The next option is to have Trump become vice presidet (the presidential term limit doesn’t seem to apply to VP), then have the president resign and make Trump president instead, claiming that the 22nd only limits being elected twice…

That might have worked, if not for the 12th Amendment, which has this clause “But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”

which might be ok with the letter of the law, but only an idiot or a tyrant would interpret it that way.

That may end up being where we run into issues. I have seen no evidence that the majority in the SCOTUS has a problem being either. And since they have lifetime appointments they are under no pressure whatsoever to do a good job. One of the main problems with our constitution.

The third option would be to have the president use the appointment clause, which is very vague about to what exact offices the president can appoint someone. It doesn’t explicitly state that the president can’t appoint someone else to the office of president.

It does actually, the Appointments Clause appears at Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution and states:

“… and [the President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law”

“Herein” in this case refers to the Constitution itself, and it definitely does ‘provide’ for the “appointment” of the President.

I’m not at all surprised that their evil plot revolves around them not understanding the constitution, many Republicans like to pretend they love the constitution when in reality most don’t understand it, and the ones that do think they can simply ignore or change the parts that they don’t like.

Basically Trump only really has 2 options if he wants to remain in power. Have the constitution amended to remove the term limits established by the 22nd (which again isn’t likely) or do something illegal and have the SCOTUS back him up, which is sadly a little more likely.

I almost hope he tries something like that and that there are enough decent people in the Military who would actually uphold their oaths to the constitution to make such a coup impossible to sustain. That might wake people up enough to realize how they came to installing a dictator, and maybe move enough people Left that we can actually do some things to fix our broken system. It would be great if we would get rid of the Republican and Democratic parties and/or at the very least get rid of our atrocious “First past the post” voting system (along with the Electoral College) which is where a lot of the problems in our country can be traced back to.

Better yet I wouldn’t mind if we scrapped the whole “Liberal Democracy” idea altogether and wrote a new Constitution that treats all people as if they are equals and not slaves to the rich and powerful, but I wont hold my breath hoping for that one, we need to educate people first. We have been the victims of hundreds of years of propaganda (which really ramped up in the 20th century), and you can’t reverse that damage overnight.

It’s a little of column A, a little of column B

Yes, it’s true that some dog breeds have been bred to be more aggressive- but aggressive can mean many things.

I was roommates with a guy who had a Pit bull. Awesome dog, great with the kids. Never seen her so much as growl at a person. Animals though she did not fuck around with. And that makes sense, they were bred to fight other animals. So while they are aggressive, they aren’t (naturally) aggressive towards humans, though obviously you can train them to be.

I had a different roommate who had a Chihuahua, Chihuahua’s were bred for two things, to be fearless rat hunters and to be burglar alarms. They also have a personality quirk where they typically only bond with very few people, and even then it can take a little while for them to gain your trust. For about the first month after he brought her home she would bark at me every time I entered the room she was in. After she got used to me, she was the sweetest little pup you could imagine. If anyone else came by she just couldn’t handle it. If I picked her up and held her while talking the other person she would eventually calm down some, but she still didn’t like it. You usually just had to put her in a different room. She didn’t nip at them or anything, but if they had tried to pick her up it probably would have been a different story.

Not all Chihuahua’s behave like that, but it’s typical.

I’ve lived with a Doberman who was a total coward (and neurotic the poor thing), and a Rottweiler who was perfectly fine with me, until her owner was out of sight, and then she acted like she had no idea who I was. As a kid we had a German Sheppard who was a total sweetie (the kitten thing was an accident), and I used to own a Chow/Lab mix who literally loved everyone and everything.

The breed plays a big role in their behavior, but so does training/ socialization. People who blame it solely on one thing or the other are just wrong imo. Some dogs will never be perfectly chill, but you can train them not to be assholes.

Well I’m not sure what your point is then. Just keep voting the lesser evil until one day you find yourself in the voting booth gleefully voting for Hitler 3.0 because at least they are marginally better than Hitler 4.0?

Just hang your head and cry about it and do the bare minimum you can do to mitigate the damage?

I’d rather at least try to fight for something better. Even if it doesn’t work out it’s better than just capitulating and being all but complicit in the system that is actively making our lives worse.

Fortunately, that doesn’t work either, there are several issues with that logic.

We are still (nominally) a type of Democracy. That means our ‘leaders’ must be elected. The 22nd only addresses term limits, the constitution itself spells out how the President comes into power in the first place, and that is by being elected. Nowhere is the President granted the power to appoint someone else to the office. The 25th amendment lays out who is to be president in the event that the current one is unwilling/unable to perform their duties.

