On an added note, it’s really, really sad that candidate and former President Trump’s 34 felony convictions are holding less sway with conservative voters than the president’s son’s gun trial.

When it’s their guy, the whole system is corrupt. But when it’s the other guys son, it’s working just fine (and, apparently, an indictment on President Biden himself.)

Furthermore, many of the conservatives cheering for Hunter Biden’s conviction are the same people who think there should be no rules surrounding guns.

Just more evidence (on top of a mountain of evidence) that republicans see this all as a team sport and there is no underlying logic other than “libs bad.”

Hi All - it’s been a while, but kbin (seems) to be up and running again!

This is a gift article from the Economist. The content is below:

Donald trump’s date with Manhattan Criminal Court is not over yet. Next comes his punishment for falsifying business records in the first degree. In days or weeks Mr Trump will sit for an interview with a probation officer, a ritual that informs every sentence. Routine questions will be put to him. How are his health and home life? Describe friends and associates—are any, by chance, gang members? Then the kicker: does the defendant take responsibility for his crimes?

The short, polite answer is absolutely not. To no one’s surprise Mr Trump assailed the verdict that came down on May 30th, as did practically every Republican with ambition. In lockstep they attacked the proceedings as a rigged show-trial and as election interference by a Democratic district attorney, Alvin Bragg, whom House Republicans now want to haul before Congress. “Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family,” said Tucker Carlson, a right-wing commentator. Donations to the Trump campaign surged. WinRed, a Republican fundraising site, briefly crashed.

Joe Biden got a slight bump in several post-conviction polls, though this may be fleeting and Mr Trump still leads. Really, it is too early to discern the impact, and measuring small shifts accurately is hard. More noteworthy is the Republicans’ capacity to rationalise behaviour that until recently they had considered beyond the pale. The share who told YouGov, a pollster, that a convicted felon should be allowed to serve as president rose from 17% to 58% between April and June (see chart).

Link to Graph

Indeed, there are reasons to be sceptical that a trial about a pay-off to a porn star will change many minds. The charges were minor and the story at its centre was old news. Mr Trump has weathered an impeachment, controversy over the storming of the Capitol, then another impeachment. Other events in the five months before the election will overtake this: there will be debates, conventions, a vice-presidential pick by Mr Trump. Not to mention the fact that the Biden family faces its own legal travails. Hunter Biden, the president’s son, is on trial in Delaware for allegedly lying about his drug use while buying a handgun, and could go to prison if convicted.

Still, in a close election that will be decided in a few states, even slight shifts matter. The verdict will strengthen Mr Biden’s case that the other guy is unfit to lead. And Mr Trump’s remaining legal jeopardy is considerable and could get worse.

One unknown is his sentence in Manhattan. On July 11th—four days before the Republican National Convention—Juan Merchan, the judge who oversaw the trial, will decide between prison, probation or an unconditional discharge, meaning no penalty at all. Each of the 34 counts of falsifying records carries a maximum prison term of four years. Judges weigh up factors like a defendant’s remorse and respect for the rule of law. Here Mr Trump scores abysmally: he called the judge a “devil” after the conviction. During the trial he repeatedly violated a gag order that barred him from attacking witnesses.

Any ordinary defendant so contemptuous of the court would have it coming. Working in Mr Trump’s favour, however, is the fact that he is a first-time, non-violent felon who happens to be running for president. Prison time looks highly doubtful. More likely is probation, involving regular check-ins with an officer, or a discharge. There could be a community-service requirement; collecting rubbish is a common one. In the unlikely scenario that Mr Trump gets a jail sentence, it would not start until after his appeals had been exhausted, in several years’ time.

Hunted and Hunter

Lest anyone forget, Mr Trump faces 54 more felony counts in three other cases. All are weightier than the Manhattan prosecution; he denies wrongdoing in each. Jack Smith, a special counsel in the Department of Justice, brought two. His case in Florida, over the alleged mishandling of classified documents, is barely moving because of the plodding pace of proceedings under a Trump-appointed judge. A state case about alleged election interference in Georgia has been paused while the district attorney who launched it is investigated for having an affair with a former member of her team. That leaves Mr Smith’s second indictment, also about the 2020 election, as the only one with a very faint possibility of going to trial before voters give their own verdict in November.

[…]

I second this.

Personally, I was only just able to log in. Was there an update, or did the server just go down? I’m also still having trouble commenting.

Oh, this is only the beginning of this shit show.

Trump and the rest of the republicans have already been spinning this around to their supporters as a demonstration of how “corrupt liberals have degraded our country and are weaponizing the court system” and “eLeCtIoN iNtErFeRAnCe.”

And the irony will be totally lost on them.

Would you vote for a man convicted of 34 felonies?

Asking for a friend.

Yeah, it’s been a while since Ernest has posted anything, and I don’t think he has uploaded any new code in a while. I wonder if there was a roadblock somewhere?

