Attorney General Merrick Garland intends to publicly release special counsel Jack Smith’s final report detailing evidence that Donald Trump criminally conspired to subvert the 2020 election and disenfranchise millions of voters.
But Garland will withhold from public release a second volume of the report describing Smith’s second case against Trump for amassing classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office in 2021.
The Justice Department revealed Garland’s decision Wednesday morning in a court filing opposing Trump’s effort to block Smith from releasing his final report altogether.
Why should this stuff about Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada surprise anyone? Trump is just following Putin’s example. Besides, it’s only real estate.
You can’t prove that by my customers at the grocery store.
Everyone is still whinging about the price of eggs, not understanding the destruction of chicken flocks from the bird flu. Some of them roll their eyes at me, until I tell them I live on a farm that has chickens and how long it takes before new birds are of laying age.
The fundamental problem, as I see it, is not that social media misinforms individuals about what is true or untrue but that it creates publics with malformed collective understandings. That is a more subtle problem, but also a more pernicious one.
No, wrong. That’s a symptom not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is that social media sites like Facebook collect enough personal data from each member to feed them “news” items that are designed to drive anger and outrage. It connects them to other members with similar views for shared outrage and conspiracy theories.
The social media sites figured out that anger drives “engagement” more than anything else, and engagement is the primary goal of social media platforms. It keeps people glued to the site instead of doing something else, so they can see ads that generate revenue.
We know this. The anger engagement algorithm was described by a Facebook ex-employee in a hearing before Congress a couple of years ago. Without that algorithm and without the vast intrusive use of personal data, this “misinformed collective understanding” would be far less of a problem. Stronger data privacy and information collection laws could help, but of course we’re on the opposite course now with the tech bros all lining up to kiss Trump’s ass.
Surely there’s more to it than that. Throwing fireballs to distract, yes, but Jimmy Carter’s funeral? Maybe the flurry of appeals for his hush money sentencing, or the release of the Special Counsel reports? Wherein the media earnestly discuss the legalities by which one would, for example, rename an international body of water, instead?
Or he would suggest that it become a territory so they would not get to vote for President or have any meaningful representation in Congress. It would be such a good deal for them that they would be glad to have taxation without representation. Just ask them.
And not that any of them would, but if the MSM starts asking the question about the rights of this new state, and how many US Reps they would have, it would be interesting.
I am so heartbroken for the Pacific Palisades area and the Pasadena area this morning. Both places I know and love. The rest of this bullshit is just very troubling background noise this morning.
Something is happening. I thought I had basically found my low point and was climbing back after the election, but now I am not so sure. This news, even when filtered through the Morning Memo and commented on by sane people, is just fucking grim. The thought of what may be the last three or four years of my life being spent worrying about what these insane grifters are going to do to my country while the majority of Americans remain uncaring and completely misinformed is beyond daunting.
What just happened and is happening with the election of the Judge in North Carolina is the model of what will happen in the U.S. for the next two generations under our current courts. The Republicans are going to load the judiciary with more Cannons, Kacsmaryks and O’Connors and no election result will be safe unless it is the desired result of the powers that be.
What is happening in North Carolina is legal because their RW Supreme Court says it is. This is where we are at now. You want to talk about a tipping point, Zuck? Thanks in no small part to your soulless creation, we passed it a long time ago. We keep talking about the next election - but the next election already happened, and it wasn’t good.
Whether Canada joined the U.S. as one state or thirteen, with a population of about 39 million it would have the largest delegation in the House of any state. Unless the number of representatives was increased, nearly all of the current states would have fewer representatives than they do now.
I though the idea was to cut spending, how hiring a bunch of bureaucrats is supposed to do that? is like making war for peace or fornicating for chastity.
Oh. I get it Musk is going to pay them out of his own pocket as Congress has not budgeted anything for DOGE.
