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Posted
27 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

If the rationals ever get power back, they need to purge all presidential emergency powers and/or put guardrails on them and provide for judicial review of those guardrails.

Emergency powers.... Being used to seize power from a democratic government?

episode 2 GIF by Star Wars

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Posted

Any democracy fails when one party fails to follow the norms that exist outside the laws and processes. Judicial review? Meaningless when one party is all in on deferring to their god-king. 

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Posted
14 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

If You Say So Wow GIF by Identity

You know right now the excuse for even some of the lower courts is that when the pres is given unfettered emergency discretion, the courts can't review it?

Even when the "emergency" is clearly counterfactual.  Although the Fifth Circuit just couldn't bring itself to do it.

Posted
17 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

You know right now the excuse for even some of the lower courts is that when the pres is given unfettered emergency discretion, the courts can't review it?

Even when the "emergency" is clearly counterfactual.  Although the Fifth Circuit just couldn't bring itself to do it.

2 things.

1. “Can’t” is now a meaningless word in this context. Courts can do whatever they want. Lower courts choose not to review for various reasons. Sure one reason is they know they’ll be overturned based on a facial analysis by any higher court. But, given that DOTUS is acting like an autocrat, even a short-lived ruling highlighting the executive’s evil has value, even if just to not go down quietly. 

2. Stop with the “but ackshually” shit. I get it. We’re trained to think this way. But the end of the world as we knew it has come. We must unlearn what we have learned if there’s any hope for the experiment. Gotta get your mind ready for war. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Even when the "emergency" is clearly counterfactual.  Although the Fifth Circuit just couldn't bring itself to do it.

Lol Supremes fucking LOVE counter-factual shit! Cake shop out front shoulda told ya

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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, softlynow said:

2 things.

1. “Can’t” is now a meaningless word in this context. Courts can do whatever they want. Lower courts choose not to review for various reasons. Sure one reason is they know they’ll be overturned based on a facial analysis by any higher court. But, given that DOTUS is acting like an autocrat, even a short-lived ruling highlighting the executive’s evil has value, even if just to not go down quietly. 

2. Stop with the “but ackshually” shit. I get it. We’re trained to think this way. But the end of the world as we knew it has come. We must unlearn what we have learned if there’s any hope for the experiment. Gotta get your mind ready for war. 

I'm not but ackshually anything.  I'm starting to consider what needs to be done post-Trump if there is a post-Trump.

One thing, Congressional gridlock and inaction and general chickenshittedness is really coming home to roost.  And delegating emergency powers without guardrails and/or having their legislative veto overruled and then sitting there with their collective thumbs up their collective asses needs to fucking stop.

Also, you seemed to elide the word "excuse" in my original post on this subject matter.

Edited by TwiceHorn
Posted
On Saturday mornings, I love grabbing a coffee and breakfast tacos at a nearby Mexican restaurant.
The place does a good amount of business with those ordering on door dash or Uber Eats. I’ve noticed a trend lately of older and older door dash drivers. It’s almost like older folks are struggling to make ends meet.
and if some are resorting to taking a gig job, you know there are even more who are just doing without. 

Nice humble brag. Not all of us can afford food on Saturdays…
Posted
45 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm not but ackshually anything.  I'm starting to consider what needs to be done post-Trump if there is a post-Trump.

What will be done will be happens every time a people comes of a crisis period. Overreaction by the new masters with the docile consent of people who all swear they were on the side of the new regime the whole time. The deeper this crisis becomes, the more likely we have a whole new system of government.

The question of what minor tweaks might prevent a relapse isn't interesting to me. As I said above, no system survives if the group with every lever of power submits to no restrain its use of that power. The emergency powers w/o guardrails bit you're tying yourself in knots over smells like before times you dredging up a small government grievance than of anything important to the current state of things. Almost like you're trying to pat yourself on the back w/ an "I told you so." Not saying that's what you're doing, just understand the optics.

The problem with the framing you've set up is Trumpism would've exploited any constitutional and statutory scheme. The only guardrails that ever mattered were whether any other wielders of federal power would have effectively stood up to DOTUS if some other framework existed. The answer is "no." Short of a divine-right monarchy that would have drawn and quartered bone spurs had he tried to come at the king, no system would ever have been sturdy enough to stand up to this cult.

The nature of any excuses are irrelevant. Without a handy sensical one, a word salad one suffices right now.

