Spyke

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Conservative groups draw up plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision

the Heritage project leans into what legal scholars refer to as a unitary view of executive power that suggests the president has broad authority to act alone.

Did the fascists not just come for student loan forgiveness on the bullshit claim that Biden didn't have the executive power to do something like that?

Fuck these traitorous pieces of shit. If this shit doesn't stop we're about to be living in the fucking Pinochet regime (which was the brainchild of American conservatives, because of course it fucking was) and academics and musicians and authors are going to start getting disappeared along with our LGBTQ family, friends and neighbors. What a fucking shit show. And apparently there's not much we can do about it, except vote. As though that's ever done a fucking thing with an absolute anachronism of an electoral system.

I can't help the nihilism sometimes, jfc.

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HP insists you must use their cloud printing service, covers USB port with sticker

I guess I'm not understanding all the comments saying "why is anyone buying printers anymore? What do you need to print at home? Just buy a Brother or don't buy one at all."

Do you really need to understand why someone wants or needs a printer? Do people need to be explaining their purchases so we can all decide if they deserve to get scammed by HP or not? It doesn't matter why they bought it, whether it's a want or a need, whether it's the "right" brand, etc. They still don't deserve to get scammed out of their money by some bullshit company that can brick their device whenever they feel like. If you pay for something, it should belong to you. Period.

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Silicon Valley elites revealed as buyers of $800m of land to build utopian city

I fucking hate that they used the term "empty" land. The poll question posed to residents asked them if they would be more in favor if they knew it was "bad soil" that only contributed to 5% of CA agriculture, as though making money is all that land is good for.

Yes, Fairfield, CA is kind of a shit hole. But NorCal open land is absolutely beautiful, like all of California. Every single fucking time I go there, which is pretty frequently, there are new mcmansion housing developments and business parks and data centers that are starting to be built or have just finished. There are protected wetlands between Sacramento and the east bay (far east) where migratory birds come back every year. Just because they don't build on the fucking wetlands doesn't mean this constant building isn't going to affect what little nature is left. I'm so fucking sick of seeing my home paved over for profit and I feel so powerless to do anything. Because I am powerless.

As if that weren't enough, we all know this is going to be some walled-off rich-people city where they can escape from us proles, right? Sick shit.

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My landlord wants my potted plant gone :(

I think I already know the answer to this, but wtf is it about landlords never wanting to discuss things through email? Or text?

After my landlord continued to say "let's discuss this in person" I finally just said "no, I would like a record of the conversation, thanks." The noise complaint I initially contacted them about has never been solved a year later and I still live with the neighbors stomping day in and out. They wanted "proof," I sent them multiple videos with audio. They wanted me to call maintenance, I called maintenance - because the landlord insisted it was something in the pipes (?) When I discussed it with maintenance, they said they knew it wasn't. Nothing changed after they came, (they just looked at some kind of vent on the roof) but the landlord seemed satisfied that they'd tried, even though it did nothing. The landlord had been trying to go around the maintenance work order form online and have them call me instead. I filled out a form anyway.

I didn't mean to go on a rant, it's just so frustrating when you know that they know that they're in the wrong, but there's nothing you can do except take as many notes as possible in case it gets bad later on.

Good luck, I hope your plant prevails.

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After $700 Million U.S. Bailout, Trucking Firm Is Shutting Down

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Yellow has paid approximately $66 million in interest on the loan, but it has repaid just $230 of the principal owed on the loan, which comes due next year.

Which is exactly what students deal with every day. But it's ok to give millions of dollars to criminals, just not to students who are trying to improve themselves and the economy. If a college student cheated on their federal taxes for seven years, would they get a government bailout?

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Women in China are telling each other to bring their boyfriends to see 'Barbie' — and to use it as a litmus test for their thoughts on feminism and patriarchy

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It's very obvious here that no one is saying "if you don't like a Barbie movie then you're sexist." The point is if you don't agree with equality, whether in a movie or irl, then that's the problem. But I feel like you probably already know this.

But yes, if people from certain religions and political parties would just stop with the racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia, maybe people wouldn't feel the need to express cultural values the oppression they're experiencing. Maybe consumers wouldn't identify so much with the message of films like this. Yet somehow it's always positive media like this that gets pushback, and meanwhile, laws keep getting passed in bumfuck states that are stripping human rights from people one by one. But sure, Barbie is the "exhausting" issue here.

In other words, maybe there wouldn't be media "pushing" for equality if we already had it.

And idk, I find Marvel/superhero bullshit to be exhausting and immature and just bad, so I don't watch any of it, I block everything about it on lemmy and reddit, and I don't comment on it. Then it's not exhausting anymore.

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internet points

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Like the other response to this said, it's a little more complicated than "the status quo is easier" or "intelligent doesn't mean smart." This is a deeply ingrained system that's existed for a long time, and if you don't operate within it, you don't get to work in academia. You won't get to conduct your research to begin with, much less will you get to the point of publishing it without cooperating with these institutions. There are also powerful regulatory bodies like the APA and AMA who control just about everything in their field. You pretty much have to work for a university, and US universities are of course greedy and corrupt in their own right.

It would be like unseating the DNC, ending the electoral college, and expanding the two party system in America, but on a smaller scale. Plenty of Americans know that these things need to happen, but it's not something where you can just wake up one day and make the decision to overthrow the system as long as you just try real hard.