Ric Stubbs

Ric Stubbs

@stubbazubba.bsky.social

246

Posts

National security lawyer (all views strictly my own), TTRPG enthusiast, Tolkien lover, occasional songwriter, and a partridge in a pear tree. He/him.

Cover photo: concept art for Númenor in The Rings of Power.

Posts Replies Media

I'm just shocked that in the wake of an assassination attempt, Trump put a guy with no loyalty or scruples or principles beyond increasing his own power in the position that will benefit immensely from his death.

That's what got him the job, no?

I'm really tired of going to work every day in a field built entirely on the idea that common principles and rules apply to everyone while powerful players just shamelessly tear up every rule that is applied to one guy in particular.

The whole thread.

Institutions work until they don’t. It’s banal but true. Courts as institutions worked when Trump tried to steal the election, but FedSoc has been chipping away at them for decades, and I think it is very rational to doubt they will work any more to restrain an executive.

This is just one issue of several dozen left in this case's docket. She can do this now and then do that later, too. 😮‍💨

For echoing a Supreme Court Justice's published opinion? No matter how deranged that opinion, I don't expect the 11th Cir to say "Judges should know better than to agree with the crazy Supreme Court Justice, obviously."

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it's not that he's changed his mind about trump, really. it's more that he's changed his mind about hitler.

I get that he’s taken it all back, including when he said he feared Trump would be America’s Hitler, but I guess my position is… I have never gone to work for someone I’ve ever in any point in my life compared directly to Adolf Hitler… and it’s a fair question… www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Trump Taps J.D. Vance as Running Matewww.rollingstone.com Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he has selected Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his 2024 running mate.

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absolutely brilliant. the cataloging of violent imagery from the right is incredible. i mean, we all know this, but it’s striking to see it in one paragraph.

Well I'm given to understand that today & for a VERY limited time, our nation's political violence party is shocked—shocked!—to learn that we currently live in a world of normalized political violence, and would like very much to know who is to blame. Full Essay: www.the-reframe.com/gambling-in-...

Gambling In Casablancawww.the-reframe.com Being blamed for a world of political violence by the people who force us to live in it, and are now shocked-shocked!—by it. Navigating the daily trauma of living in a bully's paradise.

Good.

The IRS reported Wednesday that it has collected $1 billion in taxes and penalties owed by hundreds of wealthy households who accumulated past-due tax debts for years while IRS enforcement dwindled.

IRS reports collecting $1 billion from rich households’ back taxeswapo.st For years, the tax agency simply didn’t try collecting sizable debts owed by 1,600 filers with annual incomes of at least $1 million.

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Pwnallthethings

"New occasions teach new duties/ Time makes ancient good uncouth They must upward still, and onward/ Who would keep abreast of Truth." -- James Russell Lowell, "The Present Crisis," 1845

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A reminder that the ancient world was incredibly diverse and interconnected even over thousands of miles, and in TTRPGs—even fantasy TTRPGs—ignoring or excluding this fact is the opposite of "realistic". Populate your worlds with many different peoples. #TTRPG

this absolutely blew my mind it's the coolest thing i've read in a minute www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hidd...

A Buried Ancient Egyptian Port Reveals the Hidden Connections Between Distant Civilizationswww.smithsonianmag.com At the site of Berenike, in the desert sands along the Red Sea, archaeologists are uncovering wondrous new finds that challenge old ideas about the makings of the modern world

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I will bang this drum forever: in THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE: THE GERMANS, 1933-45 Milton Mayer interviewed 10 ordinary Germans after WW2 to learn how fascism took hold. There was never a moment when everyone woke up:

if you’re waiting for everyone around you to wake up, you’ll wait forever. this is how the people grinding our bones to make their bread WANT you to be. paralyzed, alienated & purposeless

Your way

Michael Tae Sweeney

It's a promise to kill people they want and then claim they were fighting back.

On Jan 6th, at least for a while, there was a silver lining that the fever might just break, enough people would snap out of it for long enough to impose a real consequence, and we would, in fact, emerge stronger.

"These uppity dissenters..."

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There are two elements to the immunity decision that are particularly extreme in a way that many will miss: (1) motive is irrelevant and (2) immune acts are not just excluded from prosecution, they’re excluded from evidence. /1

National Security Counselors 🕵

Unless they're a Democrat in a Republican administration, of course.

National Security Counselors 🕵

No no no, whomever the *President* wants.

Hasn't this basically been the goal of the entire Republican project since Nixon, though? It's the culmination of 50 years of grievance politics.

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The president is himself forever immune from prosecution for crimes committed using his official power, and he can pardon anyone for helping him to commit federal crimes, explicitly including an actions in furtherance of a coup to illegally hold onto the office of the presidency. That’s the upshot.

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Also just tossing it out there, but SCOTUS saying "we need to do this to protect executive authority" when it's literally the executive branch arguing they shouldn't, sort of gives the lie to the idea this was about protecting constitutional departmental interests as opposed to protecting Mr Trump

Remember in March, when the majority aggressively answered a lot more questions than necessary to ensure no one could keep Trump off the ballot? And now they answer only a very small question and remand the rest to further delay his actual trial?

Gwen Snyder is uncivil

This is because dogs could detect the older models with rubber faces, right?

That, kids, is what we call a potion of anti-heroism.

Just realized that the two dwarves with the beard tattoos are sporting tattoos *of each other's beards*! That is both precious and gives the scene more of a story to it, brilliant!

Three 'Species' paintings that I made for D&D's new Revised Player's Handbook – Dwarves, Elves, and Orcs!

Mikey (They/Them)

This. I'm tempted just for the amount of really good-looking art it contains.

SheerSpec (J Boone Dryden)

Not sure any of the 40k RPGs are really better for tactical combat.

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Dead is the only age that's too late to start being an author.

Joshua J. Friedman

I honestly can't tell if this is Alito actually endorsing this idea or the usual BS where they strike things down b/c Congress used the wrong synonym for something and mockingly tell Congress to just edit the wording of the law if it's so important knowing that legislation does not work that way.