Ok so can we start with a really rough day of policing election fraud, inciting insurrection, business fraud, not paying suppliers, sexual assault, stealing classified government documents, and shitting your pants in public. Then maybe the word will get out and we won’t have to go further.

… Ok maybe not the last one. That’s just unfair.

I know what the point was, but Biden is included as if he is part of some political dynasty. He was VP. A very normal situation, 19 out of 49 have run for president. It’s like being promoted through the ranks until you get to the top. Isn’t that kinda normal in most careers?

So why is it “insanely improbable” for Biden, someone who qualified for the job over decades, to be “chosen” as opposed to anyone else.

We aren’t talking here about how much cash it requires to become president which raises the bar above most people’s head.we are taking about political dynasties.

So I say again, including Biden as if it is some statistical anomaly or stranglehold on politics is disingenuous, especially if you exclude Harris.

Her situation of running for president after serving as vice president is EXACTLY the same as Biden unless you want to split hairs and say he served 2 terms and her only 1. So if you want to say Biden was given a silver spoon, so was she.

Biden is not a dynasty. But if you insist he is, so is Harris, and that makes the original premise flawed.

I don’t think it’s really fair to include “Biden” alongside “Bush” and “Clinton” and NOT include “Harris”, just to make a point. The point is the Bush and Clinton represent two people each, a dynasty as it were. Biden is just one person. You might as well add then Harris since she has served as VP just like Biden, or Trump but I get the feeling this is intended to somehow make the statement that Harris represents a new breed of politics, a break from the old. That may or may not be true, but it doesn’t hinge on this meaningless metric.

“since 1981 there has never been an election without a Bush, Clinton, Biden, Trump or Harris.”

The problem with conservatism though is that their voters will think this is a good thing. Taxes are bad full stop, so these companies are clever by lowering their tax bill. They don’t see that the salaries are obscene. Then they complain about public services and infrastructure being bad.

I love to see free speech absolutism being so unshakable.

Why stop at the supreme Court. Maybe all judges should have this “protection”.

Oh wait but then Donnie would be in jail.

Just be honest Don. You want to jail anyone who disagrees with you.

You think the only reason people could find destructive, violent behaviour to be unusual or difficult to understand is because they have no passion in their own lives?

I’m just a little sad that there are people in the world who have grown up in such violent, loveless homes that they can’t conceive of finding violent behaviour over a sports game disgusting.

I wonder how many of wives and partners who get the shit kicked out of them when their passionate “alpha” male’s favourite team loses would agree with you. Oh it’s OK, he had just lived such a full, passionate life that he sometimes loses his self control for a moment.

My question to the politicians…

Has praying been working so far?

School shootings in the USA occur so frequently now that there is very clear evidence that prayer does not prevent them. Therefore , at what point should the strategy be changed to try something else? The most powerful people in the USA claim they have no power to stop this, yet can very significantly curtail abortion access I under the guise of protecting lives.

The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

There have been 416 school shootings since Columbine. Every time prayer is offered by politicians. Every time another school shooting was just around the corner.

You know it doesn’t seem like all that long ago that people were being sued or threatened for playing music in shops or in the back office of a hotel and stuff like that. It might have been urban legend at the time when the music industry was over reacting to Napster, KaZaA, Limewire, Bearshare, etc, etc. but it is true that those venues officially need a license for any music they play in public. So how come a nationwide advertising campaign can make use of music, without the permission of the artist, and not be sued into oblivion by the RIAA? Or does the artist not own the copyright to their own work? Or does the RIAA sympathise more with gentle, kind Billionaires than nasty greedy non billionaires??

Because you are a kid and you don’t know but are pretending to be an adult. Nice try!

So basically upset that the press do their job??

IMO the main reason for the press to exist is to hold people in power accountable for their actions. It doesn’t matter the lengths they go to to get the information or their motivation. There will always be press looking into politics on both sides of the spectrum and we as the public should be glad for it.

You should not excuse bad behaviour just because they are on your team. You should encourage the press to do their job as long as they don’t go too far into harassment, distortion of the truth or digging up irrelevant personal details about someone that affect noone outside that someone.

I really like the line “democracy does in darkness” because it is so true. Political figures who dislike the press generally have something to hide.

If counter with: “We’d be well served to remember the long and cherished tradition of settling criminal matters in the courts.”

Basically they want the right to commit crimes without consequences beyond the possibility of simply not being re-elected… But only for Republican politicians. Democrats should be treated differently.

Even then you can still have someone read the source and write a spec for a second programmer to write a library. The programmer never saw the source code but it was still useful. Still legal to do this. If someone dumped original source into the projector could be similarly checked for duplication without breaking the law.

That would be putting words in my mouth.

Firstly, I think that having been a justice, which is a very distinguished post , they would never have to worry about future employment, it would probably find them. I also think that a job for life means you don’t worry about scrutiny. You can do what you want almost without consequence because you don’t need to worry about what comes next. If no one can fire you, and you don’t need to worry about people being happy with your performance, you can be free so act however you want. In your own interest. In the interest of some benefactor, or should you choose to, in the interest of the people.

Second, I did not say youthfulness it’s important. There is a vast gulf between youthful and aged. I don’t want a 20 year old justice and more than a 70 year old one.

Lastly, expanding it would be great. No arguments here.

Yes I agree with that, but age is a strong indicator.

While experience is clearly an important job qualification for a judge, at some point their experience is from a different era. At the beginning of her training the world was a very different place, but she now applies her experience from that era to cases today. I don’t mean to say her experience is entirely irrelevant, just that the old have to give way to the young if progress is to be made. These guys should have age limits if not term limits. At the very least there should be a known point in time that they need to be replaced so that political games cannot be played with their appointments.

He’s speaking from personal experience. He knows how many crimes he committed last year and is extrapolating to the wider population.

Reading the headline I was about to post how ridiculous it is that AI is taking over everything. Then I read that it is being used to give someone the chance to say their own words in their own voice.

This was not motivated out of using AI to replace an actress. It was motivated out of respecting the wishes and dignity of a dying person. It’s there a better use of AI than this?

Agree with you there. PR is the only way you really have one, and even then, as long as there is so much money in politics, you are still not getting candidates who deserve to be there, just the ones that can afford to.

Hardly. Voter suppression is creating an atmosphere of fear around polling stations. Creating voter registration laws. Setting up fake ballot boxes. Etc. In only asking you to really think about what happens when you vote for each of them. Compare those futures. Then decide. I’m not stopping you voting however you want. There’s no real pressure from a random person in another country on the Internet. I.e. Me.
If Trump takes away your vote because your face doesn’t fit and starts getting 80% of the vote, saying “it’s not my fault, I didn’t vote for him” will do you no good. If he does do those things, and it’s not like he hasn’t been signalling it for years, you may never have a real vote again. But if you want to dismiss me as trying to suppress your vote or as a fascist, don’t say I didn’t warn you, and all I asked you to do was think.