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mothballed

2,359 karma · joined August 16, 2025

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mothballed··on Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship
Hawaii also bizarrely has 14th amendment violating land laws. There is a non-Indian-reservation, state owned land called the "Hawaiian Homelands" where only those of "the blood" of the right people can lease from. This violates the 14th amendment (SCOTUS has ruled Indians are exempted, but Hawaiians were determined in Rice v Cayetano to not be Indians) protections on equal protection under the law of different races to enjoyment of the public lands. No one has bothered to challenge it yet, but I expect especially under this SCOTUS the Homelands will get steamrolled if they do.

Hawaii's 14th and 15th amendment violating laws have slowly been getting flushed out. In ~2000 non "native" local voters could finally vote for all offices (RBG dissented, vouching for racist voting laws and against the 15th amendment), and IIRC not long after that it became possible for those with the wrong "blood" to hold all offices.

mothballed··on Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says
Trump wasn't running on Libertarianism (you can argue he pretended to at the convention, but no one actually buy that) , he was running on "Neither one of us is offering you libertarianism, but I will at least come here and offer you something."
mothballed··on Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship
Yes, lots of them don't want the 14th amendment. They have racist/ethnocentric land ownership laws that contradict the 14th amendment, the same one that creates birthright citizenship.

There are also allegedly some low quasi-government tribal positions in remote areas where women are effectively ineligible for office, though this one is less provable, it also would not be consistent with constitutional protections.

mothballed··on Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says
It's no wonder the fascists won the "libertarian" crypto vote when the message you and sister have for the comments as your campaign slogan to those voters is "your values are fucked" and "at least we're not the guy who showed up and offered you something."

Did you think "your values are fucked" is actually persuasive at garnering votes?

mothballed··on Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship
Give me a plain-text explanation as to why a well-regulated militia can be infringed from having a 1987 select fire infantry rifle but not a 1985 one, both of which are probably the most bread and butter arms you could possibly consider as part of a well-regulated militia. (This despite the plain-text ascribes the right to "people" not the militia, and in any case US code defines virtually every able bodied citizen male as part of the militia). The NFA determinations by SCOTUS don't make sense even if the amendment said it was the militia's right rather than the people's.
mothballed··on Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says
It's not hard to figure out, the fascists have been more explicitly welcoming to crypto freedom or at least put themselves out there to solicit that vote even if you claim their underlying policies aren't. Trump offered the freedom of Ross Ulbricht at the libertarian convention, did Kamala come to the libertarian convention and offer anything?
mothballed··on Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship
This is why American Samoans aren't citizens. They aren't subject to the full jurisdiction of the USA even though they are born in the United States.

Yet you rarely find anyone giving a shit about the American Samoans, you never hear about it.

----- re: below due to throttling---------

>American Samoans aren't citizens because American Samoa is a territory, not a state. Puerto Rico has a special status that was extended to it to grant its residents citizenship – this isn't a status that's automatically granted to all territories, it requires Federal approval which AS has never formally pushed for.

Unless you falsely believe PR or AS are not part of the United States, you are just agreeing with me with extra words regarding the jurisdictional differences. The only option for denying birthright citizenship would be not born in United States, or not subject to jurisdiction thereof.

See this excellent prior comment[] on why the difference between PR and AS is jurisdiction and not whether it is part of the US.

>This seems entirely subjective.

I'm not going to do a formal academic study with you, it's plainly obvious as of late you see far more headlines on hackernews (a search shows a single HN topic on AS citizenship in the history of HN, but full page+ of search results on the birthright citizenship issue at hand) and elsewhere regarding the birthright citizenship issue at hand and far more rarely the fact American Samoans don't get it.

[] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16700413

mothballed··on Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship
Think two steps ahead, people aren't born right out of the sky. It encourages people to illegally enter for their citizenship baby and the parents remain illegal until ~21 years later when they can have the kid sponsor them. In the meantime the parents get free WIC even if they're illegal.
mothballed··on Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship
SCOTUS has not had anything remotely close to a plain text reading since the 1930s and probably longer. "Shall not be infringed" was changed to "if an infantry rifle was made after 1986 then magically it can be infringed" and (until about a week ago when it was overturned) "if you smoke a left-handed cigarette actually the second amendment doesn't exist." The 1st amendment protects freedom of speech but yet it's legal to ban appeals to "prurient interest" even though no such exemption is mentioned. "Interstate commerce" has been changed to mean basically "commerce" and interstate is now interpreted as if it was put there for funsies since everything can be construed as affecting something else in the universe even though the historical context makes clear that's not how the text was interpreted by the writers.

