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eager_pebble

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  • Oct 15, 2025 @ 03:25pm

    "unexpected news source"? Why'd you have to do that to Jack Jenkins. He's great! If you don't follow him, he's well worth it.

  • Oct 03, 2025 @ 07:53pm

    Here's the penalties section of the code: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7326 Basically, you can be fired or suspended or reprimanded. The problem with the Hatch Act (as I understand it, as I am not a lawyer) is that it is enforced by your reporting chain for your job. The vast majority of federal government reporting chains end in a political appointee. In other words, I don't think the courts are involved unless there's a civil penalty, which can not exceed $1000.

  • Oct 03, 2025 @ 03:15pm

    The Hatch Act WOULD be a beautiful piece of legislation if it had teeth. Unfortunately, it can only result in job impact (controlled ultimately by the political party in power) or a $1000 civil judgement. So it's mildly useful if the actions of the employee are NOT aligned with the party in power. Otherwise, it seems (as we've seen for the last decade) little more than a phrase for pundits to throw around.

  • Aug 18, 2025 @ 06:43pm

    Am I the only one who was warned that using a hotel business center for anything work-related was a fire-able offense? I've never worked in government, so I need help understanding why I don't see anyone else commenting on this.

  • Jun 11, 2025 @ 11:34am

    I'm old enough to remember Rudy Giuliani calling immigration officers "storm troopers" when they wore full military gear to abduct a young boy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli%C3%A1n_Gonz%C3%A1lez

  • Feb 04, 2025 @ 02:21am

    I think it's important to not downplay them as "kids". These are legal adults, and I absolutely want them to face the consequences of their actions. They may be incredibly immature nepo-babies, but it doesn't change the fact that they are 100% accountable for their actions. They know what they're doing and are counting on Elon and/or their parents to bail them out if/when the shit hits the fan. I want them to stand trial for their actions, and I want students to learn about those trials as examples of how to punish a coup.

  • Oct 31, 2024 @ 09:05pm

    Sorry, it's more like 8 or 9 orcas.

  • Oct 31, 2024 @ 05:28pm

    I feel like people talking about this as "more than all the money that exists" are underselling it a bit (partly because human brains don't like numbers this big). With cursory research, the best comparison I think I can make is that Russia is fining google the entire planet Earth, while there are only about 3 adult orcas worth of money. Showing my work: 20 decillion is about 2e34 110 trillion is about 1.1e14 Earth is about 5.6e24 kg Orcas are about 3000-4000 kg => 3 orcas are about 1e4 kg Please correct me if I screwed anything up, but we're looking at about 20 orders of magnitude difference.

  • Aug 27, 2024 @ 11:35pm

    There are a lot (not all, obviously) of people who work there who don't have a choice. They're on work visas and the hiring market for tech talent sucks right now. If you remember the video from shortly after Musk's takeover where he was holding court in the office in the middle of the night, almost all the people there could easily have been on visas. When your entire life is tied that closely to having a particular job, you don't have a lot of options.

  • Aug 27, 2024 @ 11:28pm

    Sources tell Variety it was not Lionsgate or Egan’s intention to fabricate quotes
    Hey, everyone, it's okay! The marketing consultant didn't intend to fabricate quotes when he went to a text fabrication machine to generate them. If only someone had done any reporting on this issue so that even a marketing consultant could understand.

  • Jul 25, 2024 @ 11:44pm

    Since this is a sports-related article, how much do you owe a certain university on Ohio for your use of the word "the"? Oh damn, I just used it. Could you let me know where I should send the check?

  • Jun 17, 2024 @ 10:05pm

    That last paragraph is the real point of the whole thing. We went through this entire process in Seattle only to have a continued lack of accountability as we just gave the PD a 23% retroactive raise, while murderers and abusers continue to draw department paychecks. Consent decrees do not provide any value because the DOJ is unwilling to acknowledge that the solution to a corrupt police system might be less police.

  • May 17, 2024 @ 07:29am

    Ooh...$10.2 million? I'm sure that'll hurt these companies. Verizon 2023 revenue: ~134B AT&T 2023 revenue: ~122.4B T-Mobile 2023 revenue: ~78.6B My quick math says that the fine is 0.003% of their combined revenue for a single year. Why WOULD they change their marketing if the government is just going to keep taking the money from their metaphorical couch cushions?

  • Apr 24, 2024 @ 11:15pm

    I don't want to hear that any of you have snitched on Pepperidge Farms!