Of course, if any of the lawyers (or self-representing plaintiffs) are aware that the defendant is fake, then they are committing perjury. Any lawyer who does this is an absolute dumbass, because courts come down hard on these sorts of shenanigans.
I mean, it's one thing if you or I lie on the stand. It's still perjury, but if we're not lawyers (I'm not), then we aren't officers of the court, and there aren't going to ethics review boards crawling up our asses over this.
And Milo seems to deliberately distort the idea that just because we have freedom of speech in the U.S., it doesn't require anyone to allow him on their privately owned or publicly traded forums.
The First Amendment protects people from government interference in their speech (with certain exceptions). It does not stop Twitter from banning him (which they did) should they decide to do so.
I think the real reason that Milo wants to buy 4chan is so he can have something resembling a social media platform that he can't be banned from.
You might want to look at some poll numbers there, chief. Yes, Trump is still doing fine in strongly red states. That's because in those states, you could nominate a turnip truck and it would receive the majority of the votes.
The problem is, Trump not only needs to win every single state that Romney won in 2012, he needs to win several battleground states, and that's not happening.
His ground game is non-existent. He has a minuscule presence in Florida, which is one of the most important battleground states. The RNC is in the process of pulling away from him, and he's losing endorsements left and right.
After 2012, the Republican party realized that they cannot ignore the minority voters any more. They started trying to make inroads to Hispanic and African-American voters. Trump torpedoed that shit in the first weeks of his campaign. In the 2012 election, African-American voters made up 13% of the voters. Romney got 6% of that vote. Trump will be lucky if he gets half that.
He's pissed off the minority voter blocks, he's pissed off the establishment Republicans (okay, not all of them are turning away, but enough are that it's going to make a difference), and he's pissed off women voters. In previous elections, you could maybe still win the Presidency if you upset one or two of those groups, but all three?
You do realize that all of those media organizations you named have loved the idea of Trump running for President since he first announced, right?
They are interested in ratings, and Trump (and his many fuckups) brings ratings. They might not like a Trump presidency, but they are digging the three-ring circus that he has turned the election cycle into.
You do realize that the price of tech trends downward over time, right? ENIAC cost over $400,000 at the time (which would be over $6.8 million today), but you have orders of magnitude more processing power on your smartphone, which is what, a couple hundred bucks?
Yes, there's a lot of start-up and investment cost, because we've never done this before. But as we overcome technological limitations, it will become less expensive.
Besides which, the percent of the GDP spent on the military is above 5%, IIRC.
Several weeks back, while I was out for a walk, I waved someone down who was going the wrong way down a one way street. It wasn't even one of those one-way streets where the correct street is a block over. It was something like forty feet away from the road he was on, and all he'd have to do is get to an intersection and get on the correct street.
So, I wave him down, I explain this to him, and he nods. And then continues driving the wrong way down the one-way street. For several more blocks at least. (Possibly to the end of the street where it hits a T-intersection. I couldn't tell.)
So, yeah, people are capable of it, and some of them are incapable of driving correctly even when told they are doing it wrong.
And don't get me started on all the idiots around here who don't seem to know what a turn signal is for. And that includes a surprising number of police officers.
You have the Republican candidate attacking veterans for being captured, attacking the families of fallen veterans, and attacking veterans who suffer from PTSD, just to name a few things Trump has done.
If this were any other candidate who ran for the nomination this year, not only would they never have said these attacks, they would have torpedoed their candidacy by doing so.
He's single-handedly destroying any attempt at outreach to the Latino communities that the Republican party acknowledged that they needed to make after 2012, he's talked about ignoring treaty obligations like it's a business deal you can walk away from, AND he's got nothing but praise for Putin. For any Republican post-Reagan, that last one especially should tank his campaign completely. And yet it hasn't. (Okay, it is having an effect... projects.fivethirtyeight.com has his chances of winning the Presidency at just above 27%, and it's been falling for a couple days now. But with the campaign he's been running, it should be a lot lower.)
Now, it could be argued that a lot of his supporters are just along for the ride, because hey, at least it's an entertaining ride, right? And the press (both print and television) has effectively given him a ton of free advertising, because they're addicted to ratings. They can't wait to show us the next clusterfuck that Trump propels himself into.
