#comment to the new york times

[contemplatingoutlander]

An Australian lawyer's view of Trump being the front runner for the GOP presidential nomination

As an Australian living in a constitutional democracy and a defence lawyer I’m finding the whole Trump saga extremely disturbing. Disturbing that an individual who has attacked democratic norms and values, sneered at the jurisdiction of the courts and justice system and attempted to destroy any or all of the tenets of democracy, freedom for minorities and common decency is the front runner for the Republican nomination for president and if successful could have all federal convictions and charges brought against him expunged or otherwise dismissed. Had Trump been subject to Australian law he wouldn’t be a contender for any political position, he’d have challenges being appointed a dog catcher because no political party in Australia would have either defended or sanctioned his behaviour and he would have most certainly been expelled from every political party, no matter how conservative or left leaning. The Republican parties blind support of Trump that could land him back in the White House is a real and present danger not just to America but to the free world and risks American alliances carefully developed and nurtured over decades since the Second World War. Careful consideration should be taken when appointing a person to such power over national security, nuclear arms and a judicial system and diplomatic network which he has already demonstrated a willingness to weaponise in his own interest.* --Richard Busuttil, Australia, commenting on a NY Times opinion column

Seen through the eyes of this Australian lawyer, the Republican Party's decision to keep backing the traitorous Trump seems not only incredibly corrupt, but foolhardy and frightening.

Trump's comeback would not be possible if a majority of prominent Republicans had denounced him--and preferably impeached him after his attempted coup.

Clearly, Trump's behavior would not have been tolerated by many people in Australia or by many people in other affluent constitutional democracies. (Even Brazil has moved faster to prosecute Bolsonaro for spreading false information about the Brazilian election system.)

The character of the American people who vote for Trump must also be in question by the people in many constitutional democracies around the world.

If the U.S. reelects Trump, America will no longer be considered a beacon for freedom and democracy, nor the leader (or even a leader) of "the free world."

We as a nation will be in freefall, moving rapidly towards autocracy and neofascism.

And the world outside the U.S. will know it, years before it finally dawns on many Americans that by voting for Trump, they helped to destroy our democratic republic.

______________ *This quote was divided into paragraphs to increase readability.

[emrystheedgedancer]

Brandon Sanderson has finally become so popular that it’s cool for edgelords to hate him

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

hey frank,thoughts on windows 94?

Windows 94 (as opposed to Windows 95, an operating system which is widely regarded to be overhyped, buggy, and an incoherent mishmash of new features that do not make sense together) was developed by an in-house team at Microsoft to show off their cutting-edge coding skills. It was unveiled with great fanfare to the public, but then Microsoft quickly pulled the plug on it due to a number of real and imagined concerns. For example, one of the senior project managers, a certain Mr. Steve Ballmer, claimed that "there is no clear and obvious use case for Windows 94, which is why we can't explain what it does to anyone. I think most of our customers will end up using Windows 94 with literally no idea what they are doing."

[blondiest]

is there a polite way to tell your coworker she needs to divorce her bitchass husband pronto. asking for a me

[strawberrymilkshakeearrings]

hahaha GET HIS ASS kirsten

[Source]

[gaysexforlosers]

im interning at a camp this year for the first time this year & for the most part like. i love it its so great but today this one girl whos in my group was like. idk. she was asking why i use a can which is like. i get it people do that but like. thats not ur fucking business??? i barely know u ur not entitled to my medical history. and then when i was standing up and reaching for my cane she was grabbing it to hand to me which is like. i know she was just trying to be helpful but that felt so fucking invasive. like i havent had someone do that before & i hadnt rlly realized it until now bc of this but like. i basically view it as an extension of myself and like . idk its like that is mine i rely on that you dont get to fucking touch that unless i say u can. that is not yours get your hands off it i just like. idk i felt like. violeted? in a way? is ig the word im thinking of? idk. like i know stuff like this happens all the time and like in the grand scale of things this was super minor but like i only started using a mobility aid earlier this year and like. it took me so long to adjust to feeling comfortable using it and being like. visibly disabled i guess? and idk its. an adjustment.

[fiora-miriel]

This morning on ao3 😄 what a fun idea! (Even though I have to admit to a brief confusion when seeing it first)

[gingerswagfreckles]

Is anyone else paying attention to the fact that the headline news today in the most mainstream centrist liberal newspaper is a massive scathing takedown of free market capitalism overall????

I think maybe.....people are actually starting to wake up.....

[dramatic-dolphin]

i get sooo mad when ppl say "ugh this is obviously not bot generated 🙄" in the notes of that bots of new york post like excuse me??? i am a bot post connoisseur. how dare you imply i can't tell when a bot post is fake just based on vibes alone.

[soon-palestine]

