The purpose and function of the police and the courts is the protection of capital from the people. Some cases illustrate this more clearly than others. This is one of them.
Turns out that in their demands on Sweden to change the way they apply the law when it comes to PKK demonstations, what Turkey is doing wrong is making it a quid pro quo for approving NATO membership rather than just helping the Swedish upper classes get richer.
Clearly freedom of speech CAN be traded in Sweden, as long as its for cold hard cash.
I could demonstrate to you That every single bank robbery That in every single case practically The cost of the police was more than The actual money that the robbers took from the bank Does that mean, 'Oh, you see There’s really no economic interest involved, then They’re not protecting the banks The police are just doing this ‘cause they’re on a A power trip or they’re macho, or they’re control freaks That’s why they do it’ No, of course, it’s an economic… Of course, they’re defending the banks Of course, because if they didn’t stop that bank robbery Regardless of the cost, this could jeopardize The entire banking system You see, there are people who believe That the function of the police Is to fight crime, and that’s not true The function of the police is social control And protection of property…
Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army. You know what I mean?
See, the conservatives are absolutely right, Trump is being treated unfairly! If you or I had done that we would have been laying bloody on a cell floor after “tripping” and “falling” several times the very same day it happened. The fact that he gets to live in a mansion in palm beach until proven guilty proves without a doubt that he isn’t being treated the same way as the rest of us, which would be fair.
Well thats how privilege woks in the US, if you got the money and the right color skin you can avoid charges for literally any crime for an indefinite period. Even these upcoming trials, Im pretty sure trump will be able to push them back and avoid them till 5 or more years go by, then he'll be way to old to put into jail or some insane right wing president will pardon him for all of it, or some insane fake judge that he appointed will drop all the charges... etc, etc, etc
I still doubt he will ever do any real jail time for all these crimes. If he does it will be a miracle.
What they’ve found is incredibly detailed. For example, it was determined that Stockton Rush had a fairly serious case of dandruff during the trip. .
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“We blocked the port in order to stop the use of fossil fuels that are killing innocent people,” she said. “The real crimes continue inside the gate of the port. We are not going to sit and wait while the fossil fuel industry takes our dreams away from us.” Asked if she’s worried about the consequences of the trial, she replied: “I personally am more worried about the horrible harm the fossil fuel industry is doing to the world.” “I’m not going to stop while they are threatening the planet.”
Much of the oil and gas industry says that continued production is necessary in order to meet global energy demands. Cutting oil and gas production would be “dangerous and irresponsible”, the head of energy company Shell told BBC News. The International Energy Agency has said that there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal now if governments are serious about the climate crisis. UN chief António Guterres recently said investment in new oil and gas production was “economic and moral madness”. This week the world experienced its hottest day on record on Tuesday, topping 17C for the first time.
Our world burns and people suffer so that oil companies can turn a profit. The few are making decisions that will have disasterous effects on the many in the not too distant future.
As long as people are buying gas for their cars and flying planes around the world, oil companies will need to exist.
It’s so strange to me how people will protest oil companies, then go fill up their tank at the gas station. Or fly across the globe for their vacations.
For most Americans, there is no alternative for a car. The tram lines we used 60 years ago were bought and torn up by car manufacturers. We need grocery stores within walking distance, and transit lines to useful places before people will give up their cars.
One relatively recent and quite expensive alternative would be electric cars. But I don’t really see that as a real, permanent solution, for that you would need a good railway/tram system, which sadly isn’t all that common all around the world
I have grocery stores within walking distance, but even taking a dolly it’s a hell of a lot of work carrying back a bunch of groceries. Plus the way the roads are constructed I risk my life every time I cross the street. Young and fit people should walk to the store but it’s not practical for everyone.
That makes sense. I feel like probably NYC is constructed better in terms of walkability and public transportation. I live in semi-suburban Denver. There are 7-8 small grocery stores and 2 wholesale food warehouses about a mile from my house, primarily Asian and Central American markets, which is a lot, so it’s feasible for me to walk. 3-4 liquor stores, a couple weed shops and a few convenience stores. For many other areas of the city it wouldn’t be as reasonable to live without a car, though probably one could take the bus or light rail. The problem is just walking to a bus stop is about half a mile so it wouldn’t help that much. I could use an Uber or Lyft, but it would be expensive unless I just went to the store once every 2 weeks.
