@jcmacomber What? No.
The justices are losing the trust of the American people at the hands of reporters writing sensationalized, muck-wracking stories that get clicks.
Apparent conflicts of interest? How apparent? Well as a parent as the reporters can possibly write, as they sell ads.
We need to be real clear about how this is working. It's very antisocial, and the reporters need to be called out for the damage they're doing to society.
@kenwhite.bsky.social just goes to emphasize that we should press reporters to provide citations to such public information.
There is no reason in the world that any report about a court case doesn't provide a quick and easy link to the case itself.
But the norm, unfortunately, is for them to provide their interpretation without any link for you to follow up for more.
@TheOldGuy The problem is that it fails to fulfill that guarantee.
So it's an expensive failure that detracts from governmental resources.
@selfcare It's not, though.
Lorde is wrong and it's worth calling that out.
@immibis No, it's not particularly strange, because words have meanings.
Yeah, terrorism is terrorism and other things are other things.
@baltakatei you don't know that there are space companies besides SpaceX?
There are quite a few of them...
@Savvyhomestead sounds like you might be confusing the judicial system with the other branch of government, the prosecutors.
@dougiec3 No, that's not how the record works Republicans were rejecting the spending bill before Elon got involved, so let's be clear: Elon tried to ride the coattails of this thing, and far too many people are buying into elon's story that he was actually important here.
We should say no, dude, this wasn't about you, you're just not that important.
@bespacific No, that's not how that works
@rdfranke keep in mind that more Democrats are voting for the shutdown than Republicans.
@darulharb Americans keep reelecting these people who suck at their jobs, so...
Apparently we like it this way?
We should stop reelecting these idiots.
@crecente Hank Johnson is apparently talking about Elon Musk, who has no vote in Congress, but how did Johnson vote?
Did he vote against funding government? Or is he trying to deflect the authority that he actually has towards someone who has no actual authority in this?
Elon Musk is not in Congress. He has no authority here. But a whole lot of people who could vote to fund government sure seem eager to talk about Elon instead of actually doing their jobs.
#Democrats overwhelmingly voted against keeping government open.
That really gets lost in all of the media discussion about this. But it really needs to be emphasized. Did your representative vote against keeping government open? You should know that, and hold them accountable for that vote.
@daedalean when you look at the voting roles you'll see plenty of them.
@dougiec3 no, the thing people miss is that Johnson doesn't work for the president. In fact, the exact opposite: the Speaker of the House works for all House members.
It's not Trump putting Johnson in a bind, but the members, including Democrats, that refuse to work together because they generally see political advantage in keeping the fight going.
Trump and Musk only matter to the extent that House members want to use them as fodder.
We need to emphasize that this is the House members that we elected causing this. We need to hold our representatives accountable for their positions, not let them pass the buck to Trump.
After all, that just plays into Trump's hands.
@napocornejo It's not much different from a ton of other government operations that have been going on for a long time.
Plus, the US government already holds Bitcoin. That part isn't actually new. This sort of formalizes it.
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)