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Posted
2 hours ago, softlynow said:

What will be done will be happens every time a people comes of a crisis period. Overreaction by the new masters with the docile consent of people who all swear they were on the side of the new regime the whole time. The deeper this crisis becomes, the more likely we have a whole new system of government.

The question of what minor tweaks might prevent a relapse isn't interesting to me. As I said above, no system survives if the group with every lever of power submits to no restrain its use of that power. The emergency powers w/o guardrails bit you're tying yourself in knots over smells like before times you dredging up a small government grievance than of anything important to the current state of things. Almost like you're trying to pat yourself on the back w/ an "I told you so." Not saying that's what you're doing, just understand the optics.

The problem with the framing you've set up is Trumpism would've exploited any constitutional and statutory scheme. The only guardrails that ever mattered were whether any other wielders of federal power would have effectively stood up to DOTUS if some other framework existed. The answer is "no." Short of a divine-right monarchy that would have drawn and quartered bone spurs had he tried to come at the king, no system would ever have been sturdy enough to stand up to this cult.

The nature of any excuses are irrelevant. Without a handy sensical one, a word salad one suffices right now.

Huh?

Right now, I am extremely irritated at the political question/emergency powers thing.  This is s

Posted
19 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Well said.

It was 3am and I was up to deal with a hangry cat.  I think I was gonna edit but fell back asleep.

Anyway, he's probably right about the third paragraph.  

Still, I think our Constitution is structurally pretty sound.  There are some huge, obvious problems with the text as written, drafting deficiencies, and Article II is way too vague.  I'm kind of mentally re-drafting the thing, redlining the existing text to fix a lot of the problems.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

It was 3am and I was up to deal with a hangry cat.  I think I was gonna edit but fell back asleep.

Anyway, he's probably right about the third paragraph.  

Still, I think our Constitution is structurally pretty sound.  There are some huge, obvious problems with the text as written, drafting deficiencies, and Article II is way too vague.  I'm kind of mentally re-drafting the thing, redlining the existing text to fix a lot of the problems.

s

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Posted
9 hours ago, softlynow said:

What will be done will be happens every time a people comes of a crisis period. Overreaction by the new masters with the docile consent of people who all swear they were on the side of the new regime the whole time. The deeper this crisis becomes, the more likely we have a whole new system of government.

The question of what minor tweaks might prevent a relapse isn't interesting to me. As I said above, no system survives if the group with every lever of power submits to no restrain its use of that power. The emergency powers w/o guardrails bit you're tying yourself in knots over smells like before times you dredging up a small government grievance than of anything important to the current state of things. Almost like you're trying to pat yourself on the back w/ an "I told you so." Not saying that's what you're doing, just understand the optics.

The problem with the framing you've set up is Trumpism would've exploited any constitutional and statutory scheme. The only guardrails that ever mattered were whether any other wielders of federal power would have effectively stood up to DOTUS if some other framework existed. The answer is "no." Short of a divine-right monarchy that would have drawn and quartered bone spurs had he tried to come at the king, no system would ever have been sturdy enough to stand up to this cult.

The nature of any excuses are irrelevant. Without a handy sensical one, a word salad one suffices right now.

Hindsight being 20-20, and all, I’m thinking a Lincoln-esque move by Biden, to lock up these offensive political actors, not just including turnip, would have given the grand experiment at least a chance to continue. 

Posted
2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

It was 3am and I was up to deal with a hangry cat.  I think I was gonna edit but fell back asleep.

Anyway, he's probably right about the third paragraph.  

Still, I think our Constitution is structurally pretty sound.  There are some huge, obvious problems with the text as written, drafting deficiencies, and Article II is way too vague.  I'm kind of mentally re-drafting the thing, redlining the existing text to fix a lot of the problems.

Article I needs some work. The Senate is a disaster. Don't even get me started on Article III. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Hindsight being 20-20, and all, I’m thinking a Lincoln-esque move by Biden, to lock up these offensive political actors, not just including turnip, would have given the grand experiment at least a chance to continue. 

Either that or light the country on fire.

But it was worth a shot, in hindsight. 

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Posted
30 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Article I needs some work. The Senate is a disaster. Don't even get me started on Article III. 

The election mechanisms are the hardest part.  The Senate should be devalued like Lords.  Or maybe just unicameral.

