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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • And in an unusual step, Sheriff Mike Chitwood of Volusia County, Fla., this week posted pictures and videos of an 11-year-old who was charged in a fake school shooting threat, part of a pledge to take a tough stance on the wave of threats.

    That’s counter productive in a couple of ways

    Not only is this sheriff’s publicity stunt harmful to children, but it also risks fueling contagion around both threats of violence and actual school shootings. It’s also vindictive. At a news conference last Friday, Chitwood said, “Every time we make an arrest, your kid’s photo is going to be put out there and if I can do it, I’m gonna perp walk your kid so that everybody can see what your kid’s up to.”

    This is exactly the kind of law enforcement message that reporters should examine and challenge, rather than mindlessly repeat.























  • I mean, this does create the obvious question - “If Biden is too old to run for President, isn’t he too old to be president? Doesn’t he care about the safety of America [blah blah Fox News talking points blah]”

    I personally think it’s fine because the job of President mostly gets done by the team of staffers around the White House, but we’ll need a good answer for that question when a reporter asks it





  • Can exposure to THC affect embryos? It seems really likely, but it also seems like the science isn’t entirely clear

    Available studies on marijuana exposure in pregnancy were reviewed and support some degree of developmental disruption, including an increased risk of fetal growth restriction and adverse neurodevelopmental consequences. However, much of the existing prenatal marijuana research was performed in the 1980s, when quantities of THC were lower and the frequency of use was less. Additionally, most human studies are also limited and conflicting as most studies have been observational or retrospective, relying primarily on patient self-report and confounded by polysubstance abuse and small sample sizes, precluding determination of a causal effect specific for marijuana. Given the paucity of evidence, it is currently recommended to avoid using marijuana while pregnant or when breastfeeding.

    (Archived)

    Idk, I’m not a doctor and I haven’t done a ton of reading on this. I want children to grow up healthy, and part of that is preventing them from being exposed to chemicals that will mess up their development, but another important part of that is not throwing their parents in jail or prison unless it’s absolutely necessary, so idk how I feel about this.







  • Yep, but I don’t know if they’re complicit because they genuinely like the way things are heading or complicit because they worry if they push back at all our society could totally break down into factions and they’re not sure which side the cops and soldiers will choose, and those are two very different reasons for going along with things

    Also, regardless of all of this - just by virtue of the fact that the Democratic party at the very least has to keep up the appearance of opposing the Republicans, we’re all a lot better off with them winning elections, so I do recommend voting for them whenever you get the chance, just realize that’s only step 1

    e; words is hard sometimes


  • That’s not entirely fair, there’s a lot more the executive branch could be doing to try to fix this too

    Of course, Justices Alito and Thomas could choose to recuse themselves — wouldn’t that be nice? But begging them to do the right thing misses a far more effective course of action.

    The U.S. Department of Justice — including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointed U.S. special counsel and the solicitor general, all of whom were involved in different ways in the criminal prosecutions underlying these cases and are opposing Mr. Trump’s constitutional and statutory claims — can petition the other seven justices to require Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law.

    The Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland can invoke two powerful textual authorities for this motion: the Constitution of the United States, specifically the due process clause, and the federal statute mandating judicial disqualification for questionable impartiality, 28 U.S.C. Section 455. The Constitution has come into play in several recent Supreme Court decisions striking down rulings by stubborn judges in lower courts whose political impartiality has been reasonably questioned but who threw caution to the wind to hear a case anyway. This statute requires potentially biased judges throughout the federal system to recuse themselves at the start of the process to avoid judicial unfairness and embarrassing controversies and reversals.