Every other amendment including the 1st, 2nd, etc even when explicitly spelled out the courts magically pull something out of their ass to "torture it." Yet the 14th amendment birthright citizenship, who's "history and tradition" was to right the wrongs of slavery, somehow has to be read absolutely in black and white.

Personally I am amenable to the plain text interpretation of the 14th, 1st, and 2nd, but lets not pretend that is the game SCOTUS or even most of government and society is playing. The constitution is referenced more as a religious document by all the above to mean whatever it is they say it means.

mothballed··on One million passports leaked online
You were ridiculed because I never stated the EU was a country. I said I didn't know how things work in the EU, not that everywhere you go in the EU it would be the same (in fact, I explicitly stated, I did not know how the system worked in Spain specifically to denote national differences in law in the EU). Your malicious use of feigned lack of reading comprehension merits the response.

No surprise you got back what you dished out.

mothballed··on One million passports leaked online
This is half true. Medical cannabis is now schedule III, with state programs explicitly placed into sched III (even without FDA approval) making it fully federal legal in that case.
mothballed··on One million passports leaked online
Medical marijuana is linked to the PMP in my state.

https://azcir.org/news/2025/04/10/are-az-medical-marijuana-c...

mothballed··on 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech
They are incompetent at catching crime generated by other people. They're very good at catching crime they generate themselves.
mothballed··on One million passports leaked online
There is an issue with active exploitation of passports, of course the scale can change. Due to banking KYC / other KYC laws there's a market for these copied identities and of course so criminals don't even get a speedbump by KYC whereas the boot is used up the ass of the normal person trying to pass KYC when they're missing some stupid document like proof of address.
mothballed··on One million passports leaked online
I'm not sure how it works in the EU, but in the US, most states have a "PMP" (prescription monitoring program) that tracks the sale of marijuana in many states (nevermind that its not an actual prescription, but it is a controlled substance) and viewable by your doctor back up to ~12 months or so. Most people don't know this however and think it works like alcohol sales where it's sold after ID verification and then everyone forgets about it. Some states treat marijuana sales like prescription drug dispensing, it has to be reported to a central database including the intimate details of the persons involved. I have no idea if this is the case in Spain, however.
mothballed··on US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections
If you ask me personally, I think the federal reserve as a non-executive non-congressional agency is insane, yes. But as a legal question I would hope the president has to establish the control he's exerting is actually in the executive branch before he tries to exercise constitutional powers of the executive branch that supersede contradictive law.

It would be pretty nuts if the president could just fire whomever he wants no matter what branch they are in based on a simple declaration he considers them to be in the executive branch.

mothballed··on US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections
Slaughter says POTUS can fire commissioners in the executive branch. Cook says Trump isn't King and can only directly fire people actually in the executive branch and Trump wasn't able to prove the federal reserve was situated there.

Prove the federal reserve is in the executive branch, and that the ruling of Cook presumed it was, and then you have a point.

I fail to see the inconsistancy.

mothballed··on US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections
SCOTUS ruled if something is in the executive branch, POTUS can fire the commissioner. Congress and everyone else explicitly is saying the FTC is in the executive branch, which puts it in a completely different question that regarding the federal reserve.

The ruling in Slaughter was not that president can fire commissioners no matter what branch they are in. It was never established in Trump v Cook that the federal reserve lies in the executive branch.

Your attempt here to falsely portray an inconsistency that doesn't exist. It's a different question as to whether the federal reserve is in the executive branch. You'll have to show the federal reserve is in the executive branch if you want the same ruling to apply or claim this inconsistency.

mothballed··on US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections
I see and acknowledge your point. But going back to

>Slaughter determined that agencies congress had ceded to the executive branch had control of the executive.

