Eschaton

Thursday, May 16, 2024

It's been a long time since I thought there was any kind of good faith reasoning coming from the conservatives on the Supreme Court, but they did tend to maintain at least a little consistency. Enough to fool Nina, anyway.

So you could, if you were so inclined, use the reasoning from one decision to predict how they would rule on a similar case.

I think it's all Calvinball now, so I barely pay attention to the reasoning, but occasionally they make the right call for whatever reason.

Lunch

Shop while you eat! (Ad, I get a commission).

The Future Of The Democratic Party

This is the future that centrist dipshits want.

An NYPD officer who was guarding Mayor Eric Adams’ home in Brooklyn in 2022 unjustifiably shot a man who was entering his own apartment building, according to a federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday.

...

A half-hour later, Shahid Woodstock was walking around the corner from where the shooting took place when he said he saw two men, one brandishing a gun, get out of an unmarked van and run toward him, the lawsuit says. One of the officers, David Barker, shot Woodstock, who was then 22, from behind, according to the suit.

Yes this is a bit unfair, but there was a period of a few months when every major Dem leader and dipshit pundit thought sending Adams around the country on behalf of the Dems was Smart Politics.

Inconvenient Truths

The reason mainstream publications obscure the reality abortion issue, and not just with Trump, is because the people who run those outlets are generally anti-abortion, or at least they never met a "compromise" they didn't support.

Who remembers when an Ohio journalist reported on a 10-year-old rape victim who had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion? The Washington Post's fact chucker, Glenn Kessler, swung into action and published a long piece which was, essentially, 'NUH UH.' He was wrong, of course. And then the Post did a follow up barely mentioning Kessler's role!!!

Kessler doesn't run the paper, of course, but he's one of those guys given license to do "opinion" presented as "fact" (hilariously, for him it's "fact checking") and all those guys (usually guys) who are free to do that are basically expressing the institutional viewpoint, whether they know it or not. They tend to confuse fact and opinion (their opinions are fact) so they might not know!

It Was The Wife Wot Did It

Great stuff.

Originally scheduled to be tried with her husband, Nadine Menendez's trial is now expected to take place later this summer because of a "serious medical condition" that requires surgery and weeks of recovery.

The senator's lawyers have indicated in court filings that he could defend himself in part by claiming his wife "withheld information" from him about her dealings with three New Jersey businessmen and "led him to believe that nothing unlawful was taking place."

Morning

Another glorious day ahead

Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Wednesday Night

Rock on.

Politics

I am, of course, too sophisticated to fall for these tricks as I am an Advanced Politics Knower who floats above the landscape in my Hovercraft Of Objective Ominiscience, but for the rest of the stupid voters, a reminder that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (especially the latter) were extremely good at communicating the basic message of "I feel and understand your concerns" even when they did not actually agree with those concerns.

"Fuck you, bad orange man is bad and will put you into camps, lol," is not the only option.

The Biden administration on Tuesday began the early stages of a process to move ahead with a new $1 billion arms deal for Israel, according to two congressional sources.

Lunch

eat

Masterful Gambit, Sir

Amazing stuff.

The day before Elon Musk fired virtually all of Tesla’s electric-vehicle charging division last month, they had high hopes as charging chief Rebecca Tinucci went to meet with Musk about the network’s future, four former charging-network staffers told Reuters.

After Tinucci had cut between 15% and 20% of staffers two weeks earlier, part of much wider layoffs, they believed Musk would affirm plans for a massive charging-network expansion.

The meeting could not have gone worse. Musk, the employees said, was not pleased with Tinucci’s presentation and wanted more layoffs. When she balked, saying deeper cuts would undermine charging-business fundamentals, he responded by firing her and her entire 500-member team.

What choice did he have when faced with such an uppity bitch?

Criminal Prosecution

So that means people could go to jail, right?

May 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday that Boeing Co (BA.N), opens new tab had breached its obligations in a 2021 agreement that shielded the planemaker from criminal prosecution over fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

The Justice Department said in a court filing in Texas that the U.S. planemaker had failed to "design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations."

So that means people could go to jail, right?

The determination exposes Boeing to a potential criminal prosecution over the 2018 and 2019 crashes that could carry steep financial penalties and tougher oversight, deepening a corporate crisis and reputational damage stemming from the January blowout.