There is another point, at least for Americans. While I know a few people who have emigrated to the US and still maintain ties with their original homeland, I know others who have intentionally given up their privileges back home. While they may still be citizens of their home country, they owe them no obligations.

The US is different, they tax your income no matter where in the world you make it. if you are living in a country with a tax treaty in the US, you can fully deduct all foreign tax payments so you will likely end up owing nothing to the US. But you still have to file. And in return for that you retain the right to vote from the state you last resided in. Furthermore, it is quite hard to give up your US citizenship. It can be very costly, because we will make you pay taxes on assets as if you sold them before they let you leave, including any retirement funds.

Americans living abroad are much more likely to still consider themselves Americans first, because we remind them about it every April 15th.

For those not paying attention, this race has already been settled and is still part of the 47 Senate seats that most major media report Democrats hold. The only seat that is technically not settled yet is in PA, where the Republican is ahead, but couldn’t clear the .5% margin needed to avoid a mandatory recount.

But it is extremely unlikely that a recount would find enough votes that weren’t counted in the first place to matter, and most media counts that seat as Republican now, leading to the final 53-47 count. Chuck has even invited the Republican to things for new Senators, even though his victory is still not technically final.

Right, I think without the Open Internet, we would still be getting fast broadband, but likely tied to your Cable or Telco provider’s network, and things that are currently websites would have to arrange for a presence on each network they want to do business on. And they would probably meter access, just like they do with your electric bill, or your cable company does with a basic tier but then paid access to anything important.

I think we need to differentiate a bit between “no Internet” and “no open Internet”. I have just enough grey hair and health problems to remember what life was like before the Internet really took off: you dialed into your ISP, like Compuserve or AOL, over a land line, and were charged per minute. And those services couldn’t really talk to each other. But back then, computers also ran at 10 MHz and couldn’t fit in your pocket.

So there was even connectivity back then, it was just very limited and each ISP had to provide it’s own information, because they didn’t really talk to each other. The same technological advancements would have happened over the last 50 years. Computers and networking would have gotten faster, cell networks would evolve to handle data and be more efficient, and broadband access to everyone’s home and office would have happened. But if the Internet didn’t happen in the open way it did, with an emphasis on open standards, its entirely possible each major media company would have had its own network to subscribe to, and it would be a lot more expensive.

But would that really be bad? Would social media really have eaten our brains if we paid for it per minute?

There was, when the ruling first came down. Responsible journalists tend to operate on events, with facts that can be verified. When the ruling happened, there were a lot of “Here’s what this means” articles, talking in the abstract about things that haven’t happened yet. They only got published because they were timely because of the ruling.

Now, we have no actual information that this guy is gonna grift “gratuitues” out of his position, other than he’s a Trump insider and that’s what they do. But responsible outlets won’t report on it unless there is clear evidence.

Now if we find out there are facts backing up the idea, these responsible journalists have already done a lot of the legwork, so they just add the new facts and can publish something timely again.

He’s gonna defend women, whether they like it or not

The cash is in the favors you can do for people, now that the Supreme Court has ruled that bribes gratuities are perfectly legal. It’s no accident that Trump now wants to remove taxes on “tips”. As of right now, if you “tip” your Deputy AG to fix a case for you, it needs to be reported to the IRS. If there are no taxes on “tips”, they are not reportable to anyone, and no pesky reporter can report your “tip” income.

A judge has a better chance of doing that and being somewhat protected from the wrath of Trump’s vindictive government.

Alternatively, he could find a judge willing to publish every single one, unredacted.

The 14th amendment approach did have some legitimate issues with it. If it worked, then I am convinced Abbott would have invoked some bullshit “Biden is creating an invasion at the border” excuse to remove Biden from the ballot. That’s why the decision ended up unanimous.

The 22nd amendment’s text is a whole lot clearer, and far less subject to interpretation. I can see a State saying “I don’t even need the Supreme Court to weigh in on this one”. And if it does come up with some tortured logic, I can see a State telling it to go to hell, because the one thing it can’t focus do is rewrite the Constitution.

The States can and will. Recall that there were a few states that tried to take Trump off the ballot this time around, that case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled that states couldn’t use that specific clause to keep Trump off the ballot. Furthermore, that decision was unanimous, although the Liberal judges released their own opinion saying that they disagreed with some aspects of the decision.

It will be a lot harder for even this court to weasel it’s way around the language in that amendment. And it will get there quickly. The minute Trump announces another candidacy every state that is not totally MAGA will immediately refuse to put him on any ballot due to his ineligibility.

Yeah, I agree. This was a bad idea. The text is quite clear that no person shall be elected to be President more than twice. Simply introducing it as a “clarification” will give the impression that clarification is necessary. It’s not.

Republicans can’t do anything to fix this (legally) other than to amend the Constitution. Let’s see what illegal shit they try, though.

Tomorrow. There had been a House Ethics Committee investigation into his antics, which was just wrapping up. But that committee can only investigate House members, so now that he isn’t anymore they may not be able to release that report.

He is in the unique position that his political career may actually improve after resigning a House seat but getting his nomination torpedoed by the Senate. He can make a living off listing off his grievances on Conservative talk shows, biding his time for the 2028 Presidential Nomination.

The only way to stop the nomination is for a Republican sentator on the relevant committee to vote no, or for 4 Republican Senators to vote no if it leaves committee. What are the odds of that?

He resigned from Congress because the ethics investigation was about to finish. This might have all been a ploy to manufacture a reason for Gaetz to leave early, and then the report gets squashed.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/11/13/politics/house-ethics-committee-report-gaetz-investigation

Then, if the Senate does not confirm the nomination, it gives Trump more grievances to air.

The Senate absolutely can stop her, if they choose to. They probably won’t.

You’re thinking of Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada. Rubio was born in Miami.

Two reasons:

First, in many states the electors are bound by law to support the candidate that wins the popular vote in their state. The penalties may vary, but the intent is clear: to make sure people realize it is against the law in that state.

But the second reason is that each campaign actually picks their own electors for each state ahead of time. So it’s not like the state has one set that will vote either way, and who can be persuaded. All of the states that votes for Harris are sending electors their campaign hand-picked, and likewise for Trump. So each side is sending their own very partisan people, whose political success is tied to their party. Violating that will ruin their political career in that party.

Well, no. Stefanik is awful, but not puppy-killing awful.

The acronym of the new department - DOGE - coincides with the name of the cryptocurrency Dogecoin that Musk promotes.

Oh my fucking god