A Republic, If You Can Keep It

Again, there is much, much more than this simple line item on the BlueSky thread I posted and some of it is discussed in Kevin Drum’s posting.

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It’s a fucking slog to go thru threads like that. One post summed it up nicely: the liars are winning.

Sphinx, I haven’t read that article, but no reasonable amount of money added to LAFD was going to prevent this tragedy. All those articles do is divert people from having useful discussions on improving our future.

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My point is kinda where you were going to Sphinx - it’s far more complex than pointing to that one thing, and in the end there was very little that could’ve been done in advance that wasn’t already done to lessen this disaster in any meaningful way.

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I never said anything about what would or wouldn’t have caused or prevented the fires. Never apportioning blame. I just posted some articles related to the fires, the mayor, and the LAFD. Sorry but not sorry.

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Just for context…apparently Trump and Alito had a nice little phone conversation this week. Given how corrupt both are, don’t expect this to end up like you hope.

The full court absolutely would issue a stay on his sentencing. The fact that he’s in cahoots with Alito is not a surprise; it wouldn’t be a surprise if he had a zoom call with Roberts, Clearance Thomas, Kegstand and Serena Joy.

The point is that a full court stay is not going to happen before tomorrow. For a stay to happen before tomorrow, it would have to be granted by the Justice who oversees the 2nd circuit, and that’s Sotomayor.

I was just responding to the content I could gleam from the title. Wasn’t implying that you were an advocate.

Can someone help me with this? I’m becoming intrigued in spite of myself. Won’t he just be able to pardon himself? Why does he care so much about this sentencing? Any sentence he “served” would like as not be seen as a badge of honor by his dodobird voters. What am I missing?

Can he pardon himself from this; isn’t it a State crime? Anyways, I suspect the answer to your question is just him letting us know (or believe) that he can control every lever of power. Wear everyone down. Scare everyone.

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Well the jury is out the whole self-pardon thing, but I’m sure SCOTUS would swoop in and affirm that right should it ever happen and be challenged.

But you are not wrong about the main question: WTF is his deal with this?

There is a technicality that he’s not officially a felon until sentenced, but that’s some nuance that I only know from having consumed way too much content on the matter previously. Most people don’t know about this and, rightly, wouldn’t care if they did.

The conviction was the 800lb crux of the matter. Fighting so hard to avoid sentencing seems to be slamming the barn door shut after the horse has died (or something like that). It matters in the half-set blancmange he has sloshing around inside his cranium almost as much as toilet flushing, windmill cancer and forest raking, none of which we will ever fully understand either.

Basically, he’s fucking nuts, and proves it every day.

I know, it’s ok. But, FWIW, the title you responded to referenced the response, not the cause.

I realize that. I’ll clarify: No amount of firefighting budget, water in reservoirs, firefighting equipment, etc. was going to enable a response that would prevent this tragedy.

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Mother Nature had the upper hand in this one. Those winds were incredibly devastating.

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So many of these people who lost their homes have no fire insurance. They wanted it, couldn’t get it.

After Zuckerberg donated $1 million to trump’s slush inauguration fund and announced that he would loosen restrictions on political content while eliminating fact checking on his social media sites, there has been a sharp increase in the number of account deletions (me included). In response, Zuck has accused those deleting their accounts of virtue signaling.

He’s gone full Elon. You never go full Elon.

Scholars for centuries (millenia) have explained that Aristotle’s ‘man is a political animal’ should be considered in the context of his assertion that man is a rational animal that seeks community both familial and social.

On the other hand, ‘a person is smart/people are stupid’ seems to be winning the day.

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Trump, Musk and Zuck are all really ugly guys. Grotesque creatures. I may not have their money but I’m more thankful I don’t have their scrofulous looks.

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They’re all deep sea fish ugly on the inside, and that’s all that matters. For all of their wealth and power - and for all of my own mental health issues - I would not want to be them.

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If you cut their bellies open, all you’d see is black stuff inside.

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