Ivan Gayton

There is never any shame in using the library, and much benefit in doing so. They are the closest thing to an unmitigated social good that we have in these United States, which is why the hard right is gunning so fervently for them these days. A world without libraries and librarians is a poor one.

My book-buying budget is not what it once was, which is precisely why I’m using the library more. It also gives me the opportunity to read books that I’m not sure I want to add to the home library (not that there’s a lot of room to do that anyway).

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Ivan Gayton

Reply to

Courtney Milan

In return, I want them to be able to download and save the content and actually be able to access it if the entity they bought it from goes belly up.

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Ivan Gayton

Reply to

Courtney Milan

One of the reasons I don’t spend time caring about piracy, and why I try to make sure my books are DRM free where possible, is that I believe most people in this world will throw a few dollars to an author in return for something that makes them happy if they have the capacity to do so.

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Ivan Gayton

I keep remembering that the official Republican solution to gun violence is just... more gun violence. "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" means the plan -- the only plan -- is that AFTER the shooting starts, there's more shooting. Prevention isn't even considered.

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Ivan Gayton

Why’s that, Francis? Did something happen?

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Ivan Gayton

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Ivan Gayton

I talked a man who said “Hamas is spreading images of dead children to gain sympathy” so I told him Israel should stop killing children. Problem solved 😡

'Horrific Massacre': Israel Bombs Gaza School Used as Refugee Camp, Killing Dozens | Common Dreamswww.commondreams.org "Schools have gone from safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death and misery," said UNRWA's commissioner-general.

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Ivan Gayton

Sociopathic capitalism: Private Equity firms are buying up asbestos liability claims and gambling that poisoning victims will die, or go broke trying to get compensated for the damages they’re owed. Wall St calls this an “investment.”

Wall Street Is Investing In Your Asbestos Poisoningwww.levernews.com Private equity firms are buying up asbestos liability claims — and asbestos victims will pay the price.

Is anyone surprised by an alliance between the genocidal Israeli government and a party descended (both literally and politically) from the European antisemitic, Holocaust-minimizing, white supremacist right? www.google.com/amp/s/www.ti...

Far-right Le Pen would be ‘excellent’ as French president, says Likud ministerwww.google.com Amichai Chikli claims Netanyahu shares his opinion that anti-immigration politician, who wants to limit public expressions of religion, is good for Israel

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Ivan Gayton

"subjected to", is a nice touch. Implies that white people are somehow victims of a Black woman in the WH

Subtle. Very subtle.

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Ivan Gayton

Lessons I've learned from the LLM era (list to be expanded, probably): 1. Sufficiently advanced autocomplete is indistinguishable from an impossibly well-read toddler on peyote. 2. Almost any decision has the potential to be a life-or-death decision, if you're bad enough at it.

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Ivan Gayton

I think what’s getting lost in translation here is that liberals think leftists are too inflexible to suck it up and vote liberal for the greater good—and we’re trying to tell you that we have BEEN. DOING. THAT (I voted for Biden in ‘20!) and we are tired of the DNC pulling the fucking football away

A UK judge "said that while civil servants were obliged to refuse to follow instructions that would be unlawful under domestic law, there was no equivalent rule regarding international law." I believe there was a relevant precedent set in Nuremberg a while back? www.theguardian.com/politics/art...

Civil servants obliged to carry out Tory Rwanda deportations, court ruleswww.theguardian.com Union for civil servants claimed Home Office staff could be open to prosecution if Strasbourg rulings on Rwanda ignored

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Ivan Gayton

...And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Liz Truss! PORK MARKETS!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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Ivan Gayton

claiming hypocrisy in cases like this is missing the point. they have completely consistent beliefs: they and their friends should be able to do whatever they want without consequence, and everyone else should be subservient to them.

The hypocrisy, it burns.

Justice John Roberts Saying The President Is 'Bound By The Law' During Confirmation Hearing Resurfaces After Immunity Rulingbit.ly John Roberts previously said presidents are "bound by the law" during his confirmation hearing.

Watched My Dad the Bounty Hunter with my daughters. Initially underwhelmed (animation not great, slapstick that doesn't always land), but once we got into it we loved it. It's a Black story, and this did something remarkable for my family as we watched it: 1/N en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Dad_...

My Dad the Bounty Hunter - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

The US Supreme Court has ruled that President Biden can deport the conservative wing of the Supreme Court to Haiti in a shipping container without airholes and deploy a sniper team to supervise the Fox News coverage thereof. They want to ensure that the executive feels free to take decisive action.

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Ivan Gayton

I kinda feel like now that the Supreme Court has declared it legal for a president to straight-up murder people they don't like, it's probably even more important to not elect people who seem extremely inclined to murder people they don't like

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Ivan Gayton

The Heritage Foundation is promising not to hurt us provided we surrender unconditionally

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" www.mediamatters.org/project-2025...

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court immunity decision: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution"www.mediamatters.org

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Ivan Gayton

This man is making his evil intentions as crystal-clear as they possibly could be, and everyone who cares about humanity should be blasting that message out in every possible venue.

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court immunity decision: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution"www.mediamatters.org

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Ivan Gayton

He's right. They're stealing the country from us and ending democracy. "Bloodless if the left allows it to be" is a threat to kill anyone who fights back

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court immunity decision: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution"www.mediamatters.org

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Ivan Gayton

Isn't it interesting that they're trying to frame themselves as initiating *that* war instead of the Civil War? Wannabe Confederates still don't like being called what they are. Probably because it reminds them they lost the first time.

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court immunity decision: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution"www.mediamatters.org

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Ivan Gayton

"That the public interest might also be served, perhaps, by using the criminal courts to hold the president accountable for attempting a coup, is absent from this opinion."

my quick and dirty response to the immunity ruling (hed is just a slice of it) newrepublic.com/article/1833...

Sotomayor Exposed the Court Conservatives’ Hypocrisy With One Linenewrepublic.com The liberal justice, dissenting from the majority's ruling on Trump's immunity case, quoted the court's Dobbs decision back to them.

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Ivan Gayton

Again, Black people are an exception here, as basically anyone who stayed in the Jim Crow South has a living memory of living under what amounted to fascism, including the “always walking on eggshells/lack of social trust/long periods of boring endurance/randomized terrifying violence”

Pretty much. What it mostly boils down to is that most Americans really don’t have the faintest idea what living under modern authoritarian regimes actually looks like, and how it’s often at the same time way more boring and way more scary than they’d imagined.

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Ivan Gayton

Indeed, American Black people HAVE had very recent, living memory experience of being subject to an authoritarian US regime. It would be wise to listen to them.

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Ivan Gayton

Not many people know that in a similar way to Panama being a flag of convenience for dodgy marine stuff Canada is a flag of convenience for mining companies that violate human rights and environmental laws.

Happy Canada Day! Never forget Canadian mining companies overseas are some of the worst offenders for labour and environmental violations.