Especially when renewing certs is so easy it can be automated. Automating certs like step 3 of setting up your own website, right after buying the domain and pointing DNS at your server.

It’s actually “TL;DR rich people bad” but sure, pop off I guess.

Yup, exactly. They want to keep it federal (and avoid state charges), because Trump specifically can’t pardon state charges.

Official stats are that less than 30% of ICE detainees have any kind of criminal record. And of that 30% who do, the vast majority are small offenses like traffic violations, being drunk outside a bar, etc…

The old joke is that party democrats always manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Winning as a liberal would be laughably easy if the DNC would get out of the fucking way. But the DNC is obsessed with making everyone wait in line for their “turn”, which means the only people “allowed” to run are the candidates who have put in the time, paid their dues, and toed the party line to prove that they’ll play nice with the official party platform. Which means the only democrats who ever make it to the stage are the most bland milquetoast career candidates imaginable.

I can guarantee the ICE agent is going to say he felt like his life was in danger, because she was accelerating towards him. The fact that he actively walked in front of her car and created that situation will conveniently be left out.

I hate that so many videos only ever get posted to fucking Twitter. Fuck that site, and fuck the people who exclusively post things there.

The atheist thing is largely due to excitement and evangelicalism, the same way born-again Christians are some of the most obnoxious people on the face of the planet.

When someone “discovers” atheism, it usually comes with a lot of excitement. They have this new truth, and it’s so obvious if you just think about it. Why wouldn’t everyone want to find this same truth? After all, this truth brings a level of enlightenment that has never been felt before. So they should try to spread this new enlightenment to everyone. Wait, why are you getting angry and walking away? Ugh, it must be because you’re too indoctrinated or stupid to recognize the truth.

And the same is true for born-again Christians who discover religion later in life. The excitement leads to evangelicalism, because “this is obviously the best thing in my life, and I want to share it with everyone I meet.”

It’s how he normalizes his insane plans without being directly implicit. He starts with the “I’m not saying they should cancel the elections. But if they did… I’m not saying they should do it though. But I mean, it wouldn’t be unheard of.”

Anyone who has ever worked as a restaurant server knows the old “blame they, not yourself” trick. Forgot to bring out some table’s food, and now they’re upset that it’s taking so long? Don’t apologize for it and take the blame, because that will have them potentially tipping you less. Instead, say “Oh, did they not bring that out? Let me go take care of that real quick.” Now you’ve deflected blame off to some faceless entity, and have put yourself on the customer’s side as someone who wants to help. Your tip won’t be affected, because you’ve positioned yourself as helpful.

Notice that when Trump floats ideas like this, it’s almost always “they”, not “we”. “They” is a faceless, nebulous entity. It can be anybody or nobody, so placing blame on “they” is a convenient way to float potentially unpopular ideas without putting any individual (or himself) in the crosshairs. If he used “we”, he would naturally be the figurehead for the idea, and any blowback would land on him.

It’s a message to his followers on what he wants, without directly tying himself to it. And it allows the various talking heads to use it as a springboard to normalize the idea before it is ever implemented. That way when the thing actually happens, his followers have already been primed to accept it.

Protests can be peaceful and armed, FWIW. That’s what started the Black Panthers. People realized that unarmed peaceful protests got violently broken up… But heavily armed peaceful protests had cops politely watching from across the street.

Cops were more than happy to fire into crowds when everyone was unarmed. But the cost/benefit ratio suddenly changed when the entire crowd could return fire. A cop may be able to hit three or four protestors, and in an unarmed protest, the rest would quickly scatter and disperse. But when everyone was armed, the rest of the crowd could immediately return fire instead.

It’s also what started modern gun control laws. When lawmakers saw a bunch of heavily armed black people on their front porch, and saw cops unwilling to break it up, they got really fucking sweaty. So Ronald Reagan (yes, the same Reagan that conservatives put on a pedestal) and the NRA (yes, the same NRA that lobbies for looser gun control after school shootings) co-sponsored the Mullford Act, which was the most restrictive gun control bill the country had ever seen. It was literally the start of modern gun control laws.

This is what drove the Black Panthers underground, as the lawmakers and police worked to criminalize and track them, so they could kick down doors during dinner time, instead of busting up the peaceful protests directly. And we still see that tactic being used today, with police setting up cell phone trackers and facial recognition cameras at protests, and raiding suspected attendees’ homes days or weeks after the protest.

I mean, I’m not mad about why they removed so many videos. They had a massive CSAM and revenge porn problem, to the point that you could often find it on the front page. They also had really ineffectual methods for victims to report offending content, to get it taken down. There was also the whole “victim can only begin the takedown process (which likely won’t even get the video taken down) if they know it has been posted” problem. And their fix was to only allow uploads by verified users.

or unbound and unprotected

This is where the term “outlaw” came from. Basically, the local authorities would determine that someone had committed so many crimes that they were no longer protected by the law. They could be killed on sight, because the laws against murder no longer protected the outlaw.