I did this once to my store manager. Dude wanted me IN, no matter how much I told him I’d been throwing up all morning. I managed to drive the 15 minutes into work…and promptly threw up all over his shoes when he started trying to yell at me on the sales floor.

Never had anyone doubt that I was sick again at that job.

They likely won’t do anything. The IRS is extremely gun shy about enforcing that doctrine ever since the Church of Scientology thing.

Once again, the UDHR is not legally binding in any way.

+1 for If Books Could Kill. They’ve kinda run out of shitty famous self help books, but they still do good rundowns on other books now.

I’ll also recommend Michael Hobbes’ other podcast, Maintenance Phase, which is largely about health grifts.

Want to build an explosive? Here’s an equation you haven’t seen since 9th grade that determines how big an explosive you can build.

Because children can’t defend themselves or fight back legally, whereas the judge can. Trump knows the judge has to maintain his veneer of impartiality so he doesn’t open Trump to an easy appeal, so he’ll threaten and attack the people around him instead. It’s the old mob trick of “well gee, if Bobby ain’t getting off, well…”

I was about to say - Biden is at least saying “you need to fucking chill”, Trump literally just said he’d be calling for Israel to “finish the job”.

That being said, am I tired of having to make this sort of shitty-ass choice every four years? Yes. However, ESPECIALLY this election cycle, we don’t have anyone better on the ticket.

RFK? He’s basically a mouthpiece for the conspiracy-right, just not quite as loud as Trump. He’s got some decent ideas buried deep under the midden-heap that is his anti-vaccine rambling, but anyone who says that Texas’ whole “we’re gonna fucking kill every immigrant who steps foot on our soil” idea was justified the way he has doesn’t deserve the office, as well as his want to take the US back to what is effectively isolationism.

Stein is way too comfortable with anti-science positions, almost total opposition to war and military aid, and her opposition to nuclear power is maddening paired with her statements about how every nuclear plant is a bomb waiting to explode.

Either that, or they’re afraid of another Jan 6 (because that’s not unlikely to happen whether he wins or loses), and thus afraid that they’re gonna get caught in the crossfire on that one (potentially literally).

Not particularly, because reducing the appeals bond means that Trump can delay the trial even longer - which is the plan. Pretty much everyone sees that his plan from the beginning has been to push back and delay as long as possible, preferably until he’s either confirmed as the Republican nominee (in which case he can beat the wardrum of “oh this is a political witch hunt, you can’t sue a major political candidate”) or, more preferably, he wins the election, in which case I’m sure the DOJ will move double-quick to find a way for him to not have to pay a cent to anyone.

Honestly, considering he stated on Truth Social that he had 500M on hand, which he was absolutely NOT going to pay his bond with, I would’ve denied his appeal on that alone.

I’m pretty sure it’s just “I have $500mil, but it’s also similarly promised to 43 other entities around the planet for loans/fines/operating expenses”. Trump has made an art form out of ignoring anything that he has to actually pay out, why would bonds be any different for him?

It doesn’t work that way. The President cannot override a SCOTUS ruling - only Congress passing a law, or the Supreme Court reversing one of their own rulings, can do that.

Don’t forget that after the pandemic started, rather than simply giving money to hospitals to fund them buying extra PPE, his Department of Health was seizing PPE shipments literally right off the trucks and “redistributing” them at a significant markup. It got bad enough that some states started flying in shipments at remote airports in the dead of night like they were dealing cocaine in the 80s.

There were plenty of groups and independent actors at Jan 6 who were ready, willing, and able to rock and roll. The Oathkeepers were trying to get weapons into DC before that date, several other groups also tried to have weapons. They brought parts to construct a gallows, and some of these people were wearing plate carriers, carrying zip cuffs, and moving with targets in mind.

Don’t downplay the fact that plenty of people thought it was absolutely going to be go time for them.

Oh, and in respect to that: don’t forget that it was Trump’s administration that signed off on unmarked federal vans black-bagging protestors in Portland, and Trump himself who had DC Police disperse a protest just so he could take a photo in front of a church, AND that Trump actually wanted to deploy military force against the protests - he explicitly wanted the military to “machine-gun them in the streets” like he’s Tsar Alexander.

If it were one state, or one federal case, sure. Here’s the thing: he’s being prosecuted in multiple states, and in multiple federal courts for multiple different things. Generally, if you were trying to make a “kangaroo court” argument like Navalny had, then why go through all this rigmarole? If the government is so out to get Trump, why let him walk free and campaign and host rallies? Why wait 3 years to get the ball rolling on most of these cases? Why even bother coming up with plausible arguments and presenting them before a jury?

Uhhh, he said that NUMEROUS times before his whole “dictator on the first day”, and even then he walked it back AFTER being reminded that “hey, people aren’t quite ready for that”. How about the fact that his world-leader idols are almost all, to a man, dictators or wannabe dictators? Erdogan, Orban, Kim Jong-Un, Putin - this is a dude who said he most idolizes Mussolini and Andrew Jackson. One of his commonly-voiced complaints when he took office was that he couldn’t just unilaterally command that things be done, and according to aides, he had to constantly be reminded that things were illegal or beyond the scope of his office.

I dunno about you, but this sounds like the hallmarks of a man who would absolutely be a dictator, or close enough to it to not really matter.

Not to invoke Godwin’s Law, but decentralization like this worked GREAT for the Nazis before they took power. It’s real terror-cell tactics - if one of them gets busted saying or doing something that’s totally fucking whack, the national GOP can just say “well we weren’t coordinating their messages, those words and actions don’t represent us, etc etc”.

Basically this. His endgame plan is “become president, get the DOJ or Congress or the SC to rule he can’t be made to pay for anything”.

Don’t forget that time Trump tried to goad Iran into a war by assassinating a military official on allied soil.