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BranBucket

@ BranBucket @lemmy.world

Posts
2
Comments
185
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • ICE agent rebuffed after attempting to enter Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis

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  • Two things would happen.

    1. They'd justify the ICE goon's behavior by claiming the embassy was enabling terrorism or drug trafficking.
    2. They would pitch a huge fit, take some sort of extreme action, and claim they're in the right because US diplomats are good guys.

    They don't care about rules, ethics, or even having a consistent system of values. They only care about punishing people, power, and getting what they want when they want it. If they pull back at all, it's only because they fear their support (and with it their immunity from consequences) is slipping. They're just bullies and cowards.

  • OP is shocked that an import tax is not paid by the exporter

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  • They probaly thought the seller would pay without raising the price. A lot of these folks don't know how tariffs work in the first place and when the orange one said it would punish other countries for being unfair to the US they assumed the seller would recognize the error of their ways and foot the bill while keeping the price the same to stay competitive.

    Folks that make complaints like this on social media don't seem prone to thinking the consequences of an action through...

  • Removed

    Meta shut down research into the mental health effects of Facebook after finding evidence that its products harmed users’ mental health, according to filings in a lawsuit

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  • This was years ago, IIRC.

    They've always known their shit was fucking with people's heads. They've always known it causes problems. They don't care. They just want their money so they can buy more politicians and make more money.

    Everything is about money, except money, which is about power.

  • An Anonymous DC National Guardsman Tells All - “This is not what I signed up to do.”

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  • The national guard is both state and federal, and can be subject to penalties under the Uniform Code of Military Justice at times just like active duty troops.

    If you just stop showing up, your unit declares you AWOL, and this can carry criminal penalties under the UCMJ. They may ask local law enforcement to bring you in. Jail time is a possibility in aggravated cases.

    You could claim certain types of mental illness, that you're experiencing gender dysphoria, or fake a disqualifing medical condotion and you may or may not be discharged or face a court martial based on wether or not they think you're lying.

    Depends on the branch, but you could try gaining weight and failing your PT test, however the process of getting discharged could take months/years.

    Failing a drug test would probably the be the fastest way out, but you're potentially going to get dishonorably discharged, which can be treated as equivalent to a criminal conviction in some regards.

    Declaring yourself a consciencous objector could work, and is probably the closest to simply quitting, but the process of being discharged could be lengthy and involve some investigation to make sure your beliefs are "sincerely held". Again, you may be dishonorably discharged or face other penalties if someone really wants to be an asshole about it.

    EDIT: After some googling. If activated under federal orders or participating in their annual training and therefore subject to the UCMJ, the consequences for a National Guardsman found guilty of desertion could be as severe as death. However, this is historically rare in the modern era.

    When not activated, most states have their own code of military justice, which often mirrors the UCMJ.

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/885

    Some other relevant reading:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Slovik

  • ELI5 How is this legal? Doesn't the constitution give us the right to tell them piss off?

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  • A lot of people who could do more are still doing the math between being complicit in this and ruining their lives, which is a real possibility if they act before securing some kind of support from the opposition or a resistance movement gets more organized. They'll have to be convinced the risk is worth it and action could result real change before they go for it.

    The problem isn't necessarily finding people opposed to what's happening, but making them believe that change can happen and they'll be alright in the end if they join the resistance.

  • Deleted

    Permanently Deleted

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  • Nothing big. Nothing impressive. They don't get to satisfy their need for self-aggrandizement in their service.

    They spend the rest of their lives doing simple but important things in obscurity. Removing plastic from waterways, serving food in soup kitchens, picking up litter, cleaning bathrooms at public libraries, etc.

    No thanks are given. No acknowledgements. No press, no interviews, and no "where are they now" stories. They can visit with family but not directly with the media. No one says their name except as a cautionary tale about the price of unchecked ambition combined with a lack of morals. They never suffer physically, no torture, but they live small, they die small, and they're buried in a pauper's grave outside the prison. First initial and last name is all that's put on the marker.

    Make it happen, make it the truth, then make sure that story is taught in every history class in the US.

  • US Catholic cardinals urge Trump administration to embrace a moral compass in foreign policy

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  • That ought to fix it. Pack in the protests, guys, the Catholic Church has saved the world again.

  • Harvard legal scholars debate the state of the U.S. constitution

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  • No one in office pays attention to it. Only a few of their constituents actually care to know what it says. That the state of it.

  • I don't understand how Trump gets away with all his senial BS. How come everyone is not telling him to piss off or use the constitution to shut him the hell up?

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  • He's enabled by some very wealthy people. And in the US wealth is more than just money, it's often the most important factor in status, popularity, and social and political power.

    Even some the people screaming for empathy, understanding, and improved social programs often look down upon the poor and homeless, they just hide it behind a veneer of doing good. They want to rid the nation of poverty not because it's the right thing to do, but so that they aren't confronted with the reality of what causes poverty and the guilt they feel when they pass by someone who's panhandling.

    Our nation's version of original sin is productivity. If you're alive, you must feed into the economic system, you must support yourself and not be a burden to others. If you're successful and wealthy enough, it means all lesser sins (getting bailed out with tax money, wage theft and fraud, destroying the environment, prejudice, sexual predation, etc.) will be forgiven by at least half the nation. This effect is more profound for celebrity performers.

