Think of all the energy used in collecting the plastic (gas, oil, and emissions from dump trucks that pick it up, for example), sorting it, disposing of what isnt recyclable, and actually recycling the stuff.
Im no expert but I believe that overall recycling as we do it is actually a net negative on the environment. We’re probably doing more harm than good.
Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. And god knows there’s plenty of stupid in this country to go around.
We’ve seen countless times when someone with even the slightest amount of name recogntion launches a product that investors think consumers want. There’s all sorts of hype to get in on the ground floor because this time, this idea is going to make all the money, and you don’t want to miss out on that, do you? Then as usual, the product flops, the celebrity quickly distances themselves from the failed product, and a whole bunch of people lose a whole bunch of money.
That’s all this was.
Saying that it’s another dark money political op would imply that (a) mega-rich people are just gleefully throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into the void, (b) they don’t already have about eleventy billion other dark money ops going on that are more well established, and © they’re all-in on some dollar-store conspiracy to turn a dime-store Twitter rip-off into the next Fox News in the worst way possible.
Nah. This is just another example of a bunch of people throwing their money into the Trump Void, then wondering where their money went.
If there’s one “good” thing to come out of Trump’s political career is that he was able to expose a lot of the weaknesses that our government and our Constitution have when it comes to enforcement of the Constitution, while simultaneously being too stupid to be able to do too much damage in the process. Things could be far, far worse if Trump had the poltical acumen of someone like Mitch McConnell.
What he’s shown is that we need to answer a lot of the questions that have been raised during his term. The Constitution says that someone who aides in insurrection or gives aid and comfort to those that do are disqualified from being President. Ok, but who defines “insurrection”? What is “aid and comfort”? Who’s responsible for declaring who is and isn’t disqualified? How is it enforced? And how can the answers to these questions not be turned around and used against us by the opposing party?
That’s the most on-topic example, but there are tons of examples just in the Constitution alone. How are these things defined? Who’s responsible for enforcement? What are the penalties for breaking these laws?
The answer to all of these questions is often little more than a shrug. And we do need to get these answers before Trump 2.0 comes along and exploits these unanswered questions to actually accomplish what Trump and his stooges were trying to accomplish on January 6th.
The bad part is that even when Democrats controlled both houses, there was virtually zero appetite to even discuss how to start answering these questions. And in the absence of congressional action, we’ll have to rely on the Supreme Court to be able to make an objective, unbiased ruling for future leaders to follow. And there’s no reason to believe that the Supreme Court won’t make an honest, objective ruling, right? We’ve got this…we’ve got this…
I hope.
Anything other than this leading to his being thrown out of Congress and right into a prison cell is unacceptable.
“Daily” statements by former President Donald Trump “threaten to prejudice the jury pool” in the federal case where he is charged with crimes related to trying to reverse his loss in the 2020 election, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Are you going to actually do something about it? No? Then shut the fuck up, because he’s not going to stop. As long as your answer to “What are you going to do about it?” continues to be “Nothing” in practice, he is going to continue to do this. So either do something about it or expect it to get worse. He’s not going to shut up on his own, no matter how much legal advice he’s given.
Scary, but true: There are conservative women who have gone on record saying they’d be OK with exactly this. And if you attempt to make this argument in front of a conservative, the only thing they’re going to hear is this: “The bible says that women must be silent. Therefore we also need to repeal women’s right to vote.”
Remember, this all started when some (probably nonexistent) trans kids in North Carolina wanted to use a different bathroom. Similar arguments were made and rather than the GOP come to their senses, they just kept doubling down and used it as a launch point for their culture wars. They basically answered every question like that with “We’ll ban that too!”
This was stupid. This is playing Trump’s games by Trump’s rules. When you do that, anyone not named Trump loses money. And lots of it.
These people simply didn’t want to deal with the fallout (political, financial, and social) that would come with the site being abruptly shut down. Pushing it off for another year is just them not wanting to admit they lost all their money. It means they’re hoping that they can push this off until after the election (which will require another vote) in order to not have to deal with the political and social fallout. This is how Trump wins. He gets everybody in so deep that they feel they can’t get out and the only option available is to do it Trump’s way and hope for the best. And we all know how that works out.
These people haven’t learned, to paraphrase Joshua from Wargames: “A strange game. The only winning move is not to deal with Trump.”