But the notion underlying Article III is an independent judiciary, which I think, along with other separation of powers/checks and balances, is a good thing.  But the respective powers need to be better delineated.

Posted
2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

The election mechanisms are the hardest part.  The Senate should be devalued like Lords.  Or maybe just unicameral.

But the notion underlying Article III is an independent judiciary, which I think, along with other separation of powers/checks and balances, is a good thing.  But the respective powers need to be better delineated.

The lifetime appointment thing is a problem.

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Posted
8 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

But the notion underlying Article III is an independent judiciary, which I think, along with other separation of powers/checks and balances, is a good thing.  But the respective powers need to be better delineated.

The reality is that the judiciary is an arm of the Republican party. At least the highest and most powerful court that settles disputes is completely captured 

Posted
19 hours ago, softlynow said:

What will be done will be happens every time a people comes of a crisis period. Overreaction by the new masters with the docile consent of people who all swear they were on the side of the new regime the whole time. The deeper this crisis becomes, the more likely we have a whole new system of government.

The question of what minor tweaks might prevent a relapse isn't interesting to me. As I said above, no system survives if the group with every lever of power submits to no restrain its use of that power. The emergency powers w/o guardrails bit you're tying yourself in knots over smells like before times you dredging up a small government grievance than of anything important to the current state of things. Almost like you're trying to pat yourself on the back w/ an "I told you so." Not saying that's what you're doing, just understand the optics.

The problem with the framing you've set up is Trumpism would've exploited any constitutional and statutory scheme. The only guardrails that ever mattered were whether any other wielders of federal power would have effectively stood up to DOTUS if some other framework existed. The answer is "no." Short of a divine-right monarchy that would have drawn and quartered bone spurs had he tried to come at the king, no system would ever have been sturdy enough to stand up to this cult.

The nature of any excuses are irrelevant. Without a handy sensical one, a word salad one suffices right now.

I agree with this. It’s a super lib thing to think that we can fix this by making the rules better. The problem is not the OS, this is pure user maliciousness. 
 

Russia had a really great constitution written in the 1990s. 

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Posted
13 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I agree with this. It’s a super lib thing to think that we can fix this by making the rules better. The problem is not the OS, this is pure user maliciousness. 

THISTHISTHIS.

The dirty secret (which is now out there in the open, for all to see) is that any system incorporated the Rule of Law necessarily relies on some baseline level of good-faith.  That is, it requires the vast majority of people living and acting within that system to believe in it an abide by it.  If you have a criminal class of 5% of your population?  Well, the 95% deals with them, using the agreed-upon rules and norms.  If you have 30% of the population that opts out of the Rule of Law?  You're fucked.

And we, friends, are fucked.

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Posted
On 9/20/2025 at 9:42 AM, Gatorubet said:

18% is likely made up of people who still have their good job and their 401(k)s are doing great.

This too shall pass.

Their 401K is not doing so great.  If you offset for the loss of the value of the dollar (-10.2% YTD) vs the S&P500 rise (+10.95% YTD) you have less than 1% increase.  Only a fucking moron like Johnny Sack thinks this is good.   

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Posted (edited)
On 9/20/2025 at 2:26 PM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Imagine being in India on Friday and being told that you have ~24 hours to get back to the US avoid problems.

I guess it was just get back through customs in 24 hours?  Which would be on the flight origin, right?  Makes it a little easier. 

Edited by Pato del Muerto
Posted
1 minute ago, Nivek said:

Their 401K is not doing so great.  If you offset for the loss of the value of the dollar (-10.2% YTD) vs the S&P500 rise (+10.95% YTD) you have less than 1% increase.  Only a fucking moron like Johnny Sack thinks this is good.   

Yep.  What is the purchasing power of your accounts today compared to January 19th?  That's it.  That's what matters.  Dollars are just a means to an end.  On January 19th, $100 translates to "2 gallons of milk, sack of produce, package of chicken, laundry detergent, bag of coffee, and pound of cheese."  Today, you have $110, and it translates to...."2 gallons of milk, sack of produce, package of chicken, laundry detergent, bag of coffee, and pound of cheese"....are you actually any "richer?"  Fuck no you're not.

The purchasing power of Americans has at best remained close to stagnant (and that's for Americans who have real money in the stock market...most Americans do NOT have real money in the market.  For them, their purchasing power has DECREASED).