I’m reasonably fit, in my 40s, but things like “I’ll carry back 4 12 packs of Diet Pepsi from the store for my girlfriend” leaves me feeling pretty worn out. Taking a dolly or cart helps but I’m the only person around here I ever see doing that… not that I mind. I suppose I could do grocery delivery.
Grocery delivery is a good stop gap, but you’d need all the various grocery stores to be on board. Municipal and state governments could literally subsidize the costs of maintenance and fueling delivery vehicles to incentivize this method, and even offer rebates for customers who participate, but nah that’s all too hard and will eat at the bottom line so let the world burn I guess.
Asked if she’s worried about the consequences of the trial, she replied: “I personally am more worried about the horrible harm the fossil fuel industry is doing to the world.” “I’m not going to stop while they are threatening the planet.”
This. This is activism. I’m not brave enough to face a justice system hostile to my existence like she does, so I’m glad she’s there to do it.
Right? Really, tho. I sincerely hope she was coached by somebody and not left in the dark to figure out how to be a figurehead of a movement and lightning rod for abuse all on her own. That’d be kinda fucked up.
She’s been literally protesting for eco solutions since she was like 12 or something. While some kids were busy jerking off to Harry Potter, she found her outlet in becoming an activist and leading one of the largest movements in climate change protests, becoming an inspiration millions of children just like her. I’ve seen the Friday walk-out protests in Europe, and the attendance was always huge and the people involved were very passionate about the cause.
I know people have a hard time understanding that, but that’s why they jerk off to Harry Potter instead. It’s all they got.
Well, we finally had a courtroom laugh moment. Prosecutor asked Trump about his involvement in financials from end of 2021. Trump said his focus at that time was on China and Russia and “keeping our country safe.” Courtroom laughed. Note: Trump wasn’t president in 2021.
I’m sure that’s the case. “We all know about your credentials and breadth of experience.” And the crowd laughs already, before he even gets to the punchline of firing Gary Busey. Dude’s been a complete joke for decades.
Haha yeah I loved how he caused the deaths of so many innocent people through the largest growth in drone strikes.
Truely he seems so genuine, I’d love to sit down for a beer with him and Bush and than proceeded to kill myself for being a fucking idiot and having any favourable view on these scum.
He would never admit feeling humiliated, but I’d wager his entire personality is shaped around covering for his profound internalized shame and insecurity
Nah, I don’t think that’s true. The dude is insecure as fuck, he kinda laughs stuff off, but inside he’s fucking frothing at the mouth and then unleashes it on twitter. In response, he’ll just double down with his bullshit and play it off, but in private, he writes people down on his “list”.
NAL but I think if Trump had argued he was still the President during that time period instead of admitting he wasn’t, then it would have been perjury.
Perjury is more than just saying something factually wrong on the stand. Republicans spent years talking about how getting trump in a courtroom was a perjury trap because he would make a small mistake like recall the January 12 of 2011 was a Saturday and then they prosecution would be like, “no it wasn’t and now you go to jail because we hate America”. In reality, perjury basically takes someone knowingly and intentionally entering testimony that is false. Simply forgetting that he wasn’t president at the time would not qualify.
I’m so glad we have all these new anti terrorism powers to stop all the terrorists like checks notes the ones who don’t want us all to burn and die for the sake of temporary corporate profits. Wait that doesn’t sound right, oh well at least we’re also using the against other terrorists like checks notes again YouTubers exposing government corruption… wait no what about checks notes whistleblowers exposing government corruption… for fucks sake there must be better examples… frantically checks notes …the lawyers of whistleblowers exposing corruption… Fucking hell I give up this is totally fucked
Perjury requires that you knowingly lie. And because our justice system demands evidence of guilt and presumes innocence without that evidence, to be convicted of perjury, the prosecution has to prove that the individual knew they were lying, and lied anyway.
That’s relatively easy to do when the subject of a lie is some material fact like, say, the defendant says, “I was wearing a blue shirt” and there is photographic evidence of the defendant wearing a green shirt, or something. It’s a lot harder with the thing in question is what the defendant was thinking.
Watch this fictional defense:
Prosecution: “You lied when you said you would never do something like that again.”
Shaman: “I said that yes.”
Prosecution: “Caught you!”
Shaman: “In the year since, I have changed my mind. At the time, I was telling the truth as I saw it.”
Judge: “Tap tap tap, case dismissed. I lost my judge hammer.”
You can’t fool us Erdogan, we’ve seen this move before.