What benefit could waiting another year possibly get them? Dollar-Store-Twitter’s only “asset” is Trump himself. If he leaves or simply stops using the site, the site will dry up within days at most. There’s absolutely no source of revenue coming in, and I very seriously doubt that advertisers are going to line up to advertise on Trump’s platform for a site that probably generates about 1% of the traffic in a month that Twitter does in an hour. There is zero value to the site itself. The stock has already lost over 90% of its value, and waiting another year only means that next year’s stockholders will long for the days when their shares were worth $12.
This wasn’t a vote to extend Trump’s deal. This was a vote to not deal with any of this shit at all for another year.
If my name were “Guy A Rub”, I would spend my 18th birthday first slapping my parents for giving me such a stupid name and then heading to the courthouse to have it immediately changed to almost anything else.
Seriously. Guy A Rub? Sounds like a name given to a joke character in a badly written SNL skit.
The same way that all of these anti-gay, anti-minority bills work:
They absolutely violate the Constitution. The Republicans just don’t care.
Isn’t that how all the young kids spell “failure” these days?
Hold on…
You mean to tell me that a Trump deal was shady from the start, a whole bunch of people involved in it are under investigation and facing criminal charges, and in the end a whole bunch of people are going to lose their shirts and another business will go bankrupt?
Surely you jest! This has never happened with any of Trump’s transactions before!!!
As a fellow resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, let me tell you that your statement is wrong. Our love of weed, driving ludicrously above the speed limit, and refusal to use our blinkers all supersede our love of alcohol.
Trump is entitled to Secret Service protection for life. This is not only to prevent a former President, but also what’s in his head.
It’s already been pretty much established that if Trump goes to jail, the Secret Service protects him there as well. How that would work is a logistical nightmare that hasn’t yet been sorted out, and is one of the reasons that judges haven’t jailed him already – its a can of worms that’s going to have to be opened at some point, but nobody wants to be the one to have to open the can.
There’s no way they’re going to allow Trump (or anyone else for that matter) to bring in a cell phone.
And even if they do, do you honestly think that (a) Trump would know on his own how to record and stream video, or (b) he wouldn’t be immediately tackled to the ground and the cell phone removed from his possession? I doubt he’d just be allowed to sit there and record the faces of the jury while the judge just sits there and says “Aw, shucks. I guess Trump got the better of us!”
I will guarantee you, especially with everything surrounding this case and this defendant, that cell phones of any kind aren’t going to even be allowed in the courtroom.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if the jury was seated in a separate room, viewing the hearing from behind a one-way mirror, just to prevent anybody from randomly being able to visually identify and publish the names of any of the jurors.
And one more thing…I just don’t understand the sudden hatred of libraries.
Even if you are the most racist, hateful person on the planet who believes that any book even mentioning a black person should be banned, there are ways to handle that if you really, really feel the urge to do something.
There you go. You’ve done your part for your white supremacy movement. You removed all the bad evil books from the library. You will go down in history for your patriotic actions on this day! Never again shall our schoolchildren be subject to the evil horrors of Hank Aaron’s biography or reading about a rabbit with two dads, because of you! Rest. Go home, soldier, you deserve it. Problem solved. And look, nobody died!
*(we’ll just skip over the part where the library just spends another $12.95 to replace the book. They don’t need to know that.)
Schoolchildren.
These people are targetting schoolchildren for the love of fuck. These people are targetting pediatric cancer patients. I’m not even just talking about the (almost entirely nonexistent in most places) trans children that the GOP have decided are a good target for the internet hate machine, but just everyday schoolchildren. At what point do these fucking people sit there and think that not only is blowing up a random school of SCHOOLCHILDREN a good idea, but it will somehow bring sympathy and support for their cause?
THERE ARE EXACTLY ZERO SCENARIOS THAT COULD POSSIBLY EXIST WHERE THREATENING CHILDREN’S HOSPITALS AND ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IS JUSTIFIED.
When is our government going to start hunting down these people like the dogs they are, charge them with all sorts of domestic terrorism charges, and throw them in jail for life? Because when you start to consider blowing up elementary schools as a viable idea, you are no longer fit to live in or even be welcomed in civilized society.
I didn’t say it would make sense. I’m just saying that’s what they’re probably going to go with.
Lots of people run afoul of 14A S3,
Yeah, it’s a habit I’m trying to break. People keep telling me that I have to watch out for 14A S3, but I just can’t help occasionally committing a little light treason. 14AS3 is a constant topic around our dinner table, discussed only less than the merits of 26 U.S. Code § 36B of the US tax code.
Worked IT. Can confirm.