Right, but most modern cars have that communication built in, because they use it to update firmware remotely. You can’t turn it off even if you wanted to. Many car companies justify it by saying it is needed to give your location to emergency services if you use their alert button.

I tend to agree (and also an EE). Airplane mode isn’t a total panacea, though. It just disables the cellular radio. While it also disables the Wifi and Bluetooth, those can always be turned back on, even while Airplane Mode is active. A motivated state actor can absolutely track via Wifi or Bluetooth. (Possibly even NFC, but the range on that is so low that I think it would impossible to do without seeing what is tracking you).

Turning the phone off is the best solution if you want to keep rhe phone on your person. Guaranteed that all possible avenues for tracking is off, and also has the advantage that even if the phone is seized, the latest phone OSes require the passcode before doing anything at all when they first power up. Even the Police are limited in the data they can get off a phone that has just powered up and is asking for the passcode.

Even the people who are against crypto are probably shilling something. Same song, different key.

The goodest boy in Washington today

I’d love to see him run, and I hope he gets a meaningful debate in before the DNC stacks the deck for Newsom

Reddit still publishes RSS feeds, so you can use an RSS reader to see the latest stuff. You can’t interact with it, but who wants to trade shit posts with bots anyway?

This is how I keep up with my Sportsball teams since that community hasn’t really taken off here yet.

What’s RIF? I joined when BaconReader stopped working

I’m saying that States cannot have Federal referendums. States can have State Referendums. More than one state can hold a referendum at the same time if their own Constitutions allow it, but they are all still State Referendums.

The Federal government does not have the power to hold country-wide referendums, it would have to be given the power through an amendment, which would also specify the parameters (and, more importantly, the limits) of this new power the people are giving to its Federal Government.

(This all assumes the Constitution still matters, which is a matter for debate these days)

Believe it or not, the US has no mechanism for a national election. While the Federal Government sets guidelines for elections, each state runs its own. Every election is on the state level. Even the Presidential Election, thanks to the Electoral College, is really just a weighted sum of the outcome of 50 state elections (and DC).

Even Constitutional Amendments go through a state-by-state ratification process.

I think it’s impossible to do any sort of true nationwide referendum without a Constitutional Amendment happening first. Remember that the Constitution explicitly states that any powers not explicitly given to the Federal Government are reserved for the States (and the People). So the power to have Federal referendums would need to be explicitly granted.

Which one? They both suck.

He even declared it an invasion of “military-aged men” at the time. He did that right around the time that the Supreme Court held that Trump couldn’t be held off the ballot for formenting insurrection.

I am confident that if that ruling went the other way, Abbot would have declared an invasion was in progress, that Democrats were aiding it, and thrown Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and every single Democrat off the ballot in Texas.

called it!

TACO trucks, even

Since when does Trump listen to scholars?

My biggest issue is with how AI is being marketed, particularly by Apple. Every single Apple Intelligence commercial is about a mediocre person who is not up to the task in front of them, but asks their iPhone for help and ends up skating by. Their families are happy, their co-workers are impressed, and they learn nothing about how to handle the task on their own the next time except that their phone bailed their lame ass out.

It seems to be a reflection of our current political climate, though, where expertise is ignored, competence is scorned, and everyone is out for themselves.

NYT has some video of some troops guarding the “Metropolitan Detention Center”, so we have proof of at least the seven troops pictured.

This might be one area where our layered system of government is an advantage, though, because State governments have real power that is separate from the Federal Government. The Founders valued this, too: the 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights explicitly says that any power not explicitly delegated to the Federal government belongs to the States (and to the people).

So even this President, who aims to rule as a dictator, can’t exercise every power unless the States roll over and let him. And say what you will about Newsom and his pivot to the Right, but he will not roll over for Trump, nor will other Democratic governors.

Other democracies devolved into Dictatorship because the dictator effectively captured all the levera of government. Here, that is extremely hard. Even after capturing Congress and (mostly) the Supreme Court, he still doesnt have it all.

That is a lot harder to do, within the bounds of the law at least.

Ironically, though, California is one of a small handful of states that allow for recall elections of all elected office holders, up to and including the Governor. Recall that Arnold Schwarzenegger became Governer there due to a recall election. So if his goal is to start ejecting Governors he doesn’t like, California is a good place to start.

But Newsom has already survived one recall attempt, and since he seems to be the Next One Up for Democrats to nominate in 2028, Trump may not be eager to run a recall campaign that might lose, because Newsom will remind everyone that he “beat Trump” on the campaign trail. (And there is no guarantee that Musk won’t start tossing money at Newsom, who is enough of a schemer to accept it.)

Walz hit a nerve when he called them all weird. Because they are! We don’t need to double down on memes, but we do need to explain, in simple terms, why Trumpism is so awful.

And I don’t say “simple” because people are dumb, I say it because people are busy and don’t always have time to think things through.