sh.itjust.works

Summary

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger dared Donald Trump to press charges against him after Trump claimed Joe Biden’s pardons, including Kinzinger’s, were “VOID” due to being signed with an autopen.

Kinzinger dismissed Trump’s claim as a distraction, pointing out that autopen use is constitutional and has precedent.

He accused Trump of obsessing over January 6 because he was judged guilty in public opinion.

Kinzinger challenged Trump to act rather than make threats, saying, “Bring the charges then... because we will crush you in court.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31266735

Via Mastodon.

The "normal" everyone is wishing for was killing us. You just didn't notice.

Let it rot.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/27381575

https://bsky.app/profile/craigbrittain.com/post/3lkoqbmgej22v

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-fentanyl-weapon-of-mass-destruction-executive-order-draft-scoop

Well this is absolutely frightening in so much that Trump is going to force his way into Canada via military operations by claiming fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.

Anyone remember the Bush Administration and WMDs they said were there but never were?

Elbows up Canuck’s. The time to prepare is most likely closer than we think.

Summary

Hungary’s parliament passed a law banning Pride events and allowing facial recognition to identify and fine attendees.

The legislation, backed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s party, passed 136-27 and expands Hungary’s “child protection” law, which restricts LGBTQ+ content. Amnesty International condemned it as a “full-frontal attack” on LGBTQ+ rights.

Critics argue Orbán is scapegoating minorities to distract from economic issues and boost far-right support ahead of elections.

Budapest Pride organizers vowed to proceed with their march despite fines of up to 200,000 forints (£425).

Google recently open sourced Pebble and today, Repebble has put some of the watches up for preorder.

#Hundreds of officers decertified

Lawmakers gave POST a year to set up the state’s decertification system, including hiring staff and establishing investigation procedures. From the start, the commission was playing catch-up.

That’s because, under SB 2, some decertification would apply retroactively. That includes officers who committed felonies, qualifying misdemeanors and certain kinds of misconduct — specifically dishonesty, sexual assault and use of deadly force.

So far, POST has received over 35,000 cases for review. About half of them involve incidents dating before 2023.

The reports include allegations against nearly 20,000 current or former officers who worked for big cities, small towns, universities and a slew of government agencies.

POST has completed investigations into more than 13,000 cases, with nearly 300 resulting in decertifications. Dozens of them voluntarily surrendered their badges.

Another 140 have had their certifications suspended while POST investigates.

Update from this post yesterday: https://sh.itjust.works/post/34622756

Trumper has since scrubbed her Facebook page of all things political, including pictures of her husband in a MAGA hat. She is now claiming to never have made political posts.

Transcript:

I'm posting this not to start a debate over politics but just for a generalized statement so please do not come at me or try to start a debate. I do not nor have I ever talked politics for the sheer reason that everyone has an opinion and is absolutely entitled to that opinion; that's why we vote and I am not about to go at it with someone because our beliefs arent the same. I have recently had too many people flooding my text messages or DMs forcing their opinion. I even had one friend end our friendship because I politely stated I do not talk politics and I was not going that rabbit hole with her.

The fact of the matter is like it or not the president is who it is. I have worked for the federal government for 15 years and it is a scary thing right now. [Redacted] also military and we don't know what our jobs will look like in the future. We're rolling with things as they come out and will adjust as needed but a lot of things I receive or read from a lot of posts have somewhat taken me by surprise and do not wish to be apart of it.

A huge win for animal rights. It's not perfect, but we shouldn't let the absence of perfection get in the way of celebrating progress.

I get an impression that when hearing an accusation of someone being "fascist", some people interpret this is simply a bad word. Like we're kids on a playground, and one kid doesn't like that other kid after sand got in our eyes so they call him a poopyhead. "Ooh, Singh called America's President a fascist, how scandalous! Can you believe he said that?" "Oh, the long haired dude protesting outside the Tesla showroom has a sign that says Musk is a fascist? Such a hysterical drama queen. Kids are so naive."