By tomorrow he’ll have new demands. He’ll demand Sweden form a space agency and plant the Turkish flag on the moon or something like that, mark my words.
Yes yes I signed it just need to find my stamps to put it in the mail. Just one more thing it is very important please can you arrange to hold the Eurovision in Ankara next year instead?
That’s my assumption–it’s basically legal extortion.
I will say that I believe that there is antisemitism in most places because there are humans in most places. Whatever happens at Harvard is probably not exceptional or notable in any way.
Universities encourage critical thinking. For a lot of young adults, it’s the first time being exposed to a lot of new ideas in their infancy. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was higher simply because they are processing new concepts and sometimes come to unfortunate conclusions.
Critical thinking doesn’t make people racist, though. I work at a university and have seen many people be edgy. Some do it for effect because they are, frankly, very immature and like that attention. Most who are actually racist were brought up that way or went down the rabbit hole sometime in high school.
And it doesn't help that, as of late, the term "antisemite" is aggressively being expanded to include those who show any criticism whatsoever of the current Bibi administration.
It's crazy to me. On October 6th, 2023, the Bibi administration was largely viewed as a far right, antidemocratic, religiously extreme collection of intensely corrupt lunatics. On October 7th, so many otherwise totally-reasonable people just forgot how they felt the day before.
That’s how people respond to terrorist attacks. Look at what America did after 9/11, rallying behind Giuliani and Bush to attack Iraq because… Then you had bigots attacking Sikhs on the streets, Freedom Fries because France opposed indiscriminate bombing, and just about the most ridiculous performative security measures for people wanting to travel in a plane.
History will remember. We will look back on this time as a dark period of bigotry, violence, oppression, and genocide.
It’s true. And we didn’t fix anything, we just made travel so much more miserable and put in laws to let the government spy on people. As we saw with both 9/11 and Oct 6, high surveillance isn’t the answer. We need to move beyond security theater and retribution.
I have also found that some people become very angry when you point out that Palestinians and Arabs in general are actually Semites. There were actually a whole lot of Semitic groups in history.
Antisemitism has nothing to do with whether or not someone is of an ethnicity related to the Semitic language group. My guess would be that you are upsetting people not by pointing out that Palestinians are Semites, but by incorrectly claiming that antisemitism is in any way connected to the - very real - discrimination against and hatred of Palestinians and Arabs.
I don't have the patience or tact to offer thoughtful and gentle explanations (as you did) when it's "pointed out" that many people from the region could be considered Semitic.
It's very much the sort of argument my clever nephew might make. He's a smart kid, but he hasn't gotten to the point where he can understand that a clever fact is not necessarily in any way relevant to a complex problem. And certainly not a devastating argument that can simply stop everyone in their mad mutual desire for destruction.
"Well, shit. We were all Semites the whole time????"
The entire complaint is linked in the third paragraph. It goes into some detail about specific incidents of harassment of Jewish students and some of the ways that the university is systemically hostile to Jewish students, particularly those who express support for Israel, which, “is a crucial component of Kestenbaum’s and SAA members’ Jewish identities, and many of them are descendants of survivors of the Nazis, with family and friends in Israel.”
Not to mention that Harvard will likely settle just to avoid going through discovery simply because they know there is an entire political movement looking for ANY excuse to go for blood with them.
With the information about the organzied harassment campaign that is openly available, I feel confident in judging that group as agitators and lawyers that terrorize human rights advocates.
It’s really quite sad that the Israel simps have abused the idea of antisemitism to the point that when I see accusations of antisemitism, I genuinely have no idea if they’re taking about serious bigotry or if they’re talking about people saying it’s bad to murder civilians.
No need to speculate; the allegations are linked in the article:
Harvard students and faculty harass, discriminate, and assault Jewish students—including on October 18, when a mob of protesters attacked a Jewish student, and the next day, when a mob trapped a group of Jewish students in a study room
Subjected to intense anti-Jewish vitriol, including from their own professors and Harvard administrators, Kestenbaum and other Jewish students, including SAA members, have been deprived of the ability and opportunity to fully participate in Harvard’s educational and other programs and have been placed at severe emotional and physical risk.
Moreover, over the past ten years, Harvard has instituted admissions policies that have severely reduced—by as much as sixty percent—the number of Jewish students, an enormous decline that evinces an intentional effort, much like Harvard’s quotas one hundred years ago, to exclude Jews.
when a mob of protesters attacked a Jewish student, and the next day, when a mob trapped a group of Jewish students in a study room
The important part here seems to be left out: did Harvard punish the students responsible for this? I find it hard to believe that they got away with this if they actually did it and we know who they are.
