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Louisiana requires classrooms to display Ten Commandments

"In the language of the law, the Ten Commandments are "foundational documents of our state and national government.""

At this point, I hope it's more than fair to say that this is crossing into theocracy, or at least an admittance of intent? Certainly can't have any more pretense of separation of church and state.

The slippery slope has only continued and gotten worse since last issues such as this were mentioned around here (a megachurch pastor also had allegations of abuse of a girl).

Like with everything else the far right does they will claim you are exhaggerating untill they actually accomplish their degenerate goals

Nlt tjat it isnt important it is but….I wish we focused less as a society on defending or trashing starwars (that was never amazing anyway) and less focus on accolading or trashing the current trendy trans representation of disney they will remove from china.

And put a bit more focus on the hellish heat waves caused by global warming that are killing people.

Lile I get the issues related to the culture war IS important but I am starting to think our priorities might be a little off…

It's not even the first time this has happened (even around here). It's not even the second time.

I remember the pro-life saying they'll make exceptions for incest, rape or where the
mother's life was in danger. After Roe vs Wade was repealed? Not a single word when those were proven to be lies, or when maternal and infant deaths increased and outright excuses or justifications for underage mothers & statutory rape (one saying "younger mothers will be healthier and more fertile" is something I will always remember).

Than there was the moral panic with groomers from the LGBT. It's all an enduring black mark.

I used to like Star Wars a lot and I'd argue they were amazing, but I haven't really thought about it that much since the Sequels (it's in the same void as GoT for me). Like Lord of the Rings it laid the foundations that a lot of other shows piggyback on. However, it is 'just' entertainment.

There's one user who obsesses with current media outputs, and I'd actually agree with most of their takes (Disney is producing bad content), except that that the stuff I mentioned with Kenetic Kups above? I read they're all for it (so it's not that they're limiting themselves to media talk, that's fine).
Culture War nonsense is life and death for some, it's the dire version of the comic book guy from the Simpsons.

Now it's one things if it's randos on a meme website, but that 'serious' politicians make their whole career of getting on social media feuds instead of doing their actual job (or outright sabotage actual efforts) is worrying.

I unironically hope they adopt this to be their state constitutional document.
especially about the part about the Keeping the Sabbath.

So. Uh. You gonna make it illegal to work on Friday, Saturday and Sunday?

I unironically hope they adopt this to be their state constitutional document.
especially about the part about the Keeping the Sabbath.

So. Uh. You gonna make it illegal to work on Friday, Saturday and Sunday?

That'll definitely infringe on business interests, so it'll be funny who wins out between money and 'faith'.

There's been a melding of the powers of church, state and wealth for a while now as exemplified by Megachurches.

In recent international news:

Julian Assange walks free after years of facing legal persecution from the US government

Possible military coup developing in Bolivia, coming 5 years after the political crisis that led to the resignation of Evo Morales as president

Money will always win. In the end Churches aren't the ones paying the taxes.

Two senile men debating tonight to see which one will run the US

CS188 better be preparing some juicy memes

A good point someone said is make sure to actually watch the debates to see what happens because all you're gonna see afterwords is gotcha clips

So… who's gonna feel the most second hand embarrassment?

Idk
was pathetic
this is democracy manifest
two senile old men on stage, one asleep at the wheel, the other yelling nonsense

Imagine fucking calling Biden a weak Palestinian. Holy shit. And then get this, when asked about their health, they go into comparing their fucking golf scores. What even is this?!

That was such a shitshow, I don't know who """won""" that debate, but America lost it.

This debate was hot garbage. Trump was dodging questions and saying his usual "X was the best when I was the president, and X was the worst when Biden was the president" shenanigans, and Biden's voice was raspy and was fumbling every time he spoke. The biggest losers IMO were the CNN moderators. They weren't fact-checking and weren't preventing both of the candidates from going off-topic. They just let both of them talk and didn't challenge any of them whenever they were going out of line.

This is actually good advice.

Anyway, I'm happy that most can agree that was a complete shitshow. To the point that I'm worried about what's being missed in the torrent of nonsense.

… The bit about Ukraine is something that should be focused on, I think.

