Who will step up and say so? It’s 4 a.m. Not another car in sight. No headlights in the distance. The light is red and you’re in a rush to get to the airport. You run the light. It’s against the law but there’s no one to enforce it. Is it still the law? That, essentially, is what scholars of the Constitution, William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas, ponder in their paper examining Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment initially passed to prohibit Civil War participants from holding office. It reads in full: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, un-der the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
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What could go worng? Again. HAL: I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you. We’ve been here before. We’ll be here again. We’re here right now. Savey Meal-Bot has the greatest enthusiasm for its mission and wants to help you (Ars Technica): When given a list of harmful ingredients, an AI-powered recipe suggestion bot called the Savey Meal-Bot returned ridiculously titled dangerous recipe suggestions, reports The Guardian. The bot is a product of the New Zealand-based PAK’nSAVE grocery chain and uses the OpenAI GPT-3.5 language model to craft its recipes. PAK’nSAVE intended the bot as a way to make the best out of whatever leftover ingredients someone might have on hand. For example, if you tell the bot you have lemons, sugar, and water, it might suggest making lemonade. So a human lists the ingredients and the bot crafts a recipe from it.
If there’s one thing that drives me the most crazy about the “I don’t like his tweets but I’ll vote for him anyway” crowd is that they always extol the virtues of his allegedly successful presidency which I just do not remember. His policy success was almost nil and to the extent it just coasted on what came before. His tax bill had little to do with him and he spent most of his time reversing policies that had come from previous presidents. Still, those who want to separate themselves from the embarrassing parts of Trumpism while still supporting it always say that he was really a good president except for his personality: Chris Mudd is the hands-on founder and CEO. He checked in with the crew, made a point of thanking the homeowner for her business and then took a moment to reflect on Midwest Solar’s swift progress. “Our first 12 months I think we averaged three or four systems a month. … It was tough. Today, we are doing 15-20 systems a month,” Mudd says. “We lost money the first year we were in business and we’re going to make money our second year. I think that’s good.
She was a duly elected district attorney. And he just removed her from her post as he did another DA who said he didn’t approve of one of DeSantis’ policies. Sincle Florida is pretty much a one-party state there’s not much she can do about it: Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida suspended the top state prosecutor in Orlando on Wednesday, accusing her of incompetence and neglect of duty for what he characterized as lenience against violent criminals. The move was the governor’s latest aggressive use of executive power against local officials of the opposing political party. Mr. DeSantis suspended Monique H. Worrell, the elected state attorney of Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit, which includes Orange and Osceola Counties, and cited as reasons her handling of three cases and a low overall incarceration rate, among other things. One of the three cases involved a man who shot and injured two Orlando police officers over the weekend. It is the second time in a year that Mr. DeSantis, a Republican running for president, has taken the drastic and exceedingly rare step of removing an elected state attorney. Both have been Democrats. Mr.
Republican: “The election was stolen.” Democrat: “That’s a lie!” Democrat: “Trump tried to steal the election after he lost.” Republican:”That’s a lie!” Republican: Democrat: “You’re lying, he didn’t do any of that!” Average American who doesn’t follow politics: “They’re all a bunch of crooks and liars.” This is a huge problem. The Republican lies are overwhelming at this point and people are probably making the calculation that they are telling the truth at least half the time.
That’s what they call “Iowa nice.” More Iowa nice: A man in a Boston Red Sox hat in Iowa caused quite an uproar at Mike Pence’s event today, which was captured by local journalists with Iowa Starting Line. “Why did you commit treason on J6 and not certify President Trump’s win?” A Pence supporter (yes, they exist), stood up and fired back at the man, “That’s it buddy. Shut your mouth!”
He’s just not manly enough for the MAGA cult An evangelical leader is warning that conservative Christians are now rejecting the teachings of Jesus as “liberal talking points.” Russell Moore, former top official for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) who is now the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, said during an interview aired on NPR’s All Things Considered this week that Christianity is in a “crisis” due to the current state of right-wing politics. Moore has found himself at odds with other evangelical leaders due to his frequent criticism of former President Donald Trump. He resigned his position with the SBC in 2021 following friction over his views on Trump and a sex abuse crisis among Southern Baptist clergy. In his NPR interview, Moore suggested that Trump had transformed the political landscape in the U.S. to the point where some Christian conservatives are openly denouncing a central doctrine of their religion as being too “weak” and “liberal” for their liking.
Arizona was deadly hot during the month of July. We know this. But it didn’t convince the climate deniers that maybe, just maybe, it might be smart to consider that climate change could be responsible. Every single day of July had reached 110 degrees or hotter, demolishing the previous record for the longest 110-plus-degree streak that Phoenix — nicknamed the Valley of the Sun for a reason — had ever seen. Most of those days were above 115 degrees, and most nights, the low stayed above 90 degrees, setting records on both fronts. All told, the average daily temperature — the average of the high and low — was 102 degrees, or more than 7 degrees above normal for July, which is also a record, according to the National Weather Service. Meanwhile, dozens of people have died amid the extreme heat. Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, recently brought in new refrigerated storage containers to hold all the dead bodies, a tactic it first employed during the peak of the pandemic.
Rolling Stone has the story: In May 2022, Willis empaneled a grand jury to investigate Trump and his allies’ efforts to interfere with Georgia’s 2020 election outcome, including the former president’s so-called “perfect” call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which he pressured him to “find” the votes necessary for him to win the election. Trump has repeatedly attempted to discredit prosecutors investigating him, and while it’s unclear what Trump was talking about when he accused Willis of having an affair with “gang member,”, recent social media posts indicate that he is wildly misrepresenting a case she handled in 2019. In January, Rolling Stone spoke to rapper YSL Mondo, who co-founded the Young Stoner Life (YSL) music label with Young Thug.