Not wrong. At “best,” we’ll see a fracturing of the military…which could be much more trouble than it’s worth. I’d expect a small wave of resignations/desertions (since resignation for an officer takes a long time). The remainder of good people will actively try to avoid and sea-lawyer their way out of doing any damage to civilians without violating orders. There will be a good chunk who will happily fire on US civilians, though.
It’s important to spread the message far and wide that they are not alone
This right here. Disobeying orders is hard, and upholding one’s oath when being told from all sides is hard, especially when friends and colleagues are going along with it. You don’t want to be the squeaky wheel who makes trouble for everyone. It can become easy to think that you’re alone if surrounded by people “just following orders.” It’s made harder still when considering that a single morally courageous action can throw away a career and potentially land you in the brig.
Plus, actual veterans and service members think it’s stupid. “Thank you for your service” is a punch line.
Sounds like it’s going to be a violent summer. As soon as the first protestor gets injured or killed, this will start to spin out of control.
I’m not a lawyer, but I really don’t see how this is legal, unless executed in a very particular way. I really only think this is legal if a state’s governor allows their NG troops to work with ICE under Title 32 within that state alone. Once a state’s Guard gets federalized, they are working under Title 10. The important difference is that Title 32 grants governors the ability to use their NG for law enforcement, but Title 10 means that they fall under DoD policy, and therefore subject to Posse Comitatus and unable to engage in law enforcement unless legislation is passed.
With that said, the only way I could see this being used is within states with friendly governors (so red states) who mobilize their NG and offer DHS their personnel as aid. But then those personnel could only be used in their state. So, if Indiana mobilized their Guard on Title 32 orders and aided ICE, then they could only operate within Indiana unless invited into another state. If ICE wants to do a raid with Guard personnel in Chicago, then they are SOL because then that would be an interstate invasion.
What this could do is allow ICE personnel to focus on Democratic states while Republicans use their NG to do the majority of ICE’s dirty work. In other words, a bunch of ICE people will come to blue states to do the rounding up, while NG will do the rounding up in red states.
My take, too. They can comply with the court order and save face. The charges are not very solid, though. This can play into Trump’s hands in that if he’s acquitted, just silently brushing it under the rug with another outrage (the admin is seriously just an outrage/scandal ponzi scheme). If he’s convicted, then they can parade him around like they were right the entire time.
I think that’s a bit simplistic. I think Biden’s position on Gaza hurt turnout, but at the very most, that would mean Trump would win the electoral vote only rather than both the electoral and popular votes. There were several other reasons, e.g. the economy, Biden not bowing out earlier, Harris not putting some separation between them, etc. that ultimately doomed them.
I mean, obviously the answer is yes. But that is a great hook into what’s next.
This article also does a good job of making an argument for the Democrats to tack left and have a strong contrasting message to the Republicans. Even the squishiest, least offensive MAGA is still pretty far right and closer to Trump than to any Democrat. They don’t even regret their votes in any appreciable way. The most regret is coming from people who stayed home or voted third party. Give them a real contrast so even the most intellectually dishonest grifter can’t say “both sides” anymore.
If the Democrats had a real message and some fight in them, they could be an opposition party. Instead, most just want to write strongly worded letters without doing the hard work. And with that, they might actually win elections. Too bad they’re only starting to figure this out now when it’s probably too late.
Even beyond that, you’d think that at some point someone would realize that if you have to tell someone you aren’t a monster even though you’re acting monstrously, you’re a monster, regardless of whose orders you’re following.
It’s also not all-or-none. Someone who otherwise is really interested in learning the material may just skate through using AI in a class that is uninteresting to them but required. Or someone might have life come up with a particularly strict instructor who doesn’t accept late work, and using AI is just a means to not fall behind.
The ones who are running everything through an LLM are stupid and ultimately shooting themselves in the foot. The others may just be taking a shortcut through some busy work or ensuring a life event doesn’t tank their grade.
Not gonna lie, I don’t really blame the AI.
Sounds like yet another high crime and misdemeanor. Why doesn’t the co-equal branch established in Article I do it’s duty? And failing that, why doesn’t Hegseth, who has “We the People” tattooed on his drunken forearm, have the courage that he demands of others to tell off his boss? Where are the Oath Keepers who say they are so opposed to a tyrannical government and take their oaths to the Constitution seriously?
They wipe their collective asses with the Constitution. For that, everyone in this administration, and those who enabled it should burn as the traitors that they are.
then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
I don’t know why, but this made me really sad. Remember when we, the “New World, with all its power and might” fought for “rescue and liberation”? Really makes you want to stand up and fight for who we were and can still be again.
Correct. For criminal acts. As Mitt Romney said, “Corporations are people, my friend.” (Yes, I know corporate personhood makes no sense, but this is the messed up world we live in.)
Can’t pardon a lawsuit. Lawsuits are civil; pardons are for criminal cases. Those staffers could be bankrupted, which would be hilarious.
Honestly, of all the things he’s doing, not releasing the results of his physical are the least worrisome. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see he’s not healthy.
I see both points. You’re totally right that for a company, it’s just the result that matters. However, to Bradley’s, since he’s specifically talking about art direction, the journey is important in so much as getting a passable result. I’ve only dabbled with 2D and 3D art, but converting to 3D requires an understanding of the geometries of things and how they look from different angles. Some things look cool from one angle and really bad from another. Doing the real work allows you to figure that out and abandon a design before too much work is put in or modify it so it works better.
When it comes to software, though, I’m kinda on the fence. I like to use AI for small bits of code and knocking out boilerplate so that I can focus on making the “real” part of the code good. I hope the real, creative, and hard parts of a project aren’t being LLM’d away, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a mandate from some MBA.
As far as I can tell, it boils down to some combination of three reasons: they’re bigots; they’re stupid; or they’re selfish. Bigotry is self-explanatory. If they actually believed that he would do good things and help the country, then they’re clearly stupid. If they didn’t care how his actions hurt others but thought they’d help them financially, then they’re selfish. Now, if they’re selfish and not wealthy (wealthy being not like two houses and a couple millions in savings but rather own a couple yachts and an island) then they’re also stupid on top of being selfish.
The United States has a good deal of cultural rot. As a culture, we’re sick and have been for decades (and that’s not even getting into the nation’s original sin of slavery/racism). Carter rightly pointed it out in his “malaise speech.” A large number of Americans are simply incapable of thinking about others outside themselves. We are incapable of taking on large projects for the collective good. And because of that, we defunded education for decades leading to the stupid, selfish population of today.
Bester is by far one of the best characters in sci-fi, and some of Walter Koenig’s best work.
Yep, but those who resign for moral reasons will be more likely to take actual actions to protest/stop what’s happening. The military will have a hard time recruiting competent people in that environment, though, and the people taking the vacancies will likely have diminishing competence as time goes on.
To put it in perspective, if more officers retire at 20, they’ll generally be O-5s (Lieutenant Colonels or Commanders), and so the next year’s promotion cycle will need to promote more O-4s to cover the vacancies. This will then trickle down, and suddenly, you have officers who have been O-3s for just a couple of years being promoted to O-4 rather than waiting longer and gaining experience.
In that scenario, there will be less efficiency in planning and execution and far more incompetence, and if being used against civilians, more brutality. But incompetence is easier to defeat in the long run. Seeing the incompetence and brutality will deprive the military of the smartest recruits who staff the important IT, intelligence, cyber, etc. communities. So, while they may get true believers, a lower proportion will be competent.
No matter how it shakes out, it will get very bad.