Hostages tortured to death. Parents executed in front of their children. Doctors beaten. Babies murdered. Sexual assault weaponised. No, not Hamas crimes. This is part of an ever-growing list of documented atrocities committed by Israel in the five months since 7 October – quite separate from the carpet bombing of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and a famine induced by Israel’s obstruction of aid. And yet while the western establishment media has been chock full of the most lurid allegations of savagery directed against Hamas, sometimes with little or no supporting evidence, Israeli atrocities are excused or quickly forgotten. Accusations against Hamas are endlessly reheated to paint a picture of a supremely dangerous and bestial militant group, in turn rationalising the slaughter and starvation of Gaza’s population to “eradicate” it as a terrorist organisation. But equally barbarous atrocities committed by Israel – not in the heat of battle, but in cold blood – are treated as unfortunate, isolated incidents that cannot be connected, that paint no picture, that reveal nothing of import about the military that carried them out. If Hamas’ crimes were so savage and sadistic they still need to be reported months after they took place, why does the establishment media never feel the need to express equal horror and indignation at equivalent or worse acts of cruelty and sadism being inflicted by Israel on Gaza – not five months ago, but right now? Israel's torture of doctors, its sexual assaults of Palestinian women, it's leaving premature babies to die after its forces stormed a hospital. Where is the outrage? This is part of a pattern of behaviour by the western media that leads to only one possible deduction: Israel’s five-month-long attack on Gaza is not being reported. Rather, it is being selectively narrated – and for the most obscene of purposes. Through consistent and glaring failures in their coverage, establishment media – including supposedly liberal outlets, from the BBC and CNN to the Guardian and New York Times – have smoothed the way for Israel to carry out mass slaughter in Gaza, what the World Court has assessed as plausibly a genocide. The role of the media has not been to keep us, their audiences, informed about one of the greatest crimes in living memory. It has been to buy time for US President Joe Biden to keep arming his most useful of client states in the oil-rich Middle East, and to do so without damaging his prospects for re-election in November’s US presidential vote. If Russian President Vladimir Putin was a madman and a barbarous war criminal for invading Ukraine, as every western media outlet agrees, what does that make Israeli officials, when every one of them supports far worse atrocities in Gaza, directed overwhelmingly at civilians? And more to the point, what does that make Biden and the US political class for materially backing Israel to the hilt: sending bombs, vetoing demands for a ceasefire at the United Nations, and freezing desperately needed aid? Worrying about the optics, the president expresses his discomfort, but he carries on helping Israel regardless. While western politicians and commentators worry about some imaginary existential threat those brief events of five months ago pose to the nuclear-armed state of Israel, Israel is quite literally wiping Gaza off the map day by day, quite undisturbed.

[lilislegacy]

imagine being someone at new rome university and not knowing percy is the same guy as “percy jackson, son of poseidon, two-time hero of olympus, former praetor” because the thought doesn’t even cross your mind. like… he’s percy. he’s a total frat boy. on a normal night, he walks into a party, refers to everyone as bro or dude, socializes with every living (and not-living) person in the room, makes at least 50 sarcastic comments, plays 12 rounds of beer pong, drinks way too much, and then skates around campus on his skateboard yelling “I LOVE NEW YORK” (which makes no sense, because they’re in california) until someone calls his girlfriend to come get him.

and then one day there’s an attack, and frat boy percy is all of a sudden a fighting machine. he’s yelling battle cries alongside the praetors frank zhang and hazel levesque as they lead everyone into battle. (why is he with the praetors? and why…. why in the world do the praetors seem to be following his lead?) his sword slashes through armies of monsters faster than you’ve ever seen. he’s controlling the entire river surrounding the camp, creating huge waves as tall as skyscrapers that crash down all around him, wiping out monsters and causing mass destruction to his enemies’ ranks. the sky is suddenly dark above you, ice-cold water droplets are slashing through the air, and the wind is blowing so aggressively that it’s making it hard to stand up steadily. because he’s somehow created a hurricane.

and he looks terrifying. you can feel the power radiating off of him. he’s like a god. or maybe a monster. it’s hard to tell. you’re a little scared of him, to be honest. but also in total awe, because it’s extraordinary. he’s extraordinary.

frat boy percy is not who you thought he was.

[morganc89]

The Last Word by Taylor Adams

This book was originally offered as a choice from Book of the Month in May 2023 but I got it as an add-on a couple of months ago; I couldn’t resist a story about a book review that takes an ugly turn. Emma Carpenter gets a gig house-sitting a beach house on the ultra isolated Strand Beach in Washington for the winter. With only her dog Laika to keep her company, the mysterious Emma is happy to…

[calicojack1718]

Comment on This! What's the Over-Under on Whether it is Putin or Ivanka that Pays Trump's $454 Million Dollar Bond?

I was listening to The Rachel Maddow Show and she interviewed a guest about Trump’s inability to find a surety willing to pay his upcoming bond nearly half billion dollar bond in his New York civil fraud case. As a quick aside, does anyone believe he’s not going to stiff the Federal Insurance Company and Chubby Insurance Company for his $91 million dollar debt to E. Jean Carroll? I guess PT…

[timbarrus]

I see shadows. And they move. Time itself is a choreography. I still cannot believe he's gone. I only get kicked like this if there's rain. I have no idea why. I had to break the door down. He was so glad to see me. I realized, he was probably deaf now, too. I dressed him and put him in the car. "Are we going somewhere." Shake your head, yes. "Where are we going." No where. "Look, there's Mom, he said. He thought we were driving, but we were just sitting in the front seat. We went past everyone he knew. All of them gone. He opened the window and spoke to the many people he had known. It started to rain again. Ignition. I am still driving. Usually until I'm lost and do not care to be found. I need new window wipers. There is a small squeak as the wipers push the rain around. Sometimes, he's there with me. Sometimes, not. I will sit in the car and turn on the radio. I am so unsure about where this thing is going. All I am left with are very faint whispers. Not unlike the sound of the rain on the roof of the car. He's gone. The shadows melt away. That and the sound of his voice as he spoke to mother. The rain finally stopped. I am unconsciously holding my breath. He died in his sleep. I bought him a brand new door.

[gudguy1a]

Ethics - NYT - Breaking news: Ex-F.B.I. informant is charged with lying about Bidens

Posting my little piece here. For some reason, the New York Times did not accept my comment on this story. My comment is/was as follows: Wow. A bold face liar (Smirnov)… Now we have to deal with the, ahhhh, conservative base folks that will begin a move to the FBI being embroiled in conspiracy to protect the Bidens… Wow… a little liar completely screws up a baseless investigation that covered…