Still, we are talking about if he at least wants to have the appearance of legitimacy. He’s certainly argued that he can ‘creatively interpret’ the constitution to suit his agenda. For example, despite the 14th amendment stating that “…all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” the Trump administration has tried to claim that ‘all people’ do not include people who’s parents were ‘illegal immigrants’, despite the Supreme Court precedent that it most certainly does include them.

I do have some faith that Americans would not stand for that though. That would be the final straw for many of us. If I am still around and something like that happens, I know it will be the final straw for me. I was born in a ‘free’ country, and I have no issues dying to help ensure it remains that way.

That being said there is nothing really stopping him from being the ‘de facto’ president in the case one of his lackeys gets elected and is willing to let him do so. For example if Vance were elected he could allow Trump to attend meetings and press conferences and speak on his behalf. He could be appointed an ‘advisor’ and Vance could follow his ‘advice’ every time. Hell he could allow Trump to sleep in his bed and use his toothbrush if he wanted.

Hopefully the DNC will pull it’s fucking corporate boot licking head out of its ass and put up a candidate that’s actually worth a damn for the next election, but that’s about as likely as Trump stepping down gracefully.

It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I wish I believed in God, I would ask you to pray for us.

What do you define as a centrist in that context.

I’m referring to people who vote, but they claim to be the ‘reasonable’ middle ground between Democrats and Republicans. They are right wingers who don’t feel strongly one way or the other, because they are either completely ignorant about politics, or get their information from American mainstream media (pretty much the same thing).

Basically they have no real values and only know that they are satisfied with the status quo and will vote for whomever they think will maintain it. There is a lot of overlap between these pseudo-intellectuals and people who boot lick Musk.

From an European viewpoint, most democrats are right-wing politicians, some of them even far right.

I’m not a Democrat I’m a leftist, so I view it that way as well

Bernie Sanders is the only one that comes to mind that could be seen as center-left

AOC has had some pretty decent takes, but like Sanders she is a politician in America and has to play the game so who knows what she actually believes in. I believe her heart is probably in the right place at least.

And politically disinterested people don’t sound like a relevant political force…

They’re not. I wasn’t trying to imply Musk would run for office or anything. I’m just saying they are likely to be the type of people ignorant enough to continue to support him.

If there is another election and they are going to pretend it’s legitimate, Trump would have to overturn the 22nd amendment to the Constitution to be eligible to run. A constitutional amendment requires a 2/3 vote from both houses of congress, and that is not likely to happen.

That doesn’t mean the dumbass won’t try to pull some sketchy shit and I honestly wouldn’t put it past him to try.

Neither the neoliberal technologists and futurists he charmed nor MAGA are on his side any more.

This is true. The only people that will remain loyal to Mush are centrists/ politically disinterested people. I think that will turn out to be a lot of people, but not enough to really do any damage. I can see some neolibs who bought Teslas stanning for him in the hopes they will regain some of the value in their vehicles.

I’m more concerned with Musk’s wealth, he can do a lot of damage with that still. Not as much as the government can do, but not insignificant either. If he feels like he is being attacked, I can see him doing some really disgusting things to get revenge.

I’d be curious where Peter Thiel stands, the handler of Vance.

My guess is as long as Trump plays by the rules and continues to chicken out on the Tarrifs, people like Theil will be content to stay in the background, silently pulling the strings. As soon as he starts actually hurting peoples bottom lines, that’s when we will see dissent. That is almost certainly why Musk cut and ran.

If Thiel backs the impeachment Thiel will become president and that might align with their goals to dismantle democracy in the US.

I think people like Theil and Trump are equally committed to dismantling democracy (in practice if not in name), so I don’t think it matters who is running things. They have to be careful about it too, since they have propped him up and Trump is a megalomaniac who actually thinks he deserves to be where his and his base are rabidly, stupidly obedient to him.

I’d say that Musk was just as big of a part of MAGA as anyone else. Quite a bit more than most really because he ran a whole ass government agency so he and Trump could harm their political/business opponents.

Even though the Leopard ate his face, he still voted for/ promoted/ worked for/ and donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Leopard. Musk is in no way a victim here.

Sure, he got ‘chewed up’ (I guess), but so did Hitlers supporters when they outlived their usefulness. It’s really not surprising.

Nobody on the Republican side gives a shit about him.