Forgive me for being another to comment on the candidates' age when there are perhaps more important factors at play, but there's something I can't help but think about.
I've seen firsthand many times how constant stress and negative feeling can make the health of the elderly spiral down. Staying alive becomes an increasingly delicate balance such that any shock can send one reeling. In that way disease and death might ripple as tragedy gives rise to tragedy. That being said, it is astounding that these men are able to have the interactions they do and not be on hospice care already. Perhaps it represents some long-term acclimation to an environment of constant embattlement where these sorts of interactions represent no significant shock to the system. If so, that may give some insight into the utter loss of humanity every politician seems to undergo.

Or if we're profoundly lucky they'll both be dead before January. The downward spiral can happen so suddenly, after all.

>Or if we're profoundly lucky they'll both be dead before January. The downward spiral can happen so suddenly, after all.

God I hope so

I'm just waiting for the cs188 YTP of the debate. I guarantee it will be more coherent than the actual debate.

The power of federal agencies continues to be curtailed, this time by the Supreme Court overturning "Chevron deference". Basically, this doctrine let agencies define and expand their own powers through interpreting "vague" legislation and making these interpretations legally-binding, without any recourse.

This might cause some short-term hiccups, as I'm sure this blank check has been used for something worthwhile at least a couple times, but taking power from unelected bureaucrats and giving it back to elected officials is a net positive.

Some further context, since the actual meat of the matter seems to have been intentionally obfuscated

"The justices ruled 6-3 to set aside lower court decisions against fishing companies that challenged a government-run program partly funded by industry that monitored overfishing of herring off New England's coast. It marked the latest decision in recent years powered by the Supreme Court's conservative majority that hemmed in the authority of federal agencies… Business, conservative and libertarian groups cheered the decision, saying it eliminates a rule that requires courts to favor the government in all manner of challenges to regulation."

One can truly feel the freedom from this, companies over-fishing and corporations running amok.

And you obfuscated further by ignoring some extra context:

The conservation program aimed to monitor 50 percent of declared herring fishing trips in the regulated area, with program costs split between the federal government and the fishing industry. The cost to commercial fishermen of paying for the monitoring was an estimated $710 per day for 19 days a year, which could reduce a vessel's income by up to 20 percent, according to government figures.

Or in other words, the National Marine Fisheries Service required fishers to pay to be monitored while fishing. This was done due to the NMFS experiencing budgetary issues and justified through a very loose reading of the relevant Magnuson-Stevens act of 1976. The act does specify that fisheries may be required to pay to be monitored… but this was specified for the North Pacific, not the Atlantic. Chevron doctrine means that if courts decide that the law is "silent or ambiguous", they are to defer to agency interpretation, as long as it's "reasonable". This doctrine is itself ambiguous… Regardless, from my understanding of Magnuson-Stevens, the NMFS can still require monitoring of Atlantic fisheries, but it can't make them pay for it; that's what they tried to invoke Chevron for.

I do see valid reasoning behind Chevron deference, but it gives far too much license for federal agencies to make shit up without accountability or recourse. Surely there's a middle-ground between "private wild west" and "administrative wild west"?

Man this presidential election has lately been like: "you thought the covid pandemic was bad? You havent seen SHIT yet" and I can kind of respect it.

Like things will probably get awful but at least it will be funny.

1st round of voting in the France election will be on June 30th. 2nd round will be on July 7th. I'm pretty nervous about the France election even though I live in the US….

First round estimates for the French election are in

34% for the far-right alliance
28.1% for the left-wing alliance
20.3% for Macron's centrist alliance
10.2% for the conservative party candidates who refused to join the far-right alliance

You and me both. Yesterday was hectic, there was as much voters as you'd expect from the presidential elections.

Anyway, results are pretty much what everyone predicted with recent events (although I expected a bit more from LR and the winnowing of parties to the 'major' ones isn't great). The question is which candidates will drop out for the second round (in a bout of irony, En Marche may have to drop out for the Nouveau Front Populaire to avoid splitting the vote).

In an unsuprising move the SC has ruled that the president is above the law
therefore Biden should just deport trump

Or assassinate him.

I mean the court said it’s basically alright

"Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop. With fear for our democracy, I dissent." -Sotomayor

Yep according to their flatbrained take biden can just ban republicans from all ballots

Dont worry Poochyena doppleganger is heading towards Trump's residence as we speak.

I am seriously rooting for him and his heroic journey.

Justice Sotomayor: 'If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can give immunity?'

John Sauer (Trump Attorney): 'It would depend on the hypothetical that we could see that could well be an official act [sic].'

