SeaJ

I'd prefer to mine where there is less life. Southwest AR has a decent amount of wildlife. The area around the Salton Sea would probably be better.

So basically they are straight up scamming people since we do not have knowledge of genetic indicators correlated with a test that has changed over the years.

I'm not the one who said doing what is in the article was illegal. I'm the one saying that it is not illegal. Sorry that I have not memorized the entirety of voting law. If you want a legal opinion, go search a fucking law blog. Law is generally not black and white which is why there are legal opinions on every law but if you want the one referenced, it is 52 U.S. Code § 10307 section C:

(c) False information in registering or voting; penalties

Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both: Provided, however, That this provision shall be applicable only to general, special, or primary elections held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the United States Senate, Member of the United States House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, Guam, or the Virgin Islands, or Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

So very likely yes, if Musk was paying people to pledge to vote for Trump, it would be illegal and would be punished by up to five years in prison. Paying people to pledge support for free speech, the 2nd Amendment, and the Constitution would not be.

Happy?

Not sure if it is explicitly illegal but there would absolutely be lawsuits with good reason. Imagine a district where 51% of the people sign a pledge to vote for a candidate but the candidate only gets 47% of the vote and losses the election. The candidate with the pledged voters would scream voter fraud and their backers would likely get violent. Considering we had that happen with almost zero voter fraud in 2020, it would not be an unlikely scenario.

To all those wondering how this is legal: nowhere does it ask people to vote for Trump. The petition asks people to pledge their support for the Constitution, free speech, and the 2nd Amendment. Signing it does not indicate you are voting for Trump. But I could absolutely see the signatures being used for propaganda.

The petition is saying you support free speech, the second amendment, and the Constitution. You can certainly support all of those and vote for Harris.

A large chunk of that came from their senator Rick Scott. He committed the largest Medicare fraud in history costing about $2 billion back in 2002.

I can't say that I really buy that. Wealth was always concentrated in Rome. I'm going to assume that you mean the Western Roman Empire because the whole Roman Empire lasted until 1453 although there was a brief time that Crusaders took it over. If it were true, both sides of the empire would have fallen since they both operated the same.

The Empire definitely had quite a few issues. The debasement of the coinage led to some pretty significant inflation. It got so bad that Diocletian basically got rid of the mint and went with a very complex goods conversion system. But that was in the 3rd century. The Western Roman Empire had a hell of a lot more tribes bordering them to contend with while the East largely just had the Sassanids. The rules of succession were pretty lax too and many emperors avoided making successors until their death bed. That is fine if the emperor has a slow and predictable death but when they didn't, people (often military leaders) would simply claim they were emperor and take their armies and take over. That gave an opening for outside tribes to take advantage of the chaos.

That was for Fox News which is part of an entity that is worth $21 billion. The punitive damages would be much higher for someone worth $264 billion.

I loved the Jefferson deep dive. I also lived the Robert E Lee deep dive. Fuck those guys.

It turns out Aquaman is not looking for new property.

I tend to quit books if I don't find them very good. One I did finish that I fucking hated was The Girl on the Train. All of the characters were fucking insufferable.