Ernest also said he was having health issues so I hope he’s doing okay.

Setting aside the obvious budgetary problems, is the situation really such that Britain needs mandatory military service?

From an outside perspective, it seems extreme.

There is no way this was an accident like they’re claiming. It’s deliberate pandering to the white-nationalist, neo-nazi crowd.

The whole “oops we didn’t notice that” is just a “wink-wink, nudge-nudge.” Nobody “accidentally” includes the third reich in a political ad. No-one. Zilch.

They do have a strange, codependent relationship.

Both Khamanei and US Evangelicals campaign on how terrible the other is and then act in a way that validates the other’s worst tendencies, making a cordial relationship between the two countries nearly impossible.

Among the dead was Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, 60. The helicopter also carried the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, a senior cleric from Tabriz, three crew members and a Revolutionary Guard official, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. IRNA said the crash killed eight people in all, including three crew members, aboard the Bell helicopter, which Iran purchased in the early 2000s.

The crash took place in a mountainous area under heavy fog.

I would guess this doesn’t actually lead to regime change in Iran, because the countries Supreme Leader, Ayatollah (85) was not aboard the craft.

He could potentially win Michigan based on this, so you’re probably right in that they did some polls and found this to be a domestically “good” move.

The auto industry is huge in Detroit. If Biden didn’t do this, I could imagine a situation where these budget-friendly Chinese vehicles actually scare the Big Three Auto Companies and the UAW into backing Trump, which would be a disaster.

I believe a defense for the tariffs is that the Chinese government is heavily subsidizing them, but I do not know how true that is.

Still, I detest protectionism lol.

Edit: grammar

They are such a disappointment. Protectionism just makes industry lazy (in my opinion.)

The US auto industry had plenty of time to build a competitive product. It’s their fault they didn’t.

Unfortunately though, they are major employers, with major unions, in a major swing state that Biden needs, giving them outsized influence.

Not a huge fan of Johnson, obviously, but it was very satisfying to Marjorie get curb-stomped so quickly.

The final vote was 359-43-7. Just 10 republicans sided with MTG.

The House to MTG

Lol. It’s actually gotten to the point where I almost wouldn’t be surprised if there were some sort of demonic influence giving him some evil villain plot armor.

Obligatory NAL, but it reads as “pretrial proceedings,” which are hearings held prior to trial to determine things like laws pertaining to the crime, the facts, and other issues.

It sounds (to me) like that’s exactly what they have been doing since Cannon was originally appointed as the judge in this case.

What she did was cancel the trial start date, May 20th, and then set a date to resume “pretrial proceedings.”

Delay, delay, delay…

It’s insane how Trump manages to get away with everything. Even before he became president, he somehow got away with destroying and bankrupting everything he touched while also managing to fail upwards.

Utterly disgusting and disgraceful. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has given Trump everything he wanted in this and her bias is clear.

This is both comical and poetic.

I love this for Boris.

Yes!

I also forgot the most important part, which is that this magazine is all about worms. Worms are important.

Personally, I would argue that it’s more just bad business practice; non-competes are inherently protectionist and do not really fit well into the idea of a free-market (in my opinion, at least.)

Also, this magazine is “Neoliberal,” but not in the sense the term is used in leftwing circles. I also doubt many would actually identify themselves as a Neoliberal outside of this magazine.

On this magazine (an offshoot the subreddit, r/neoliberal, which itself is an offshoot of r/badeconomics), it is really about Free trade, competitive markets, pro-immigration, YIMBYism, pro-Carbon taxes, pro-international cooperation, LGBTQ+ rights, Democracy, human rights, civil liberties, due process, etc.

For more context on why it took on the term “Neoliberal” it was originally taken in jest during the US 2016 election where it became very commonplace (on reddit and twitter, at least) for anyone who wasn’t 100% pro-Bernie to be labeled and dismissed as a “Neoliberal shill.” The r/neoliberal subreddit took off, and basically, we have center-left social policies and support free markets.

However, unlike classical liberals and so-called “libertarians” we believe there are instances where the government can correct market failures. (This FTC ruling is one such instance, and controlling interest rates is another.)

While Neoliberalism as a term is often associated with the Thatcher and Reagan eras, many on this magazine decidedly do not agree with much of their thinking and regard some of the major policies as having failed, or at the very least as being ineffective.

What differentiates us from many on the left is we do not believe corporations, businesses, or the pursuit of profits are inherently evil or that government intervention is always the best solution to a problem (or that it would even make many situations better.)

We are also against protectionist policies such as trade tariffs (Jones Act, for example, increases the cost of shipping in and out of the US, passing the cost onto the average American,) unnecessary (or excessive) US occupational licenses (they act as barriers to entry,) and single-family zoning (regarded as one of the a major causes of the housing crisis and a car-centric urban fabric, at least in the US and Canada.)