But, you know, "winning."  The 48% is made up of people who see people they don't like getting hurt on Fox news, which means they MUST be doing better.  "Other people hurt" = "I'm winning."  It's that fucking lizard-brained.

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Posted (edited)
On 9/21/2025 at 6:17 AM, TwiceHorn said:

It was 3am and I was up to deal with a hangry cat.  I think I was gonna edit but fell back asleep.

Anyway, he's probably right about the third paragraph.  

Still, I think our Constitution is structurally pretty sound.  There are some huge, obvious problems with the text as written, drafting deficiencies, and Article II is way too vague.  I'm kind of mentally re-drafting the thing, redlining the existing text to fix a lot of the problems.

Followed by volumes of anonymous essays supporting the changes?

Edited by Pato del Muerto
Posted
23 minutes ago, Nivek said:

Their 401K is not doing so great.  If you offset for the loss of the value of the dollar (-10.2% YTD) vs the S&P500 rise (+10.95% YTD) you have less than 1% increase.  Only a fucking moron like Johnny Sack thinks this is good.   

They didn’t listen to you libtards and their Tesla stock is TO THE MOON!!

…back to February’s price….finally

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Posted
2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Yep.  What is the purchasing power of your accounts today compared to January 19th?  That's it.  That's what matters.  Dollars are just a means to an end.  On January 19th, $100 translates to "2 gallons of milk, sack of produce, package of chicken, laundry detergent, bag of coffee, and pound of cheese."  Today, you have $110, and it translates to...."2 gallons of milk, sack of produce, package of chicken, laundry detergent, bag of coffee, and pound of cheese"....are you actually any "richer?"  Fuck no you're not.

The purchasing power of Americans has at best remained close to stagnant (and that's for Americans who have real money in the stock market...most Americans do NOT have real money in the market.  For them, their purchasing power has DECREASED).

But, you know, "winning."  The 48% is made up of people who see people they don't like getting hurt on Fox news, which means they MUST be doing better.  "Other people hurt" = "I'm winning."  It's that fucking lizard-brained.

Thank you for making my comment a bit more accessible.  

Posted
3 hours ago, Nivek said:

Their 401K is not doing so great.  If you offset for the loss of the value of the dollar (-10.2% YTD)

Where are you getting this -10.2% number from?

Posted
Just now, Brisketexan said:

Or shit, my bank account.  I've had to spend education dollars in euros and pounds this year.  Got a nice 10% price hike in both respects over the past several months.

Price of educating your kids abroad would have made more sense in this context than talking about chicken, produce, and milk. 

Posted
3 hours ago, Nivek said:

Their 401K is not doing so great.  If you offset for the loss of the value of the dollar (-10.2% YTD) vs the S&P500 rise (+10.95% YTD) you have less than 1% increase.  Only a fucking moron like Johnny Sack thinks this is good.   

Here's the problem:  Trumptards don't look any levels deeper than surface.  The declining dollar is just not something they think about.  Also, even if they were told this information they wouldn't believe it (see Ana's comment).  Just more liberal media fake news they can ignore.

Posted
Just now, Ojo Rojo said:

Here's the problem:  Trumptards don't look any levels deeper than surface.  The declining dollar is just not something they think about.  Also, even if they were told this information they wouldn't believe it (see Ana's comment).  Just more liberal media fake news they can ignore.

or one step further - they'll use trump cutting the knees out from under the USD to justify ever more investments into crypto and scamcoins

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Posted
11 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Price of educating your kids abroad would have made more sense in this context than talking about chicken, produce, and milk. 

I mean...those things are more expensive because of the exchange rate, too.  But I see your point.  That said, declining purchasing power offsets wage gains and such, basic math and longtime rule.  

Shit, I want my daughter to buy me a 20 euro t-shirt with her new grad school logo on it (gotta be the school dad), which now costs 10% more than it did at the beginning of the year....but that really doesn't matter, because deutsche post won't ship a small package to the US anymore anyway. 

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Posted
Just now, Captainant said:

or one step further - they'll use trump cutting the knees out from under the USD to justify ever more investments into crypto and scamcoins

And 100% this.

"The dollar is a scam propped up by the Elites!  It's finally falling apart - see its decline in value [tied almost entirely to Trumpian insanity in economic actions and policies]!  The only smart refuge is.......CRYPTO!!!"



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