're far enough left wing, everything starts to look like that

He was a reagan appointment for godssake

come on

@Unionhawk Again, that wasn't what was being commented on at all.

The cartoon said he was serving up his country by retiring.

That's separate from your judgment of his politics.

He had a conservative perspective, but I think that for the most part he tried to make impartial, principled rulings

A lot of conservatives disliked him because of how many times he took the liberal side on politicized cases

@murgatroid99 i agree with this, but we have to judge on results, not intentions

impartial, principled rulings are a pipe dream and we should lean into reality

we can't just hand wave bias away because the old white man tried his best

@GodEmperorDune I looked at the Wikipedia page, and for the most part I think he made rulings based on a set of reasonable, consistent principles. I personally don't agree with all of them, but I still think that is a respectable thing

@Unionhawk I thought we were talking about the cartoon, but now we're talking about Kennedy's career record. Maybe I misread the situation and if so I apologize/retract. If we're talking about his career record, your comments were very fitting.

More just the general "Anthony Kennedy stood between us and bad rulings"

like, no, he only sometimes did that

more often than not though is your Citizens United v FEC, Janus v AFSCME, Trump v Hawaii

court as a whole generally swings right except for a few famous cases that go left

Those are principled rulings, yes

but I don't think you need to be a socialist to understand those to be bad

and that at least 2/3 of them have lasting negative impacts on the very way power is distributed in this country

MEANWHILE though:

@Unionhawk i mean yay for 3 women on the court, ಠ_ಠ for another clarence thomas

Judge Judy almost seems plausible, given how much he loves reality TV

and by that i mean, someone who benefits from work made by the group on their behalf, then turns around to tear it all down as soon as they're in a position of power

@murgatroid99 i'm not sure she was on the heritage shortlist he's using

@Unionhawk there’s that crazy one from Fox News he likes

> crazy one from Fox News

ERROR: Stack overflow

@MadScientist judge janine

oh hey we got some national attention in Yahoo News (lol):

yahoo.com/amphtml/news/…

@GodEmperorDune yeah it's almost certainly her

@GodEmperorDune And Amy Barrett, probably