This idea that fascist is a bad word is not the worst possible interpretation -- fascists were pretty bad, after all. Growing up we studied WWII and the rise of fascism in Europe, the horrors they inflicted on millions of people and the scars they left on the world, lots of bad there. The genocide they inflicted was bad, and the fascists did that because they were racist which is also bad, and so they were all around pretty bad. All of this is true. Cool dudes like Indiana Jones punched those silly nazis in the face, because he was the hero and the nazis were the bad guys who wanted to do bad things.

But this interpretation of what fascist means -- to simply conflate fascists with "bad people we really don't like" is a serious failing to learn from history. Because one thing that gets missed from the history books we read was is why was fascism. (Or, it was there and it never sunk in.) Sure, we covered the societal dissatisfaction emerging from the aftermath of WWI, but that doesn't really get to why the outcome of that was fascism. The people back then could have responded any number of ways, why did that fascism take hold?

What we failed to internalize was that the fascism of the 1930s was probably a pretty fun time for the people participating in it. It would have provided a sense of community, a nationally unified response to what could reasonably be seen as a country in decline. The fascist leaders told their people that their race and their nationality were special, and gave them easy answers and scapegoats to explain away all the problems of a complex and changing world -- this was probably reassuring. The people were told their future would be full of riches, and that the world was filled with villains and that the spoils the great leader would provide would be theirs for the taking -- this was probably inspiring. When the propagandists told them that what they were doing was good and right, and the scapegoat was up to no good, it was probably pretty neat that everyone all had the same take.

The grandiose rallies where they gathered to chant mantras and demonstrate their loyalty would have been engaging community events with audio and visual stimulation that got the blood pumping. You and your neighbours (your true neighbours, not the evil opposition lurking just behind every corner) were all in on this bold adventure together, you were working together with a common goal. You all had the same answer to the problems, there we no debates or confusion about what the truth was. The truth was what the leader said, and everyone who was anyone repeated it -- or they wouldn't be anyone anymore. No complexities, no thinking required. Young men with too much testosterone in their veins probably had a grand time beating up whoever the great leader said to scapegoat that week to help explain all the problems in their lives and to quiet their doubts.

Because what we missed and didn't sink it's way into our souls is that the Germans and Italians in those times were just people. They were farmers and factory workers and weavers and students and salespeople and scientists and teachers and tailors and bakers and longshoremen and everything in between. They were normal people, with the exact same ape brains we still have today. That when we read the pages of history we are not just reading about a record of things that happened, we are reading a script about what people do and events that could easily happen again. That we are not exceptional and our cultural differences with the people we are reading about in history books is dwarfed by the fact that we are the same people now that they were then.

So when we say fascist, it's not simply an insult. It's a cry of desperate warning, to sound an alarm that we have seen this before. We seen how this poison affects people and we have seen how it goes from here. We see it not just in the 1930s Europe but even today in very similar forms in authoritarian China and Russia, and it's been successful there too. And yes indeed, fascism has reared it's ugly head in America -- and the American people are the same flesh and blood as the people who have succumbed to this before. People with an exceptionalist mindset think it can't be happening there. Their friends and neighbours can't be fascists because fascists are the bad guys and obviously their neighbours aren't the bad guys. Their neighbours would never stand by when we lose access to ballots and scapegoats get sent to gas chambers and everyone's kids march off to die in foolish wars -- only bad guys would do that. Our neighbours are normal people, not bad guys.

Because we read the textbooks and we passed our multiple choice tests, but we didn't learn. History is an account of what normal people did.

Summary

A federal judge warned the Trump administration for defying a court order by placing reinstated probationary (new) workers on paid administrative leave instead of returning them to their jobs.

Judge William Alsup ruled that the administration’s mass firings of nearly 25,000 workers were illegal and ordered their reinstatement.

The White House argued that full reinstatement would create “significant confusion.” The American Federation of Government Employees and other unions sued, claiming the firings bypassed congressional authority.

Alsup gave the administration until Tuesday to explain its actions.

The Orville s3e5 "A Tale of Two Topas"

Via Mastodon.