The election interference case is back from its gap year at the Supreme Court, and Trump is back on his BS.

Trump’s lawyers have resumed spewing unsupported allegations of political persecution, only this time the oppressor is
“the Biden-Harris DOJ,”
not “the Biden Justice Department.”

It’s a little too on the nose for a brief accusing the special counsel of playing politics.

But more significantly, every filing in this case is now conditional on what happens four weeks from yesterday.

There’s an invisible asterisk on every pleading, dropping to a footnote that says
“*Pending results on November 5.”

Trump’s corruption is simply taken for granted,
and everyone involved knows that, if he gets elected, this case goes away next January 20
when he fires Special Counsel Jack Smith and begins his promised purge of the DOJ.

And so the parties are preparing to litigate in a post-election world where Trump is neither the candidate, nor the president.

And if he gets walloped, he may even be persona non grata with the powers that be in the GOP.

It’s a vibe shift for the parties and the court itself.

Trump’s Plan:
Lose on immunity. Appeal. Repeat forever.

Trump’s strategy has always been to push his criminal cases until after the election.

And with the exception of the false business records case in New York, it worked.

But even if he loses the election, delay will still be his primary play.

In the first go-round, Trump was able to extract eight months from the DC Circuit and the Supreme Court.

That’s because executive immunity is designed to protect a defendant, not just from the verdict, but from the burden of the trial itself.

And so, while regular appeals must wait until the trial concludes, immunity rulings can be appealed immediately through what’s known as an interlocutory appeal.

publicnotice.co/p/trump-chutka…

I had planned for Vaporpad to place a taller d-pad over the Steam Deck's d-pad to raise it up above the faceplate, in the same way I'm doing for the two plain buttons on that side.

Now, having printed a couple of test pieces, I'm not so sure: the d-pad is weird because it *tilts* when you press it, as part of normal use. You can't just constrain the thing to only move vertically and be done with it like you can with regular buttons.

So now I'm being indecisive about what to do about it. Options I've come up with so far:
- reshape it so it can tilt in the hole and hopefully not rattle around too much
- put four normal proxy-buttons over it that only move vertically
- cover up the d-pad and add four (five?) more keyboard buttons in its place, default bound to the relevant joystick buttons (qmk lets you do this because it's wonderfully indecisive about which kind of device it's supposed to be emulating)
- or cut the entire top half of the Vaporpad off right below the d-pad, relocate or remove the four buttons that are up there, and find another way to mount it and another place to put the USB port?

#theWorkshop #SteamDeck

Forty-four men have succeeded George Washington so far.
Some became titans;
others finished their terms without distinction;
a few ended their service to the nation in ignominy.

But each of them knew that the day would come when it would be their duty and honor to return the presidency to the people.
All but one, that is.
Donald Trump and his authoritarian political movement represent an existential threat to every ideal that Washington cherished and encouraged in his new nation.
They are the incarnation of Washington’s misgivings about populism, partisanship, and the “spirit of revenge” that Washington lamented as the animating force of party politics.
Washington feared that, amid constant political warfare, some citizens would come to “seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual,” and that eventually a demagogue would exploit that sentiment.
Today, America stands at such a moment.
A vengeful and emotionally unstable former president
—a convicted felon, an insurrectionist, an admirer of foreign dictators, a racist and a misogynist
—desires to return to office as an autocrat.
Trump has left no doubt about his intentions;
he practically shouts them every chance he gets.
His deepest motives are to salve his ego, punish his enemies, and place himself above the law.
Should he regain the Oval Office, he may well bring with him the experience and the means to complete the authoritarian project that he began in his first term.

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

Now that Judge #Amit #Mehta has found #Google is a #monopolist
-- lawyers for the Department of Justice have begun proposing solutions to correct the company’s illegal behavior and restore competition to the market for search engines.

In a new 32-page filing, they said they are considering both “behavioral and structural remedies“

That covers everything from applying ♦️a consent decree to keep an eye on the company’s behavior
to ♦️forcing it to sell off parts of its business, such as Chrome, Android, or Google Play.

"Similarly, Plaintiffs are considering behavioral and structural remedies that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play, and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products and features — including emerging search access points and features, such as artificial intelligence — over rivals or new entrants. "

But the first problem cited in the filing is 💥Google’s control of search distribution, 💥and the amount of money it pays to be the default option on platforms like Apple’s iPhone.
The DOJ lawyers write that “rivals cannot compete for these distribution channels because Google’s monopoly-funded revenue share payments disincentivize its partners from diverting queries to Google’s rivals.”
♦️Other fixes the DOJ is considering include things that affect user behavior,
like 🔸requiring “Google to provide support for educational-awareness campaigns that would enhance the ability of users to choose the general search engine that suits them best.”

In a response on its blog late Tuesday, Google claimed the proposed framework “goes well beyond the legal scope of the Court’s decision about Search distribution contracts,”
and that “[s]plitting off Chrome or Android would break them.”
Google claims that billions of people get online thanks to Chrome and Android existing as free products,
and that “[f]ew companies would have the ability or incentive to keep them open source, or to invest in them at the same level we do.”
theverge.com/2024/10/8/2426583…