The thing is, assuming that the New York Times didn't steal the material in question, there's very little they could be sued for successfully. (If Trump just wants to launch nonsensical suits against them, that's different.) It can clearly be argued that the information in question serves the public interest. And if the information wasn't altered, then it's the truth, and generally speaking, the truth is a defense against libel.
Now, Trump is still free to sue them, but it should be a difficult case to win. And nothing is stopping Trump from rambling on at three in the morning about how awful/sad/whatever the Times is.
Well, it's not like Assange is the one "hacking all the internets" himself. I'd find it highly unlikely that some information on Trump hasn't been sent to Wikileaks, but I suppose it's possible. However, given Trump's reticence to release his tax records (even after promising to do so), it would seem like the kind of thing that someone would try and dig up to send to Wikileaks.
Trump's already threatened legal action against the New York Times for releasing a couple pages of his tax returns from years ago. He'd likely lose that lawsuit, mind you, even if it actually comes to that, but Trump is opposed to anything that shows him in a light other than the one he projects.
But if he's got an important leak, why didn't he make it? Instead, they were hawking books. He's turning into an infomercial.
Don't get me wrong, I think if he's got an important leak to make that would affect the election, I think we should know about it. The problem is, Trump is hiding a bunch of shit as well, and that information could affect the election, and Assange is basically giving him a free pass. (For the record, I consider both major party candidates to be terrible. But Trump is getting away with all kinds of things that would sink any other candidate because the media is in love with ratings.)
And hell, I honestly consider Trump to be the more dangerous candidate when it comes to a free and open press. Hell, he's said he wants to make it easier to sue publications if they publish something he doesn't like.
The reason that a lot of these survivalists and preppers think that gold is the thing to have is because they've bought into the hype that gold is the thing to have. "The guy on the TV says I should have this if the world goes to shit. He's got his own TV show, so clearly he's onto something here."
That being said, I've known a few preppers, and it's hardly uniform that they're stockpiling gold. Actually, most of the ones I know focus on having a stockpile of food, water, bullets, etc. like you said. But the ones that make the news are the ones who have stockpiled a shitload of crazy.
Yeah, but because they don't tell you (as a separate line item), the cost of renting the cable modem, you're unable to determine whether or not it's a good deal.
I mean, okay, my cable modem is from Time Warner. I honestly couldn't tell you how much the rent on it is, because the internet service is bundled into the rent I pay.
But let's say I did have the bill for that. A mid-range cable modem costs, what, $100? $150? (Newegg lists some going up to $200.) Let's go with $150.
If the bill says my monthly cable modem rental is $5 a month, it would take 30 months before I've saved money by buying my own. If it's $10 a month, it would take 15 months before I've started saving money.
There's other factors, like how often do you need to replace a cable modem because of age or damage, or whatnot. If you're renting the cable modem, the company should replace it if it breaks, right? Maybe there's an extra fee involved in that, maybe there isn't. Maybe it depends on how often you need the cable modem replaced. If it's your modem, and it starts going south on you, you have to pay the replacement cost. So, that has to be taken into consideration.
But if you don't know these things, because the ISP is hiding them from you, you can't make an informed decision.
It depends on what they say on the stand, and the level of immunity granted. (Keep in mind, that I am not a lawyer.)
Okay, let's say, and why not, that you're called to testify about something IT related for your company. The prosecutor could choose to grant you immunity to prosecution for anything at all you that say on the stand, OR immunity to prosecution for anything that you say on the stand that is related to the case, OR not grant you immunity to prosecution at all.
So, let's say your company was up to various tax related shenanigans. You work in IT, and you have access to all the email records of the company, or various records, or whatever.
The prosecutor, finding out about this, compels you to testify. Now, if you were complicit in the tax shenanigans, maybe you're reluctant to testify. He could charge you, and make you a co-defendant, but maybe he can't prove you were directly involved, that could make his case weaker, etc.
Or he could make you a deal. "Testify about the shenanigans, and I won't prosecute you for the shenanigans."
Or he could make you a blanket deal "You won't be prosecuted for anything you say on the stand." (Although this would be stupid of the prosecutor if he doesn't know exactly how deeply involved in the shenanigans you are, or what else you might confess to.)