He showed up at a pro Palestinian protest to try and dox the students there. They asked him to leave. He ignored them and was then escorted out. People did not say nice things to him.
I start d (slowly) reading this and… Is this how legal briefs are written? It seems like a reddit blog post. For instance in the examples section they write “SJp … is one of the most vitriolic antisemitic networks on college campuses. SJP was founded by the chairman of American Muslims for Palestine (“AMP”), the leadership of which overlaps with the leadership of organizations that have been shut down by federal authorities, whose assets were frozen by the U.S. Treasury Department, or that were found liable in civil actions for providing material support to Hamas. SJP receives funding and training from AMP as well as from universities. SJP and its affiliates sponsor antisemitic events, host antisemitic speakers…” All of which I’m reading expecting a citation somewhere… Anywhere. It seems like easily verifiable stuff. But there is none. Is this how legal briefs are written?
Being anti Israel is just not the same as being antisemitic. I’m not sure why that is such a hard thing for people to understand. Israel and Judaism are different things.
This seemed to be popular information when I posted it (ahem) “elsewhere”. Thought it might be welcome to have here.
If you’re trying to keep track of where we’re at in the Trump prosecutions:
Updated 8/1/2023
Washington, D.C. - 4 felonies, January 6th Election Interference
Investigation
Indictment <- You Are Here
Arrest
Trial
Conviction
Sentencing
Georgia - Election Interference
Investigation <- You Are Here
2 new grand juries impaneled 7/11/2023.
Indictment - July 11th to September 1st.
(Grand Jury work expected July 31 to Aug. 18)
Arrest
Trial
Conviction
Sentencing
New York State - 34 felonies, Stormy Daniels Payoff
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - March 25th, 2024
Conviction
Sentencing
Florida - 40 felonies, Federal documents charges
Investigation
Indictment
Original indictment was for 37 felonies.
3 new felonies were added on July 27, 2023.
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - May 20, 2024
Conviction
Sentencing
Other grand juries, such as for the documents at Bedminster, have not been announced.
The E. Jean Carroll trial for sexual assault and defamation where Trump was found liable and ordered to pay $5 million before immediately defaming her again resulting in a demand for $10 million is not listed as it’s a civil case and not a crimimal one.
WOW the number of people in this thread immediately jumping to the accusers being "false" and deserving jail. Because no actual sexual predator ever got away with it in court...
(Sex crimes are extraordinarily difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt because the actions are taken in private without a lot of physical evidence. Which sexual predators rely on to get away with their crimes, by the way.)
Perhaps we should review the sheer volume of young men from all over the US & UK reporting that Spacey was at best inappropriate with them. One of the youngest being 14 years old:
Yeah this whole thing isn't simple. Even if he's cleared of charges, these allegations are old and that makes them hard to prove or disprove.
Further, the quantity is concerning. Maybe he's just prolifically sexual but my gut can't really get passed how many accusations there are over such a long span of time. Even if innocent, still creepy is my opinion.
Also, being a multimillionaire puts a target on your back. I’ll never forget the story about a man who already had a couple of million winning a huge lottery and how lawsuits, among other ever worse things, destroyed his life.
In general, any multimillionaire that gets off of a serious charge doesn’t mean they’re innocent.
Don’t forget the flip-side of that - the prisons are full of poor people who do not deserve to be there. It’s almost as if the system was designed to be like this…
And also not admissible in a criminal court. That's part of the problem. If you look at the big picture, it's obvious he did it, but it's not as easy to prove it in criminal court.
Is it really obvious that he did something, or is it obvious that he’s another gay man being attacked for daring to publicly admit that he’s gay? Sure there’s a lot of allegations, but many of them were dropped by the accusers, and as the article points out there was a huge rush of “me too” allegations brought out against many people at the same time because it was the trending get-rich-quick scheme. Even in Spacey’s case, why did most of these allegations not come out until he admitted he was gay?
IMHO if Spacey is actually guilty of these crimes, he’s going to be blackballed by all the studios and won’t ever be seen on the screen again. Although the courts didn’t prove him guilty, the studios know who is doing what, and in today’s market any further allegations will cost them money.
Even in Spacey’s case, why did most of these allegations not come out until he admitted he was gay?
