Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the chitter-chatter dept
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Shannon Vanshoon with a comment about RFK Jr’s congressional hearing:
So, yeah, I’d say on one hand that it’s nice Senator Cassidy is railing against Kennedy like this for all the unmitigated and horrifically dangerous decisions he’s making.
But hey, you know what would’ve been even better? Not being the deciding vote in the first place, jackass.
Rail all you like, Cassidy; what’s happening, and the resulting blood, is still on you. So you’re free to go fuck yourself, champ.
In second place, it’s MrWilson with a comment about Kristi Noem claiming the National Guard deployment to blue cities isn’t politically motivated:
The question being about red states and her response specifically addressing political bias indicates she’s highly aware of the need to lie about it, such that her phrasing was so much more direct than she even needed to be to pretend she answering the question.
“Have you been mean to anyone else?”
“No, I haven’t murdered an old man on Jenkins Street on a Thursday night at 2 AM. How dare you ask!?!”
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from HotHead about federal judges getting sick of SCOTUS’s shadow docket bullshit:
The conservative justices have the audacity to demand that federal courts treat unexplained emergency docket orders as nationwide binding precedent right after whining about thoroughly explained nationwide injunctions by federal courts.
Next, it’s n00bdragon with a comment about the federal grand jury that refused to indict the DC sandwich thrower:
I don’t think it’s jury nullification in the sense of jurors conspiring against the evidence to reach a verdict based on whatever internal beliefs or prejudices they have. I think the government is just throwing astoundingly weak cases at the wall either to see what sticks, to use the process as the punishment, or (the most likely in my view) because all the competent attorneys are gone and the only people left are real Grade A Schmucks.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is MrWilson again, this time in response to another instance of the tired old complaint that a post on Techdirt isn’t directly about tech:
Seriously! And when I read USA Today articles, I realize they’re talking about stuff that happened yesterday! And don’t get me started on the Washington Post. George Washington has been dead for over two hundred years. There’s no way he’s writing articles now. Did you know that the New York Times and LA Times don’t only report on time related issues like daylight savings or the measure of a millisecond?!? Boston is a city, not a globe! Arizona is a state, not a republic! Did you know they charge for the Detroit Free Press? And nobody announces Miami’s participation at a jousting event who works for the Miami Herald!
It’s just about ethics in real journalism!
In second place, it’s jvbattlewood with another comment on our post about Kristi Noem’s lies:
Sympathy for the Devil?
Remember,she’s under a lot of stress,she just bought a $1500 puppy and a $2000 shotgun, probably overstimulated.
For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous addendum filling in a gap in MrWilson’s first place comment:
And every time I watch Fox News, I wonder… where are the foxes? Why aren’t they talking about foxes?
Finally, it’s an anonymous comment apparently passing on a joke they heard elsewhere about the failed sandwich indictment:
The other joke I saw was, throw a hot dog, and we can finally have a legal determination about whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich.
That’s all for this week, folks!
Comments on “Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt”
JFK, jr
Did anyone NOTICE that he Acknowledged…
HE IS NOT A DOCTOR.
Fire the Bast- Already.
Our countries problem. GET THE MONEY OUT OF THE ELECTION SYSTEM. THOSE that can AFFORD to place adverts on TV Every F’ing Day for over 1 year…Must be removed.
This is the Best time to be in the NO-Party Party.
The pnly reason SOME are in the congress is because that was the BEST way to get them OUT OF THE STATE.
I pledge Allegiance, TO STOP voting for the Better of 2 Evils. For Which it stands, that it is BEST NOT to have representation then to have the WORST. AND DEMAND that the Election Burau to Insert a selection of “NONE OF THE ABOVE” on all election forms for ALL Positions.
Re:
JFK Jr. died in a plane crash in 1999. Only the good Kennedys seem to die young.
Re:
Nice sentiment, but what you propose doesn’t work — it’s just another way to throw away your vote. What really works is a single transferable vote system.
Re: Re:
The United States needs to overhaul its national election system; moving from a first-past-the-post format to a ranked-choice format would be a nice start.
Re: Re: Re:
Here here. All hail Ranked Choice Voting.
Re: Re: Re:
Moving away from a district system to a proportional representation system would break the duopoly and allow smaller parties to have a say.
That, and reducing the influence of money.