Now, by offering immunity from prosecution, the main goal is to get the testimony that you might be reluctant to give. But, see, you're not going to be charged with anything. That removes a huge roadblock. But it doesn't guarantee that the person offered immunity will still testify.
Supporters of Hillary Clinton, not the Clinton campaign.
And the right wing took that football and ran with it. For years. Hell, Trump hasn't given up on it. He's basically said he's dropping it to get his campaign to move on. Sheriff Joe Arpaio STILL thinks the birth certificate is a fake.
Considering how much time the right wing spent on "Is Obama a secret Muslim?" or "Was Obama even born in this country?" or "Tides go in, tides go out, you can't explain that." (Okay, maybe not that last one), they've kind of lost a bit of credibility when it comes to other things.
To play Devil's Advocate, though, wouldn't that mean that it would be 'easier' to impersonate him, in terms of a username?
I mean, think about it. We all know people who use the same username across a lot of social media platforms, or forums, or whatever. If someone was inclined to impersonate him, the fact that he uses the same handle makes it easier to do so.
Please note, I'm not saying that this is the case. But a handle in an otherwise anonymous setting does not and cannot, in and of itself, identify someone.
Try living in the Bible Belt. Back when I worked a retail job, I was routinely handed religious pamphlets, asked if I'd found Jesus (I was not allowed to tell them I didn't know he was missing... at least while I was at work), and so on.
I also had to routinely field questions about whether products and services we offered would be free because "it was for Jesus". (I was also not allowed to say "Well, look, if Jesus comes in to pick up the order, yes, it's free.")
I live in a state that until 2004, tattoo parlors were illegal, because of some religious dingbattery in the state legislature. We still have blue laws in the state concerning what businesses can operate on a Sunday morning.
Now, maybe I'm more sensitive to noticing these things because I'm an atheist, but yeah, this shit is real and all over the place down here.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, if any of the lawyers (or self-representing plaintiffs) are aware that the defendant is fake, then they are committing perjury. Any lawyer who does this is an absolute dumbass, because courts come down hard on these sorts of shenanigans.
I mean, it's one thing if you or I lie on the stand. It's still perjury, but if we're not lawyers (I'm not), then we aren't officers of the court, and there aren't going to ethics review boards crawling up our asses over this.
Well, clearly, the Ghostbusters remake went back in time and ruined his childhood. I saw that on the Internet, so it must be true.
And Milo seems to deliberately distort the idea that just because we have freedom of speech in the U.S., it doesn't require anyone to allow him on their privately owned or publicly traded forums.
The First Amendment protects people from government interference in their speech (with certain exceptions). It does not stop Twitter from banning him (which they did) should they decide to do so.
I think the real reason that Milo wants to buy 4chan is so he can have something resembling a social media platform that he can't be banned from.
If he owns 4chan, they can't ban him from it. Makes complete sense.
You might want to look at some poll numbers there, chief. Yes, Trump is still doing fine in strongly red states. That's because in those states, you could nominate a turnip truck and it would receive the majority of the votes.
The problem is, Trump not only needs to win every single state that Romney won in 2012, he needs to win several battleground states, and that's not happening.
His ground game is non-existent. He has a minuscule presence in Florida, which is one of the most important battleground states. The RNC is in the process of pulling away from him, and he's losing endorsements left and right.
After 2012, the Republican party realized that they cannot ignore the minority voters any more. They started trying to make inroads to Hispanic and African-American voters. Trump torpedoed that shit in the first weeks of his campaign. In the 2012 election, African-American voters made up 13% of the voters. Romney got 6% of that vote. Trump will be lucky if he gets half that.
He's pissed off the minority voter blocks, he's pissed off the establishment Republicans (okay, not all of them are turning away, but enough are that it's going to make a difference), and he's pissed off women voters. In previous elections, you could maybe still win the Presidency if you upset one or two of those groups, but all three?
You do realize that all of those media organizations you named have loved the idea of Trump running for President since he first announced, right?
They are interested in ratings, and Trump (and his many fuckups) brings ratings. They might not like a Trump presidency, but they are digging the three-ring circus that he has turned the election cycle into.
Dear Mr. Shkreli, if you got rectal cancer, would it affect your entire body?
You do realize that the price of tech trends downward over time, right? ENIAC cost over $400,000 at the time (which would be over $6.8 million today), but you have orders of magnitude more processing power on your smartphone, which is what, a couple hundred bucks?