Name anybody (besides themselves) that they do care about? Caring about people isn’t exactly the Republicans strong suit.

I agree it’s not really a ‘turning point’ but don’t underestimate the number of people (MAGAt’s or not) who are Musk ball lickers. Those people will ‘pick a side’ and not everyone will choose Trump. They are both Fascists though, so the people end up losing either way.

Pop-Os gang!

There’s nothing more satisfying than quitting in person so you can look your boss in the eye and tell him he is a piece of shit, making them so mad they threaten to call the cops on you for trespassing as you are literally walking out the door lmao.

I don’t mind giving a 2 week notice normally, but at this particular job one of my coworkers put her notice in and they fired her that day. They immediately lost their 2 week notice privileges from me with that slick move.

I love how companies expect you to give them 2 week notices, but how many of them give you any notice before laying you off or firing you? None- that’s how many. They literally value their own profits over human beings, fuck them.

:)

Sure, if you happen to already know where the Wedell Sea is or if you look it up it you can reasonably locate it, in which case adding the “north of Antarctica” part is superfluous. But if you don’t already know where the Wedell Sea is, adding in the “north of Antarctica” part doesn’t actually narrow it down any, which is why it’s a funny thing to point out.

If they had wrote “just north of Antarctica” or “off the coast of Antarctica” or “near Antarctica”, that would have narrowed it down significantly.

Now that I have thoroughly explained the joke, I imagine it’s much funnier now.

I’m sure that “Mark “Three-Jabs” Newton” and the rest of us who found this funny were able to deduce from the context that is actually what the writer meant . That isn’t what they actually wrote though so “sp3ctr4l” is not only incorrect in asserting that Mark has “poor reading comprehension”, he is also wrong that ‘reading the whole thing’ would have clarified things and was extremely condescending about his incorrect statement at the same time, which makes him kind of an ass imo.

He was correct that Mark was “intentionally being a little shit” so 1 out of 3 wouldn’t have been so bad if he weren’t such a douche about it at the same time.

There is no part of the Weddell Sea, or any sea that is South of Antarctica.

Which part is south of Antarctica?

IBM 386DX with a ‘turbo’ button.

I used Apple II’s in school and older “IBM” PC’s but my family never got one. I had to buy one myself once I moved out.

I remember learning to write BASIC and Logo programs in grade school. I even went to ‘computer camp’ during summer school, but that was more ‘play Oregon Trail/ Carmen San Diego and print out basic ass ascii art’ than learning.

Weirdly, after 6th grade the whole ‘computer literacy’ thing at our school quietly disappeared. In 8th grade I learned to type, on an actual typewriter. Maybe they thought the whole ‘computer’ thing was a fad, or they could have just been cheapskates. Idk.

We all probably understood that’s what they meant but it’s funny and not super clear. “The Weddell Sea just north of Antarctica.” or “The Weddell Sea near Antarctica.” work much better.

True, but it seems like the EUs interests aligns with public interest a lot more often than it does in the U.S.

Id trade for sure. As an American, I am conditioned to settle for the lesser of two evils.

Pulp Fiction. Bruce Willis.

This is cheating a little bit because Bruce Willis is already a muppet.

To get pedantic for a second. The title of this post is “Microsoft gives…” as if this was an altruistic act that Microsoft decided to do for some people, when the article states they did it to comply with a law.

A much better title would have been “EU Forces Microsoft to Give Users More Control:” It returns the credit to the people who deserve the credit and clarifies that it wasn’t something Microsoft did willingly.

I’m more surprised that a city in Germany didn’t switch to Linux a decade or more ago.

Late to the party is still showing up, good for them.

Once again, I’m not guilt tripping anyone. I’m just stating facts. If you don’t think your post comes off as self righteous and superior, I’m not sure you know what those words mean. I also never claimed to be a victim.

You had zero sympathy in the first place, you said it yourself, and once again I really don’t give a single fuck what you think of me. I don’t know how I can make that any more clear to you.

I have read up on second hand smoke, which is why I don’t smoke around other people. I rarely even see other people unless I’m shopping, and you can’t smoke in stores.

If you think that the studies on second hand smoke say that simply catching a whiff of cigarette smoke every once in a while will instantly kill you, you should probably reread them. Those were about prolonged exposure in confined areas, not walking past some dude on the street.

Maybe think about if your attitude plays a role in your miserable life.

We’ve already established how you are perfect and completely flawless in every way. I’m sure your sanctimonious attitude contributes to a perfect life full of joy and happiness. Good for you.