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Cake day: November 6th, 2023

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  • It’s a shit spot to be in, as basically all of them work cases in federal court. If your lawyers are physically prevented entry to federal property because some orange buffoon bans the entire firm by the stroke of a pen, that law firm is completely impotent and unable to argue in federal cases, even those that don’t end up in a courtroom. Judges chambers, pre-trial motions, informal meetings, etc all are impossible or vastly more difficult.

    It was a very targeted and deliberate move to put these firms in a lose:lose scenario - give an absurd amount of pro-bono work to your abuser, or wither and die as your clients are forced to move to another firm:

    The orders threatened to bar attorneys from where they work, courthouses and federal agencies and cancel the contracts of law firm clients. For example, an aerospace company could lose its federal contracts if it stayed with the firm. A senior partner at one firm told us the president’s orders were, quote, “diabolical.” “Intended to bankrupt [us].”


  • I have worked professionally with Chinese vendors and suppliers for years, both pre and post COVID. China offers the whole range of manufacturing, not just cheap labor but high tech and precision devices too. You want cheap injection molded toys for Happy Meals? Done. Precision machine tools for CNC? Can do. Medical imaging devices? No problem. Mass assembly of automotive cable looms? Easy. If a business wants quality product from China they can do it.

    And much like the classic European model where a textile or steel industry would collect in a valley for logistic/resource reasons and organically form an industrial ‘core’ the same is true in China, but with a centralized planned economy. Vocational schools feed local industry with skilled workers like engineers or tool and die makers, so that region experiences further and further specialization and conglomeration.

    There’s no coherent or comparable manufacturing:educational alliance in the US, closest we have is ‘feeder schools’ that partner with individual industrial/scientific giants on an ad-hoc basis.



  • In any other presidential term, that can be a fair assessment only a few months in. The economy can be compared to a Panamax oil tanker - it moves with huge momentum and can’t be steered quickly.

    But this tariffs nonsense detonated a bomb below the waterline. You may not be able to steer the ship quickly, but deliberate sabotage can absolutely cripple it and spread damage everywhere. Quarterly 401(k) statements are being sent out, plus it’s tax season, so people are very in touch with how this is impacting them and their money



  • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.eetoTechnology@lemmy.world*Permanently Deleted*
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    1 month ago

    That’s American, Jewish voters surveyed last fall. 68% support land swaps, an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, Palestinian return from the diaspora, and financial/population restitution.

    A lot of regular people get swept up into the default of supporting the concept of Israel and protecting the lives of the 6-7 million Jews living there, but the topic has so many land mines and risks of misunderstanding that people don’t delve into the topic openly. But if you look for it, there’s a lot of silence from folks who are uneasy about the direction Israel is headed.




  • Absolutely. My best learning experiences in life - both collaborative like mentoring/educational setting, or competitive like sports - have been when I was massively outclassed. Because if you put aside your lizard-brain feelings of being less than or inferior and listen/observe, you can see how it’s working for them and understand what it is you are/aren’t doing or do/don’t know.

    Observe. Ask. Understand. Decide… and Review.

    But humility is understated. It doesn’t sell on TV, it doesn’t captivate a crowd or rally the masses. “I don’t have the answer, but let’s find out” is honest but doesn’t have the same pull as “the problem is clear, and I know the solution”


  • And all he had to do was shut up, and take credit for the federal apparatchik doing all the work for him with COVID. Blather at a press conference to his followers to stay home and ‘beat the China virus so America stays strong’ - and then play golf. Push on industry and suppliers to build ventilators, hospital capacity, and facilitate lockdowns and remote school/work.

    Imagine if instead of nearly a million direct deaths, we had a mortality similar to Europe - better even as we bought our way to the front of the vaccine line. An actual ‘America first’ in recovery from COVID and the economic slowdown, instead of fumbling the ball so hard in his fourth year and making Biden president.

    How anyone thought that he would be the right choice to manage any crisis, let alone economic woes is dumbfounding. The ‘smartest person’ in every room he enters, he’s incapable of anyone else to having the right answer.



    1. Patent pool

    The AR market is not just entertainment, Microsoft has been failing to build a viable AR helmet for soldiers for years now, after the latest-and-greatest fight jets got them.

    Professional use too - think of how much simpler and safer ‘realistic’ training could be for deep sea commercial divers or oil rig workers. Live schematic overlays for aircraft technicians at work/in training.

    Those are a few of the applications where an absurdly high unit cost/license fee would be gladly swallowed instead by governments or business.


  • People SCREAMED at the party. Muslim Democrat voters made all the democracy moves, and got told to get lost:

    • Organized a massive protest movement,
    • Made their desires and convictions known publicly and directly to leadership who’d listen
    • Turned out and protested in person
    • Were snubbed any kind of representation or platform at the DNC, even for a curated speech by a sitting Congressional member
    • Ran a massive protest vote in the Democratic primaries, which if sustained (which it was in the general) meant that the Dems would loose Michigan at a minimum (which Kamala did) and its 15 electoral college votes went for Trump

    The party has to be listening for anyone’s voice to be heard. Until you hit your FEC donor limit and the throw down even more for a Super PAC, or pay for a seat at fundraiser dinner/chat a you’re definitely a nobody to them. We need a new party:

    Organizers said about 700 people attended the fundraiser. Ticket prices ranged from $3,300 to a half million dollars. Political experts said this visit is essentially a trip to the ATM.

    August 12 Zoom event with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, where tickets ranged from $1,000 to $25,000


  • Yeah. I understood the (good faith) arguments that the presidency is a high tempo, stressful, 24/7 job and that Biden was wiped out in interviews or public appearances - but that’s an excuse not an exoneration.

    If he couldn’t make it through the work each day without being cooked, every single day, then he should have stood aside for someone younger/sharper who could. I voted for Jimmy Carter 2.0 in 2020, not for Biden - the downslope was apparent even before then if you cared to look beyond the news headlines. He never should have ran again in 2024.


  • It’s hard to truly know what went on behind the scenes, but there was a large amount of common disdain for Biden staying in the race after “we beat Medicare” - anyone who hadn’t already been clued into his cognitive decline was suddenly confronted with that reality, and people knew he was a clear loser at that point.

    For Biden the floor only fell out beneath him after Nancy Pelosi and the donor class publicly announced they wanted Joe out NOW that the DNC/Biden camp realized the gig was up.



  • Trump was semi-ineffectual during his first term because he was an outsider candidate. It was Jeb’s turn to get the RNC nod, but Trump won and spent the first year plus of his four trying to wrestle power from the entrenched Republican establishment and define his own administration and agenda.

    Not anymore. We’re still weeks away from Jan 20 and the Republican talking heads are already murmuring about recess cabinet appointments. He’s got the party wrapped around his finger, and loyalists running the RNC, complicit Supreme Court, a House majority leader in his corner, and an affable Senate majority leader.

    I hope he gets distracted trying to unfuck the effects of his policies or bogged in culture war distractions, but honestly there’s a lot of damage he can do solo as the chief executive.