Re: Re: Re:
I like preferential voting one of the few things I feel some sense of nationalistic pride in about Australia is how great our electoral system has been since federation. However, whenever I hear someone across the pond saying that something like preferential voting is going to fix their issues, I think about how whichever party lost the most recent election is complaining about preferential voting and insists that we need to move to FPTP or MMP or something.
Re: Re: Re:2
You can tell when you’re doing something right when politicians get mad about it, personally.
Re: Re: Re:3
They keep ending up with those politicians, tho’.
Still a better system, no doubt.
Re: Re: Re:
Greater use of electoral fusion (aka fusion voting, cross-endorsements, multi-party nominations, et al.) likely wouldn’t be bad either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fusion_in_the_United_States
Also, more states should consider splitting their electoral votes like Maine and Nebraska currently do.
https://www.270towin.com/content/split-electoral-votes-maine-and-nebraska
Re: Re: But the way it is,
IF no one is voted in or BACK into the position 1 of things happens.
1. Governor of AG promotes someone TO that position.
2. Position i9s NOT filled or CANT be filled unless another election happens, and the STATE pays for it again.
In 1. IT CAN BE CONTESTED.
Re: "If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government...
…then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.”
-Plato
Re: Re: 1 of our presidents said..
A democracy with only 2 parties, can not stand.
Re: Re: Re: I think you mean:
“A house divided against itself cannot stand”, and that paraphrase isn’t even close to accurate to the original meaning of the statement.
Re: Re: Re:2
Pretty sure they know what they meant. They borrowed a form to say it. Perhaps with extra meaning conveyed by the contrast with the borrowed form.
Re: Voting third party or not voting is just voting republican but lazy
I pledge Allegiance, TO STOP voting for the Better of 2 Evils. For Which it stands, that it is BEST NOT to have representation then to have the WORST. AND DEMAND that the Election Burau to Insert a selection of “NONE OF THE ABOVE” on all election forms for ALL Positions.
That sort of mindset was likely a large factor in getting the US where it is currently, a bunch of voters who ‘refused to vote for the lesser of two evils’ in tantrum/protest and as a result everyone got the worse evil because that’s not how it works.
Would it be nice if the US had a better voting system where third parties were a viable option? Absolutely.
Is that what’s currently in place? Other than some minor exceptions not even remotely.
You work with what you have, not what you wish you had, and right now that means voting defensively by voting for the viable party that isn’t trying to demolish the country and turn it into a third-world dictatorship. People can worry about fixing the electoral system and make third-party candidates a viable option after they make sure they’ll be an electoral system to change.
No, it isn’t. If “None of the above” wins the election must be rerun and no-one who got less than (say, actual figure to be determined) 25% in the first go can stand again. Keep going until a reasonable candidate is presented and garners enough votes to win.
Re:
Okay, cool. So who holds office in the meantime?
Re: Re:
A more pertinent question: When has “none of the above” ever been a valid ballot choice in a presidential election in the United States?
Re: Re: Re: CORRECT
IF’\
We had a restriction on the amounts of Money to be Spent…
It would never work, they would Backdoor the Whole thing.
Re: Re: Re:
i thought this was about changing electoral and balloting mechanics. Why does it need a presidential ballot chouce precedent?
Re: Re: Re:
I think the suggestion presupposes a very different Constitution than the one we have now.
Which, okay, I think that’s a reasonable discussion to have; I don’t think we’re likely to make any substantial changes to the Constitution any time soon but I think it’s worthwhile to discuss it just for the sake of shifting the Overton window and accepting that it’s something we really fucking need to be thinking about at this point.
But logistics matter. We need a functioning government, and if somebody’s going to suggest “none of the above” as a viable electoral option they’d damn-well better have some idea of what a functional government is, who’s going to be in it in the case of a “none of the above” result, and what their powers are going to be. If they can’t answer those incredibly basic questions then clearly they’re just repeating something they thought sounded smart and rebellious but that they haven’t actually thought about one whit.
Caretaker governments are a thing in parliamentary democracies, during periods before an election. They’ve got their benefits and drawbacks, which are worth discussing, but they also assume a very different style of government than the one we’re used to. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but all you have to do is look at Israel to understand that a parliamentary democracy is not immune to fascist capture.
Re: Re: Easy
CONGRESS, Over paid, Corp paid, Idiots that cant do anything FAST.,
Re: Re:
Other reasonable systems form an interim government, ideally with less powers.
AND
yo will not GET a “Vote of no confidence” in the USA, as MANY other nations have.