    So, if you're stable financially and not under a direct threat from the administration, you're probably upset, but your focus is going to be on finding a way to get rid of Trump and get out of this mess without winding up POOR.

    You want to know why so many federal workers are still doing their jobs despite being complicit in many of the awful things that are happening? Because they don't have a way to pay the rent if they walk off the job. The job market is awful. The economy is in the shitter. Everything is super expensive, and they don't want to let their families down. Want the military and federal agents to quit? Give them a guaranteed way to pay their mortgages. Find them another job.

    It's not just about luxuries and standards of living. It's about social acceptance and beloning. People will go to insane lengths to feel like an accepted member of a group. So these workers may be unhappy, even deeply upset about the direction the country is headed in, but it'll have to get worse before the sacrifice is worth it, because being in jail or being dead is only a little bit worse than being a poor person.

    Same holds true for much of the rest of the nation. It's hard to risk belonging, to risk being part of our society, when there's no guarantee you won't wind up homeless and a pariah because of it.

  • Rep. Don Bacon says House could impeach Trump if U.S. invades Greenland

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  • So that's where we draw the line?

    We wait until he's completely fucked overseas relations, destroyed NATO, and handed the world to China on a silver platter. Then we impeach him and say "Oops, our bad! Who knew he'd be that crazy guys? Boy, do we have egg on our face! We're all gonna laugh about this later, I promise..."

    Class act. Five of five stars. Best legislature ever.

  • Anyone else about ready to give up on tech?

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  • The trouble I'd have to go through to build a dumb fridge would bother me more than people talking shit about me building or owning one.

    People can talk shit all they want, don't mean I'm gonna listen.

  • Anyone else about ready to give up on tech?

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  • Not completely, but more and more I find peace of mind in analog and offline spaces. Physical books feel better than e-books, a real bike is more fun than a Peleton (cheaper too), and cooking my own food is better than GrubHub.

    I have an educational background in IT, but I've worked as a mechanic for most of my adult life. I'm a tool using primate. Tech is a tool. If a new tool improves on the old and makes life easier, I use it. If it doesn't, it's not worth having around. When your job is fixing things, "ain't broke, don't fix it" makes a lot of sense.

    I'm not going to bend over backwards for tech that I don't need just because a rich CEO tells me it's revolutionary. I can flip a light switch, lock my doors, make a grocery list without the help of an AI fridge, and write my own emails.

  • The Far Right Is Now Transvestigating Sydney Sweeney

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  • The Satanic Panic was around long before D&D and heavy metal music and it never really left. It just moved on to new targets. Someone, somewhere has always been doing something satanic as a plot, it's just easier to find people talking about it in the age of social media.

    Same with conspiracy theories. The alt-right never invented anything new, they just recycled things that wingnuts and cranks have been spouting for centuries and adapted them to modern settings. Look at the parallels between "Hillary tortures children and drinks their blood to stay young" and the old Blood Libel conspiracy for example.

    I go back and forth as to why I think this kind of thing is so enduring. Maybe people need to believe in some kind of evil because it allows them to feel good about being on the "right" side of something. It could make them feel smart to find "secrets" that people won't openly admit (because they aren't true). Or they feel some kind of cognitive dissonance if they don't have an enemy and invent one to quiet it. Or maybe it's just a convoluted effort to take control over something they aren't comfortable with in a "he who can destroy a thing, controls the thing" sort of way. Maybe all of them even.

    I dunno, like you said, people are goddamn stupid and fucking nuts sometimes. Shame they're so often dangerous because of it.

  • The Far Right Is Now Transvestigating Sydney Sweeney

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  • One thing that gives me hope is that these chucklefucks will happily eat each other alive over the smallest imagined things. If they don't have a "big evil thing" to organize against they're just one giant fucking bucket of crabs, man.

  • sending my worst wishes

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  • I imagine that along with the arrest quota, there might be recruiting quota as well. It would be completely in line with how the rest of this administration operates, and large bureaucracies in general, for the people in charge of hiring to only worry about hitting their numbers and covering their own asses.

    If there's not a rule that says "don't hire left-leaning reporters" and the guy was otherwise "qualified", the recruiter just wasted an afternoon of work and missed a coffee break because he backed out.

    If the reporter had taken the job, his political leanings would have been his first supervisors problem and not the recruiters.

  • Such a dreamy guy

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  • Jokelahoma?

  • Bill Clinton faces being held in contempt of Congress after he and Hillary refuse to testify in Epstein inquiry – US politics live

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  • These two have a chance to do something right, to show real leadership and responsibility, and to kick the fucking doors open and shine the light of day on the whole damn mess.

    How many working years do they have left? How viable are they as politicians? What purpose does trying to save their own image serve? Do they really think people give a shit about them anymore? Do they really think they're relevant as anything other than a symbol of why their party has failed the nation?

    Fucking spineless.

  • Department of Labor under fire for language similar to Nazi slogan

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  • Whistleblower drops 'largest ever' ICE leak to unmask agents: 'The last straw'

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  • It's not shame. It's insurance. It's to make it difficult/impossible to file a complaint or win a criminal case in the event that the administration crumbles and someone tries to hold them accountable.