The accounts are largely based in countries that are suspected by many to be manipulating US public opinion (e.g.Russia/Israel) or from countries with lots of click farms, scam centers, and other “engagement” services.
It showed how much of the American right-wing social media sphere wasn’t legitimately American in origin.
That’s probably accurate that there wasn’t a true bill, but it’s one of those things that I don’t think has actually been tested.
The specific circumstances where the foreman signed off on the second indictment with 2 charges instead of 3 without the rest of the grand jury suing the exact bill is really weird. But if it weren’t for the statue of limitations it would be an easy remedy - just take it back to the grand jury.
And if it were a different technical error, there’s a 6- month period after the SoL in which an indictment that’s thrown out of techical grounds can be corrected.
But the combination of the 2 is unprecedented as far as I know, and there’s a legitimate legal question as to whether it’s a bad indictment that should be thrown on on technical grounds (giving 6 months to re-file) or if it simply wasn’t an indictment at all.
And now with the whole thing being thrown out because Halligan isn’t actually a US Attorney, it’s even more confusing - especially when it comes to prosecutorial misconduct she may not have committed since she wasn’t actually a prosecutor.
It’s a fascinating train-wreck.
IIRC, an indictment that’s thrown out for procedural errors has 6 months from the SoL expiration to fix the indictment, so long as the original indictment was made before the SoL expired.
With the question of whether or not the grand jury actually agreed to indict or just the foreman, the more interesting question is whether or not there even is an original indictment to be fixed.
As with many issues surrounding this administration, I don’t know if we have precedent on something like this. The way they stack up their fuckups on top of each other and make everything legally hazy means they’re either the worst attorneys in America or are really clever. Or, more likely, someone really clever knows how to use one of the worst attorneys in America in an attempt to buy 6 more months to come up with something to justify charging Comey.
Also, they can also now pretend he did something wrong but got off on a technicality. Now that it’s thrown out on procedural grounds, they don’t have to show their lack of evidence.
The main thing the Endangered Species Act does is limit development in the habitat of endangered species. The President of the United States is a developer. Of course he’s targeting the Endangered Species Act. He hates it with a passion.
Also, his felony convictions are related to the overvaluation of land he owns that can’t actually be developed due to a conservation easement that’s the result of the Endangered Species Act.
We need to ask for the long-form Epstein Files.
I think it’s a reference to Clinton’s famous quote to a grand jury when grilled on why he said “No” when asked if there was a sexuality relationship between him and Lewinklsky.
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the—if he—if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. … Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.”
Good thing the social media, video streaming, and news platforms aren’t owned by billionaires that are bending the knee to fascism, right?
Yep. And since I carry 3 laptops in my backpack (2 for work and one personal), it’s a problem.
Though I will say the fact that all 3 can be powered by Type-C cables has been since huge life improvement since i don’t need to carry around 3 different charging bricks.
Can they fix the “randomly turn itself back on and drain the battery while in its bag so that it’s always dead when you actually need to use it on the go” problem?
Because that’s been a problem for like 20 years at this point and means I have to treat my laptops as if they don’t actually have batteries because it’s schrodinger’s power any time I pull one out to work.
I was at a conference this week, and half the attendees were huddled in the cafeteria the whole time because there were some tables on one wall with outlets.
Did you not notice the part where Epstein committed suicide, Giuffre was hit by a bus, survived, and then committed suicide, and Maxwell was paid a closed-door visit by Trump’s personal fixer?
They have and will continue to kill to keep these secrets.
The city is buying me like 15 grand in new software licenses this year, but I can’t convince them to spend another 2 grand on a new fucking computer because mine is “supposed” to be good for 2 more years.
My work laptop was upgraded to Windows 11 and performance has severely suffered.
As someone who usually uses 3 monitors (sometimes 4) and does GIS, it’s an issue.
It’s really looking like a shitty week for the Trump administration.
How do you expect them to lash out? Invasion of another American city? Attack on Venezeula? Arrest of Pelosi?
Trump lost the last shutdown in one of the most humiliating political defeats of his Presidency. Did he think this one would be different?
Best we have is Civil Contempt. It’s different than criminal contempt, which can be pardoned by the President and must be enforced throught the executive or the Marshalls service. A judge can appoint anyone to enforce civil contempt rulings, including someone who doesn’t report to the federal executive.
Lots of people’s don’t understand the difference between civil and criminal, and a automatically assume criminal is always stronger. But civil is a lot more flexible because civil and criminal have different goals and remedies.
Criminal penalties are punishment for committing crimes. People think of murder and theft, but by far the most common criminal convictions are traffic violations. You get caught speeding and you have to pay a pre-defined penalty or take a driver’s ed class or whatever. For the most part, criminal convictions can result in fines, imprisonment, or execution.
Civil is different. Civil cases aren’t seeking punishment - they’re seeking relief. That is, in a Civil case, the Court can make you do something or stop doing that thing.
For an easy example that I run into pretty often in municipal government, I’ll highlight the difference between Civil and criminal cases for the same offense: building a fence past your property line into the public right-of-way.
When I take someone to court in that case, I can go criminal or civil (or both).
If I take them to criminal court, the judge can make them pay a fine. But the judge can’t make them remove the fence. We can issue separate citations every day and have 14 charges on the docket each week, but that’s it. There are some billionaires in some areas who actually build illegal fences and just pay the $500/day in fines because money isn’t an object to them.
But when I take them to civil court, the city isn’t seeking punishment for what they’ve done - it’s seeking relief. That is, instead of a fine, the judge can order that the fence be removed, and (and this is the big point) that if it ISN’T removed after the order the judge can appoint someone else to go on the property and forcefully remove it.
We actually have a case in my city where we’re have a court-appointed third-party private firm preparing to tear down a large part of house that cost 9 figures because the owner is refusing to carry out the judge’s order regarding their illegal construction. The judge didn’t want to put the city in charge because the impact on property tax revenue of tearing down such an expensive piece of property might convince the city to turn a blind eye.
When an order isn’t obeyed, a judge can appoint someone to carry out the ruling, and unlike in a federal criminal case which requires that the judge appoint the Marshall’s Office, a civil ruling specifically doesn’t have that restriction on the judge.
It’ll be handy to have a tool that makes things up that they can use an an excuse to arrest you.
That’s the beauty of AI. It can look everywhere without requiring additional manpower.
It’s the 2 weeks or so in which your insurance company allows you to adjust your coverage. To facilitate this, they give you brochures designed to be confusing to try and trick you into paying maximum premiums alwith minimal coverage.
I had an employer that bragged about bringing employee down costs with the new provider by 20% per payckeck as the reason for the drastic reduction in coverage and higher copays. They glossed over the fact that we were changing from bi-weekly to weekly paychecks, so the 20 percent reduction per paycheck was actually a 60 percent increase overall.
It’s more about letting someone know they’re breaking the law if they buy it. It’s also something that can be added onto charges if they commit a crime with the gun. Lying on the 4473 is a crime.
I did once have someone try to buy a gun using a medical Marijuana card as ID because their driver’s license was expired.
Scaling goes in both directions.