I think it went the other way around, didn’t it? At least the first accusations came out, and he used the occasion to say “I didn’t do that! But now that I’m talking about this stuff, by the way I’m gay.”
It wasn’t a great look, because it came across that he tried to deflect the accusations by coming out as gay.
True enough, and he caught hell for the timing of that announcement. There’s also the issue of there just being such a different culture of what’s “acceptable” in Hollywood. I think it’s great that it finally came to light and those activities were at least tempered somewhat, but I also remember reading a lot of claims a decade ago and just thinking to myself that this is something you’re claiming ‘everyone’ in Hollywood is doing, but you chose to specifically target this one actor? The “me too” train was real, and a lot of people were going after big name actors, so I got burnt out on the whole thing and just stopped paying any attention to it.
I refuse to believe you're actually this stupid. There's a universe of difference between "it didn't happen" and "it couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court" and you know there is.
Unless you really think OJ didn't murder his wife either
I refuse to believe you’re actually this stupid. You’re throwing these statements as if you have first hand experience of knowing these things happened. Like were you there in person when Spacey was assaulting these people or were you a witness when OJ killed his wife? You don’t wanna believe the witnesses, you don’t wanna believe the jury, you don’t don’t wanna believe in the legal systems (cops/courts and whatever have you). But you believe in some people accusing someone of something. EVEN if they cleared themselves of these accusations.
Are you actually this ignorant to not know that all people are all not down to earth and sometimes people can and do crazy shit. Why do you think there’s zero percent chance that these people were bad, but Kevin Spacey is 100 percent bad without a shadow of a doubt for seemingly just being rich?
Indeed. In a thread a couple of days back on a different (though related) subject I was accused of being a rape apologist because I was insistent on the presumption of innocence and the beyond-reasonable-doubt standards that need to be overcome when accusations like this are slung. But it works the same in the other direction too - we can't assume that an accuser is guilty of fraud or libel or filing false reports or whatever just because they failed to prove their case.
It would not be good for justice if these situations ended up being "now that the accusation has been made someone is going to go to jail, either the accused or the accuser." The Thunderdome is not a good model to emulate.
accused of being a rape apologist because I was insistent on the presumption of innocence
Good thing to insist on, but be prudent. Keep in mind that, at least on reddit, there’s a tendency for every thread about rape to become a thread about false accusations. I wasn’t there, but in general, sometimes people object not to the presumption of innocence but to people bringing it up.
It is maddening, we seem to be stuck watching this happen in slow (well faster now) motion. I think a lot of people don't know exactly what to do, and while we try and make personal changes really we need government to regulate, cut subsidises etc.
😢 Poor bibis. I feel so sad for you. You got your fee fees hurt by the mean man saying genocide bad. Have you tried not supporting genocide? That’s been working for me.
Edit: Oh, I see. You weren’t encouraging me to check your post history, you were suggesting that there was something objectionable in mine. I observe that you do not choose to be more specific than that. I think that makes you a whiny bitch who lacks the courage of their supposed convictions, whatever they’re supposed to be.
Edit 2: OH. I see now. You’re not objecting to my post history like a bitch.
You’re saying I’m stupid and/or ignorant with a very polite suggestion to educate myself, because apparently my pithy little comment about “dont support genocide” is somehow lacking important historical nuance.
Wow, no wonder I didn’t get that vague stupid throwaway line. What a braindead take. Eat the block you fucking troll.
“lol hey everyone look at this guy’s history he said something… I don’t choose to be specific because im a bit of a cowardly whingebag, do it yourself you lazy cunts”
No he called them out because they remained seated. He asked them if they were Israeli, they said yes, then he told them to leave (which he can’t do to paying customers) and set the crowd against them. Their views on genocide or Israel’s actions weren’t even determined, it was just the fact they were Israeli and didn’t give him a standing ovation.
He then asked him whether he enjoyed the show, to which the audience member replied that he had enjoyed it until he had taken the Palestinian flag out.
You ignored this part. There are few reasons one would object to the Palestinian flag being taken out and not the Ukrainian flag.
Based on the article he called them out after they didn’t show support for Palestine at the end of the show. The comedian also is from Belfast which explains why he has such a strong opinion on this.
I would hope that any Israeli citizen is against the genocide that their government is doing and would show support to stop people being killed. If they disagree publicly in an open place like this I’d expect them to be called out on it.
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