Yes, there's a lot of start-up and investment cost, because we've never done this before. But as we overcome technological limitations, it will become less expensive.
Besides which, the percent of the GDP spent on the military is above 5%, IIRC.
Several weeks back, while I was out for a walk, I waved someone down who was going the wrong way down a one way street. It wasn't even one of those one-way streets where the correct street is a block over. It was something like forty feet away from the road he was on, and all he'd have to do is get to an intersection and get on the correct street.
So, I wave him down, I explain this to him, and he nods. And then continues driving the wrong way down the one-way street. For several more blocks at least. (Possibly to the end of the street where it hits a T-intersection. I couldn't tell.)
So, yeah, people are capable of it, and some of them are incapable of driving correctly even when told they are doing it wrong.
And don't get me started on all the idiots around here who don't seem to know what a turn signal is for. And that includes a surprising number of police officers.
I feel I didn't make myself clear.
You have the Republican candidate attacking veterans for being captured, attacking the families of fallen veterans, and attacking veterans who suffer from PTSD, just to name a few things Trump has done.
If this were any other candidate who ran for the nomination this year, not only would they never have said these attacks, they would have torpedoed their candidacy by doing so.
He's single-handedly destroying any attempt at outreach to the Latino communities that the Republican party acknowledged that they needed to make after 2012, he's talked about ignoring treaty obligations like it's a business deal you can walk away from, AND he's got nothing but praise for Putin. For any Republican post-Reagan, that last one especially should tank his campaign completely. And yet it hasn't. (Okay, it is having an effect... projects.fivethirtyeight.com has his chances of winning the Presidency at just above 27%, and it's been falling for a couple days now. But with the campaign he's been running, it should be a lot lower.)
Now, it could be argued that a lot of his supporters are just along for the ride, because hey, at least it's an entertaining ride, right? And the press (both print and television) has effectively given him a ton of free advertising, because they're addicted to ratings. They can't wait to show us the next clusterfuck that Trump propels himself into.
The thing is, assuming that the New York Times didn't steal the material in question, there's very little they could be sued for successfully. (If Trump just wants to launch nonsensical suits against them, that's different.) It can clearly be argued that the information in question serves the public interest. And if the information wasn't altered, then it's the truth, and generally speaking, the truth is a defense against libel.
Now, Trump is still free to sue them, but it should be a difficult case to win. And nothing is stopping Trump from rambling on at three in the morning about how awful/sad/whatever the Times is.
But that's about all he can do.
Well, it's not like Assange is the one "hacking all the internets" himself. I'd find it highly unlikely that some information on Trump hasn't been sent to Wikileaks, but I suppose it's possible. However, given Trump's reticence to release his tax records (even after promising to do so), it would seem like the kind of thing that someone would try and dig up to send to Wikileaks.
Trump's already threatened legal action against the New York Times for releasing a couple pages of his tax returns from years ago. He'd likely lose that lawsuit, mind you, even if it actually comes to that, but Trump is opposed to anything that shows him in a light other than the one he projects.
But if he's got an important leak, why didn't he make it? Instead, they were hawking books. He's turning into an infomercial.
Don't get me wrong, I think if he's got an important leak to make that would affect the election, I think we should know about it. The problem is, Trump is hiding a bunch of shit as well, and that information could affect the election, and Assange is basically giving him a free pass. (For the record, I consider both major party candidates to be terrible. But Trump is getting away with all kinds of things that would sink any other candidate because the media is in love with ratings.)
And hell, I honestly consider Trump to be the more dangerous candidate when it comes to a free and open press. Hell, he's said he wants to make it easier to sue publications if they publish something he doesn't like.
Or bottlecaps. I mean, come on.
The reason that a lot of these survivalists and preppers think that gold is the thing to have is because they've bought into the hype that gold is the thing to have. "The guy on the TV says I should have this if the world goes to shit. He's got his own TV show, so clearly he's onto something here."
That being said, I've known a few preppers, and it's hardly uniform that they're stockpiling gold. Actually, most of the ones I know focus on having a stockpile of food, water, bullets, etc. like you said. But the ones that make the news are the ones who have stockpiled a shitload of crazy.