Congress ceded FTC to the executive branch. Congress put the Federal Reserve in some magical land, outside the executive branch, that doesn't even make sense.

My theory was that SCOTUS ruled the executive had this power over the agencies executive branch. Seems SCOTUS doesn't want to touch federal reserve question with a 10 foot pole. But going back to my original theory, it is a slightly different framing, since everyone involved freely agrees FTC is an executive agency while the federal reserve does not enjoy this agreement.

I do agree the federal reserve as independent makes no sense but I don't think it's the same question posed since you're not starting with the assumption the agency in question is an executive agency. SCOTUS seems to have ruled that an agency in the executive branch has executive control, while not going so far as to determine that the federal reserve is in the executive branch which is an entirely different question.

It's important to note SCOTUS is too chickenshit to rule on anything but in the most narrow way possible. If you ask them to rule on something with a prior established fact that it's in the executive branch you're likely going to get a very narrow ruling that doesn't try to create a unifying theory of everything.

mothballed··on US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections
Congress fucks up as well. There's as pretty strong argument that "independence" from the executive power vested in the POTUS and legislative branch puts that power in a place not authorized anywhere in the constitution, and for good reason, as the design of the constitution intends elected office to have direct control over powers of congress and the executive.
mothballed··on US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections
In this case, it did, that's why SCOTUS ruled against it.
mothballed··on US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections
Statutes don't supersede the constitution and passing one doesn't create that power.
mothballed··on US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections
Slaughter determined that agencies congress had ceded to the executive branch had control of the executive. It doesn't stop congress from directly exercising that power instead. It just says you can't play the fuck-fuck game where you pretend to create an agency in the executive branch but actually violate the constitution by trying to create a new branch.
mothballed··on Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors
I'm not sure how on earth you could consider marriage a lifetime contract when it's no-fault divorce at any second. The divorce process is at-will, though it takes some time to finalize.
mothballed··on Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors
It's a good point, the counterpoint is, he really only had to cushion the post-association lifestyle of one of thousands whom became dependent on his amazon business, a tiny fraction. A typical pleb will be held to cushion the lifestyle of nearly everyone who depends on their paycheck if someone decides to terminate the relationship (usually, their spouse and kids -- in USA this doesn't extend to elderly parents though it does in some other countries).
mothballed··on Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors
Sure, but the interest of "society" is what judges typically claim to represent when they bang that gavil.

If you wish to change it to "the law of society" which is what "society" backs with violence, go for it.

mothballed··on Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors
Society is incredibly inconsistent on this point. If a CEO shit-cans 500 people who sacrificed future career prospects for the company and end up destitute, society say's that's capitalism and they need to learn to code in a month or something. If a stay at home wife gets "bored" and divorces her husband of 20 years, he commonly owes her a decade+ of alimony to "make up for the sacrifice and time to get on her feet" or some such.

As usual it's communism for the plebs and something entirely different for the capital wielding class.

mothballed··on There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days
At age 50 you contract to do the thing the young bucks butchered after the investors / executives realize what happened and beg for a "hired gun" to get it done. Then you GTFO.
mothballed··on Venezuela reveals $240B in debt it cannot pay (~$100B more than expected)
They know what they're doing, it just looks like they don't because they're not doing the thing people think they're doing.

This includes the war with Iran. Double dipping by fueling the military industrial complex blowing it up, then they'll be influencing who gets the contracts for the $300B secured. It makes no sense from a geopolitical standpoint. It makes perfect sense from the perspective of enriching influential persons.

mothballed··on The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

  An investigation by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration found significant failures by California, Washington, and New Mexico to properly place drivers out-of-service for ELP violations. In addition to the data, California Highway Patrol has also publicly stated it has no intention of following this important federal regulation.   

  California – California has failed to adopt and enforce compatible ELP laws and regulations. From June 25, 2025 through August 21, 2025, of the roughly 34,000 inspections resulting in at least one reported violation, only one inspection involved an ELP violation resulting in a driver being placed out of service. Notably, at least 23 drivers with documented ELP out-of-service violations in other states were later inspected in California – yet the state failed to honor those violations or enforce ELP, allowing unqualified drivers to continue operating on our roads.

https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/trumps-transpor...
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