To continue anxiety and despair within the general populace: I've noticed some people are saying that it'll take a lot for Trump and his puppet(s/eers) to whip the government into one well-oiled machine, mainly due to the laws and procedures put in place previously. Consider the following:

Laws don't exist.

Of course they're written down, they're debated, you're still gonna get arrested. But laws only exist as they're enforced. This means that if judges or attorneys are particularly fond of someone, they can bend laws to be whatever. Sure, the president may have criminal immunity within some sort of bounds, but the only thing that stopped enforcers from ignoring Trump and slamming Biden before now were their politics. It'd be same even if the president always had full legal immunity, as long as enough key people feel the same way.
The thing about the American government is that the Framers never really accounted for an internal, coordinated attack against the very systems that uphold it, likely because they never expected the entire country to become so apathetic before then [Source: My Ass]. Thus, if some citrus flavored loudmouth (who doesn't want to confront the reality that nobody loves him) manages to woo swathes of the rich and working class populace to run the government in his favor, there wouldn't be a Constitution within all of existence that could stop them.

To provide some semblance of direction, the answer to this hell isn't to vote between parties whose only difference is the list of megadonors funding them. It's partly to participate within the government and community and to exercise some discipline and integrity in your service, even if at a small level [Source: I'm an expert slacktivist]. A revolution is the other part, though that requires coordination that's hard to achieve in short time frames, especially to avoid imploding into a civil war as different revolutionaries vie for the same goal of change.

So an answer that equates to "I can't say yes or no without being given a more specific hypothetical" is supposed to be a rebuttal? The answer is "probably not"; generally speaking, assassinations are the autocephalous authority of the FBI and CIA and don't fall under the jurisdiction of the chief executive. Some grey area exists, as in the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, a natural-born American citizen who became an organizer for al-Qaeda without ever revoking his American citizenship, and thus his assassination on the (indirect) orders of Obama remains legally dubious. And remember, this "legal immunity" only applies to ex-Presidents concerning a certain category of actions taken while President. These actions are, in fact, still valid targets for impeachment.

I think it's interesting how actually reading the decision is apparently highly controversial. Confused fear is easier, but much less healthy. Presidents are still subject to criminal law, though civilian prosecution may need to wait until the end of their term in office (pretty sure this has been established practice for a long time, it's just that it never really comes up; if they're still in office, the recourse for any crime is impeachment. three of the four charges against Bill Clinton were normal-ass crimes unrelated to political office at all)

Monica Lewinsky was 22 when it started??? There was a major power and age discrepancy between them, but the only illegal part of it was when he lied about it under oath, making for one of his two counts of perjury.

We had this song and dance before right here, when it came to Roe vs Wade. The false assurances, the accusations of hysteria, the playing down and than the abuse of those powers by the American Right with the complete lack of remorse or even acknowledgement of those abuses by the people who played it down.

At the literal top of this page, Kups said (which could be considered prophetic, except it's not prophesy to predict the sun will set):

Like with everything else the far right does they will claim you are exhaggerating untill they actually accomplish their degenerate goals

You can only pull this shit so many times.

Who knows, I may say more when I'm less distracted by following by my local news, but it seems like a repeat of the same playbook and each time it's more outrageous.

Mhm, and this same page suggests that the type of people who make such broad claims about The Other are the same as those who can be goaded into supporting tyranny with just a modicum of ignorant fearmongering.

You are downplaying blatent tyranny because it doesn’y fit your narritive, as always

To involve myself in this forum more but not to dilute the waters, but tyranny can come from anywhere. There's of course the blatant power plays by the power hungry, but it can also come from people who think the best way to stop tyranny is to implement a system of laws and procedures that are tyrannical. It can even come from swiss-cheese laws that were passed with intentions far removed from the discussion of tyranny, but enables tyranny to happen regardless.
Tyranny can come from both fearmongering and downplaying.
Of course, I realize that I am also speaking outside the bounds of rationality and delving into fearmongering myself, so vigilance is something I need more of than y'all, but everyone needs more of it regardless.

oh boy its swell to say
good morning usa

Also side note…

This is not really a good idea. We're four months away from the election. I don't think we're organized enough to find a better alternative and win. This is going to cause more division.

I say put those divisions on Harris aside and put her on the ballot

Alright fair enough

Yeah.
While switching out a candidate so soon may not be a good idea, especially since Harris is a contentious person…
Continuing with someone who's at serious risk of losing the ability to form coherent thought is even worse.

Insert joke about Harris not being a cognitive upgrade here.