Yeah, but because they don't tell you (as a separate line item), the cost of renting the cable modem, you're unable to determine whether or not it's a good deal.
I mean, okay, my cable modem is from Time Warner. I honestly couldn't tell you how much the rent on it is, because the internet service is bundled into the rent I pay.
But let's say I did have the bill for that. A mid-range cable modem costs, what, $100? $150? (Newegg lists some going up to $200.) Let's go with $150.
If the bill says my monthly cable modem rental is $5 a month, it would take 30 months before I've saved money by buying my own. If it's $10 a month, it would take 15 months before I've started saving money.
There's other factors, like how often do you need to replace a cable modem because of age or damage, or whatnot. If you're renting the cable modem, the company should replace it if it breaks, right? Maybe there's an extra fee involved in that, maybe there isn't. Maybe it depends on how often you need the cable modem replaced. If it's your modem, and it starts going south on you, you have to pay the replacement cost. So, that has to be taken into consideration.
But if you don't know these things, because the ISP is hiding them from you, you can't make an informed decision.
It depends on what they say on the stand, and the level of immunity granted. (Keep in mind, that I am not a lawyer.)
Okay, let's say, and why not, that you're called to testify about something IT related for your company. The prosecutor could choose to grant you immunity to prosecution for anything at all you that say on the stand, OR immunity to prosecution for anything that you say on the stand that is related to the case, OR not grant you immunity to prosecution at all.
So, let's say your company was up to various tax related shenanigans. You work in IT, and you have access to all the email records of the company, or various records, or whatever.
The prosecutor, finding out about this, compels you to testify. Now, if you were complicit in the tax shenanigans, maybe you're reluctant to testify. He could charge you, and make you a co-defendant, but maybe he can't prove you were directly involved, that could make his case weaker, etc.
Or he could make you a deal. "Testify about the shenanigans, and I won't prosecute you for the shenanigans."
Or he could make you a blanket deal "You won't be prosecuted for anything you say on the stand." (Although this would be stupid of the prosecutor if he doesn't know exactly how deeply involved in the shenanigans you are, or what else you might confess to.)
Now, by offering immunity from prosecution, the main goal is to get the testimony that you might be reluctant to give. But, see, you're not going to be charged with anything. That removes a huge roadblock. But it doesn't guarantee that the person offered immunity will still testify.
Supporters of Hillary Clinton, not the Clinton campaign.
And the right wing took that football and ran with it. For years. Hell, Trump hasn't given up on it. He's basically said he's dropping it to get his campaign to move on. Sheriff Joe Arpaio STILL thinks the birth certificate is a fake.
I didn't say it was likely. I didn't even say it happened. All I said, is that you can't use a handle to uniquely identify someone.
Considering how much time the right wing spent on "Is Obama a secret Muslim?" or "Was Obama even born in this country?" or "Tides go in, tides go out, you can't explain that." (Okay, maybe not that last one), they've kind of lost a bit of credibility when it comes to other things.
Holy crap, not a whole Wikipedia article?!
Why, it's almost 1/3rd the size of the article on Optimus Prime!
To play Devil's Advocate, though, wouldn't that mean that it would be 'easier' to impersonate him, in terms of a username?
I mean, think about it. We all know people who use the same username across a lot of social media platforms, or forums, or whatever. If someone was inclined to impersonate him, the fact that he uses the same handle makes it easier to do so.
Please note, I'm not saying that this is the case. But a handle in an otherwise anonymous setting does not and cannot, in and of itself, identify someone.
Someone call Michael Bay and tell him about a great movie idea.
How about you do three seconds worth of research and realize that one of the shooters was born in Chicago?
Try living in the Bible Belt. Back when I worked a retail job, I was routinely handed religious pamphlets, asked if I'd found Jesus (I was not allowed to tell them I didn't know he was missing... at least while I was at work), and so on.
I also had to routinely field questions about whether products and services we offered would be free because "it was for Jesus". (I was also not allowed to say "Well, look, if Jesus comes in to pick up the order, yes, it's free.")
I live in a state that until 2004, tattoo parlors were illegal, because of some religious dingbattery in the state legislature. We still have blue laws in the state concerning what businesses can operate on a Sunday morning.
Now, maybe I'm more sensitive to noticing these things because I'm an atheist, but yeah, this shit is real and all over the place down here.