…That does not, in fact, make it any better.

That makes it even more terrorism.

Not a war crime; terrorism. Hezbollah is a political organization.

After all its not hard to make a corporation in the US

…A US corporation is subject to US laws.

ByteDance is subject to Chinese laws.

If TikTok wants to do everything that it’s currently doing, but under US law and under US scrutiny, they’re more than welcome to do so. But they’re currently evading any serious scrutiny. Hence the reason to shut them down if they refuse gov’t oversight.

National security interests are the interests of the people though.

The fundamental issue is that, assuming I’m not leaking national security information, I can say nearly anything I want on Facebook, Twitter, etc. (as long as I’m not in violation of their terms of service). The US largely does not censor people using the power of the gov’t. If I am an authoritarian communist, I’m more than welcome to spread these views on any American social network that I choose without gov’t interference. I can spread anti-vax and Q nonsense if I wish, and the worst-case scenario is that my neighbors will stop talking to me. I can attack the very foundation of the country if I want, as long as I’m not spreading military secrets.

This is not the case in China. Spreading pro-capitalism and pro-democracy messages can quickly get you arrested. Trying to share accurate information about what really happened in Tianamen Square in 1989 can result in you disappearing. Words and phrases are actively censored by the gov’t on social media. The Chinese gov’t takes a direct role in shaping social media by what it promotes, and what it forbids. Anything that’s perceived as an attack on the political system of the country, the party, or any of the leaders (remember the internationally famous tennis player that abruptly disappeared when she accused a local party leader of sexual assault?) will put you at risk.

This isn’t a case of, “oh, both sides are the same”.

The Constitution doesn’t only protect American citizens, it protects everyone

Uh, no. It doesn’t protect everyone, not by a long shot. The US constitution doesn’t guarantee Chinese citizens, living in China, the right to freedom of the press.

…And this isn’t about which speech they’re allowing. This is about who controls the platform, and how they respond to gov’t inquiries. If TikTok is divested from ByteDance, so that they’re no longer based in China and subject to China’s laws and interference, then there’s no problem. There are two fundamental issues; first, TikTok appears to be a tool of the Chinese gov’t (this is the best guess, considering that large parts of the intelligence about it are highly classified), and may be currently being used to amplify Chinese-state propaganda as well as increase political division, and second, what ByteDance is doing with the enormous amounts of data it’s collection, esp. from people that may be in sensitive or classified locations.

As I stated, if TikTok is sold off so that they’re no longer connected to China, then they’re more than welcome to continue to operate. ByteDance is refusing to do that.

Eh, trying everything they can to make a policy stick isn’t that far different in my mind to things like John Yoo’s pro-torture memos; they’re trying to warp the law in order to do what they want to do, rather than trying to work well within the boundaries of the law. I’ve seen plenty of Dems that say Republicans opened the door, and so it would be foolish of Dems to not walk through, but I’d argue that Dems should be trying to close the door. I’m generally opposed to a strong executive, since I’m broadly anti-authoritarian.

And yes, I recognize that there’s no way in hell Biden gets the student loan debt relief passed by the current congress, and yes, that’s shitty.

Calculators also say that dividing by 0 is an error, but logic says that the answer is infinite. (If i recall, it’s more correctly ‘undefined’, but I’m years out of math classes now.)

That is, as you divide a number by a smaller and smaller number, the product increases. 1/.1=10, 1/.01=100, 1/.001=1000, etc. As the denominator approaches 0, the product approaches infinity. But you can’t quantify infinity per se, which results in an undefined error.

If someone that’s a mathematician wants to explain this correctly, I’m all ears.

But the tree never makes a sound.

That depends on how you define ‘sound’. If it’s only perception and interpretation that creates sound, then sure, a tree falling with nothing to hear or perceive it makes no sound. But if you label sound as the vibration created independent of the perception of the phenomena, then sound happens regardless of whether it’s perceived or not. Since we label some sounds as imperceptible, or outside of human hearing ranges, my interpretation would be that the phenomena is the sound, rather than the perception of it.

TBH, Dems have absolutely done the same thing before. A super-easy example is Biden’s policies to forgive student loans (which, BTW, I’m fully in favor of; it was just done in such a way that it wasn’t legal). There’s currently a case underway right now regarding the Lloyd Austin throwing out plea agreements with Guantanamo Bay detainees; there’s a pretty solid argument that he doesn’t have that legal right.

My point is that Bush et al. pushed the limits of what was legal, and in general stopped doing those things when courts told them that they weren’t allowed to. OTOH, Trump has absolutely, 100%, flagrantly violated the law and court orders many, many times.

Most people don’t split their ticket when they vote; if someone votes Democratic for president, it’s likely that they end up voting Democratic in most other races on the ballot as well. That’s especially true if they’re actively voting against Trump, and the other candidates are endorsed by Trump. So, if I was a Republican trying to take control of the Senate and retain control of the House, that would be a risky strategy.

