Scenario #1: GOP contenders believe that Trump's legal troubles will be his undoing before the 2024 Republican convention. DeSantis will be sunk by similar legal troubles, or lack of electability outside of Florida. Despite current polling, the field will look very different by early 2024 and they want to position themselves now as the alternatives who aren't going to prison.

Scenario #2: Trump and/or DeSantis avoid their many scandals, somehow, and they're going to be looking for a vice president. It's unlikely that Trump will run with Pence again, so Nikki Haley, Francis Suarez, and the rest are looking to distinguish themselves as vote-getters so they will be seen as a good addition to a Trump or DeSantis ticket.

Either way, I don't know what the hell Pence thinks he's doing in this field.

Interpol's legal team will take one look at Malaysia's request, laugh, and then respectfully decline to assist. They won't be wasting any of their resources on this.

Malaysia has no power to actually do anything about this, so I think they're just trying to use strong rhetoric to have a chilling effect on anyone who's thinking about making similar jokes.

Modding Skyrim is a rabbit hole that leads straight into the Mines of Moria. And the Balrog has opened an adult bookstore.

Nothing wrong with that answer! Skyrim can even be played in 3rd person, and there are mods to make 3rd person combat more satisfying if you get it on PC.

Nikki Haley's parents were Sikh immigrants, originally from Punjab. And she's calling for an increase in deportations. I don't get it, either.

Thanks for the reply! I think limiting the number of communities that a given user can moderate is a great policy.

There's a lot to unpack here, but I have similar concerns. If Lemmy becomes a refuge for people fleeing Reddit, how do we ensure that the toxic mods from Reddit don't simply bring the toxicity over here?

I won't name usernames, but I can think of a few specific ones that showed up on almost every sub's list of moderators who can just... fade away, along with Reddit itself. I'd be interested to know if there's a strategy in place to ensure there are no super moderators on Lemmy. Or at least, not on Beehaw.

I don't think there is a specific process for that outlined in NATO's treaty. However, Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties suggests a member country could commit a material breach of the treaty, if that nation that violated the principles of the treaty in a systematic and egregious manner. The decision to suspend or expel that nation would have to be a unanimous decision made by all other existing members.

There have been calls to suspend Turkey from NATO in the past, but there's no precedent for suspending a NATO member, and that's probably part of the reason why the member countries have been hesitant to do so. The U.S. in particular might not back the idea, since this would be very damaging to our diplomatic relations with Turkey in general. However, Hungary has been so pro-Russia lately that there may be a strong case for suspending them from NATO, and I don't believe they're seen as important as Turkey from a diplomatic standpoint, either. So, that's a possibility if they continue to block Sweden from joining.

True, and they wanted to keep religion out of government because they had just won independence from the monarchy that established the "Church of England". They knew how problematic it was when the head of state is also the head of the church. Separation of church and state protects both entities; mixing them de-legitimizes both. Modern evangelicals seem to have forgotten that.

If Southern Baptists could ban male and female pastors, I would be so happy.

The last FPS I really got into was Overwatch, and my two mains (Mercy and Reinhardt) weren't gun fighters. Some FPS games actually try to innovate, like Titanfall, and while I can't get into them, I can see the appeal. But then there's the Call of Duty and Battlefield series, which largely give us the same gameplay over and over again. I know they're popular for a reason, and they continue to sell really well, but... yeah. I just don't get it.

What, another one? I've lost count of how many times I've been furloughed since the Obama administration. This will be either shutdown #3 or #4 for me, if it happens.

Russia could only find one tank for their World War II Victory Day parade, and Prigozhin is openly rebelling because they couldn't find enough ammo to supply the Wagner Group. The shortages have been obvious for a while now.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Southwest Airlines was just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of airlines with dated hardware and/or software. These companies rarely learn from each others' mistakes.

I've heard mixed reports on that... Trump is either being allowed to provide a photo in lieu of mugshot or, if a mugshot is taken, it will not be made public.

Chris Christie was one of the first Republicans to back Trump in 2016, once he started pulling ahead of the pack in the primaries. That being said, he's being harder on Trump than most of the other candidates in the current field. It boggles my mind that Pence is still being tepid in his criticism, but he's the poster child for "no backbone", so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I honestly thought that the GOP was going to keep Trump in check in 2016. The leaders of that party knew, and continue to acknowledge privately, that Trump was an inept, dangerous megalomaniac. I expected Congress' Republican leaders to work together to put limits on his authority, effectively putting the big baby in a playpen so he couldn't wreck the expensive stuff in the house. Like our readiness to respond to a pandemic.

Instead, they let that bull into the china shop and he started throwing hamburgers at the walls. The party has chosen to accept authoritarianism and nominate would-be dictators for President, because that gets them votes. It's not about conservative values. It's not even about their religion. It's all about staying in power, and backing the loudest idiot in the room, no matter the consequences. The GOP will enable autocracy through its pure short-sightedness and by the time they realize they've gone too far, it will be too late.

I only disagree with the statement that the GOP has a cult leader, because that implies the Republican elite care about anyone besides themselves. They remain measured in their criticism of Trump because he's still somewhat popular. The instant he stops pulling in votes, they will shift their fleeting loyalty to the next big thing, and pretend they never liked that other guy, what's-his-name.

True, lots of supporters are no longer speaking out in public, but when they're in a voting booth with a curtain around them? Their true colors can show on the ballot without fear of reprisal. We should never assume that his supporters have gone away, they've just gone into hiding.

I'm concerned about these extremist groups, but I find some comfort in knowing that their own ineptitude limits their effectiveness. A downward spiral of wild conspiracy theories brought them to this state of paranoia, and their conspiratorial mindset is self-consuming. With all other targets exhausted, they start to look for hidden dangers in their own numbers, and turn on each other. They can never be a truly organized threat as a result.

I believe Stephen Colbert called it "a black hole of whiteness".

“If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.”