As far as the other possibilities go, IDK. It doesn’t seem likely because…

…Many of the Republicans currently endorsing Harris are been vocally anti-Trump for a long time now. It’s not new that they’re anti-Trump, but it is new that they’re actively endorsing a Democrat. I don’t think that they’re trying to actively work to get Trump elected by some subversive means, and it seems like the numbers of people that would work on–versus the number of Reagan-era Republicans that would take it at face value–seems very marginal.

Staffers are basically just office personel.

Staffers are usually True Believers. They want to work for an administration because they believe in the person, and believe in the policy. That, BTW, was why Trump had such ferocious turnover; people become disillusioned at a blistering rate.

That’s such a fucking stupid take from someone that doesn’t even have a grade-school understanding of politics.

The Republicans endorsing Harris don’t like her, and they don’t agree with any of her policies. They probably do agree with much of the bullshit that comes out of Trump. On the other hand, the Republicans endorsing Harris genuinely believe in America, and in the idea of democracy. They clearly see that Trump is an enormous threat to democracy in the US, and that he’s doing everything in his power to break the system that they believe in, even if his specific policies are things they agree with.

Whether I like Bush Jr., or Cheney (either one, really), or George Will, or any other Republican endorsing her, or not, they are still people that believe in the rule of law. Trump does not believe in the rule of law. These Republicans largely believe in letting voters decide, even if they’ll jerrymander the shit out of districts. Trump does not. These Republicans don’t believe that this country can survive a second Trump presidency, and they would rather lose the Presidency, the House, the Senate, and possibly a few seats on SCOTUS, than watch our democracy die.

I’m not entirely sure that the president can simply appoint a new VP once they’re in office, since VP is an elected position.

It’s a fascinating question, and I hope that there’s never any reason to see it answered.

I’m not so sure that he can be. He was nominated by Trump, and the party as a whole voted on both Trump and Vance, together. Would they need a new convention in order to select a new VP? I don’t know. I don’t think that anything like that has ever happened before, so it would be uncharted territory. Much like if the VP died in office.

You get “compensated for you time” not paid

That’s what they say, but that’s not what actually happens. If the phlebotomist fucks up the draw, and your flow rate is so poor that they can’t get what they need, you don’t get paid. (Ask me how i know this.)

And yeah, IIRC most of the plasma goes to create clotting agents for people with hemophilia.

Blatantly false. “MSM [men who have sex with men] accounted for 67% (21,400) of the 31,800 estimated new HIV infections in 2022 and 87% of estimated infections among all males.”

When you consider that gay and bisexual men make up a small percentage of the overall population–under 5%–the fact that gay and bisexual men account for 87% of all HIV infections in men tells you just how alarming this is.

EDIT: For the people downvoting this - do you have statistics that you consider to be better, or more up-to-date? Do you want to refute them? Then post something and prove the CDC wrong. Downvoting because you don’t like things that are factually correct isn’t doing anything except making you look like a petulant child.

PS - wear a goddamn condom if you and your partner aren’t 100% monogamous. Yeah, no one likes them, I get it. But that’s a lot better than getting infected with HIV and needing to pay for expensive anti-retrovirals for the rest of your life.

Simply require ALL electric powered two wheel vehicles that aren’t motorcycles–whether nominally assistive or not–to comply with the same regulations as scooters. Easy, done.

In the past, I’ve had my local hospital call me asking for a blood donation, for example, because of an upcoming surgery of a hospitalised kid that shares my blood group. I got money for that too.

In the US, AFAIK you can’t get paid for whole blood. If you did, you would have to be paid significantly more than they pay for plasma, given that you can only do whole blood every two months.

To the question, it’s not a “scam” by any conventional definition. You are getting real money in return for the plasma.

The problem with the whole system is that if there was no payment for plasma, there wouldn’t be nearly enough people donating plasma for the need that there is. (You’re typically looking at 1+ hour per session, 2x/week.) That doesn’t include whatever travel time is involved. That’s a pretty steep time commitment every week for something that’s a very nebulous public good.

I think a better question is, is the amount that you’re being compensated fair and reasonable? Give the profit margins that are involved in products made from blood plasma, my inclination is that it is not a fair and reasonable amount. Plasma centers in my area vary in how much they pay, but it’s typically in the neighborhood of $50-$75 (USD); in other parts it’s lower, and in some areas it’s significantly higher. It’s clear that they can pay more, but choose not to because it increases their profit margin. That is something I have a problem with.

More like going to a cheap motel and not expecting bedbugs.

Next time they shoot another innocent person and murder them at the wrong address is the person who’s address they were supposed to be at going to be held responsible

If you want to take that to an illogical extreme, and say that any connection, regardless of how tenuous, should be charged, then sure. Except that’s not the way that the laws are written.

since you interacted with a criminal organization your hands have blood on them too?

This is a common argument in the general public and politically. If you buy cocaine, you’re directly supporting the cartel activities in Colombia. You can’t buy ethically-sourced cocaine. If you buy heroin, you were supporting insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan (or, were; now that the Taliban has political control of Afghanistan, they’ve sharply cut poppy cultivation, much to the detriment of the farmers).