The direction of society lately

[Scott G.]

The much-ballyhooed meritocracy in action. Turns out my definition of merit was wrong all along.

Merit is now defined as undying loyalty to the dear leader, strict adherence to the party line
and looking good on TV.

[gregl]

A sincere question: can the US Supreme Court charge the President with contempt of court? If not, we truly have joined the ranks of failed nations.

Greg

[72gmc]

A sincere question: can the US Supreme Court charge the President with contempt of court? If not, we truly have joined the ranks of failed nations.

Greg

I’m having similar thoughts while listening to the History of the Germans podcast (a Kate Wagner recommendation). I’m in the Pope Gregory VII period, when he and Emperor Henry IV were burning up the countryside with nasty grams about who could put whom in or out of power. I don’t wish to go back to the year 1073, but it would be nice if current checks and balances started checking and balancing.

[BBB]

A sincere question: can the US Supreme Court charge the President with contempt of court? If not, we truly have joined the ranks of failed nations.

Greg

I can't answer precisely for the US, but contempt of court is a means whereby the court protects its own processes, including, importantly, the administration of justice. It usually is applied to one or other of the parties in legal proceedings. For example, the court makes a freezing order and the party subject to the order breaches that order in some way, shape or form. But, it can be applied to third parties. For example, a court makes a suppression order preventing the reporting of legal proceedings (usually criminal proceedings) and a journalist breaches the order by reporting on the proceedings. That journalist would find themselves on the end of a rather large contempt issue. If the Prime Minister of Australia said the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia was corrupt and presided over a kangaroo court in response to the government losing an important case (which is the sort of thing Trump does say), then he or she would get a very prompt 'please explain' direction to appear before the court. I'm not sure if the US Supreme Court would take a step. Certainly the Chief Justice did tell, more or less, Trump to pull his head in after criticising the judge hearing the deportation to El Salvador case. But, contempt is another thing entirely.

[BBB]

Another if it were in Australia example, had Trump been charged in Australia on the hush money thing and he carried on like he did over the course of those proceedings, including potentially breaching the judge's order about not commenting on the case on social media, I'm pretty confident that a superior court judge in Australia would have had him hauled up on contempt in addition to the charges he was already facing (and let's not forget, was found was guilty). The contempt would (or should) have been dealt with by a different judge to avoid any accusation of bias. I guess the judge in New York, who was already subject to Trump's tantrums and his supporters responses, did not want to make the shit storm any worse than it already was. Imagine the carry on that would have ensued had the judge directed court security to arrest Trump in the court room?

[j44ke]

The current administration has been adept at finding the spaces in the legal system where there is little clarity on enforceability and jurisdiction.

[takashi]

I am getting worried Pete Hegseth is a low functioning alcoholic...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/u...gnal-chat.html

[72gmc]

The current administration has been adept at finding the spaces in the legal system where there is little clarity on enforceability and jurisdiction.

I believe the current administration’s handlers have spent years finding these targets and preparing attacks.

[BBB]

It would seem the judge is keeping the pressure on the government regarding contempt.

[summilux]

Up here in Canada, everyone is checking country of origin labels in my local grocery stores. Cheap US strawberries? Lots of them. More expensive Mexican strawberries? Almost all gone. Florida OJ? The fridge is full.

And no more US wine/liquor here in Ontario. I've never been much of fan of California/Oregon/NY wine so that's no biggie for us. I did like Tito's vodka, but Stoli works.

[htwoopup]

Up here in Canada, everyone is checking country of origin labels in my local grocery stores. Cheap US strawberries? Lots of them. More expensive Mexican strawberries? Almost all gone. Florida OJ? The fridge is full.

And no more US wine/liquor here in Ontario. I've never been much of fan of California/Oregon/NY wine so that's no biggie for us. I did like Tito's vodka, but Stoli works.

In the stores near us in the Laurentians, what you are saying about produce and booze but also when people look at labels at the grocery store and see something is made in US they turn the packages upside down on the shelves to save the next shoppers the time of reading the labels.

[beeatnik]

You should avoid Mexican strawberries. Mexicans avoid Mexican strawberries. Well, my friends and family down there who know a bit about farming sanitize them with, um, diluted bleach.

[TMB]

Up here in Canada, everyone is checking country of origin labels in my local grocery stores. Cheap US strawberries? Lots of them. More expensive Mexican strawberries? Almost all gone. Florida OJ? The fridge is full.

And no more US wine/liquor here in Ontario. I've never been much of fan of California/Oregon/NY wine so that's no biggie for us. I did like Tito's vodka, but Stoli works.

I was astounded recently when I read that the Ontario Liquor Board is the largest single purchaser of booze in the world, and the single largest purchaser of US booze of all descriptions.

What are you guys in Ontario doing???

[BBB]

Getting smashed it would seem!

Funnily enough Australia put a trade dispute before the WTO in 2018 regarding what it thought were restrictive measures put in place by Canada that were seen as unfair to imported wine, namely Australian wine. The US, amongst other countries, joined the "consultations". The dispute was ultimately resolved between Australia and Canada.

FF a few years and the US is suggesting that Canada become a new state of the US and tariffs are being threatened or applied that amongst other things, have discombobulated the penguins of Heard Island.

[efuentes]

You should avoid Mexican strawberries. Mexicans avoid Mexican strawberries. Well, my friends and family down there who know a bit about farming sanitize them with, um, diluted bleach.

I grow produce in Mexico for the Canada and US market, the standard they use on us are way higher than what they use north of the border, we joke about all the time about the sorry state of the packing facilities in the US, I we were to sanitize the way you imply we´ll lose our sanitation permits in a flash, we usually have american and canadian inspections several times over the season. And we do eat our strawberries!!

[summilux]

I was astounded recently when I read that the Ontario Liquor Board is the largest single purchaser of booze in the world, and the single largest purchaser of US booze of all descriptions.

What are you guys in Ontario doing???

It's because all alcohol sold in Ontario, other than beer, is wholesaled and/or retailed through the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO, affectionately known as Lick-Bo). You can get wine and beer in retail grocery stores but their selection isn't so great and those stores deal with the LCBO wholesale monopoly. Also no hard liquor is sold in grocery stores. There are a few privatew wine importers but those are not big volume purchases. So pretty much all booze, except for beer, goes through LCBO. I've been told that Quebec, which has a similar system, is the 2nd largest buyer of alcohol in the world.

[summilux]

In the stores near us in the Laurentians, what you are saying about produce and booze but also when people look at labels at the grocery store and see something is made in US they turn the packages upside down on the shelves to save the next shoppers the time of reading the labels.

I haven't see this happen yet but it's a good idea.

[beeatnik]

Up here in Canada, everyone is checking country of origin labels in my local grocery stores. Cheap US strawberries? Lots of them. More expensive Mexican strawberries? Almost all gone. Florida OJ? The fridge is full.

And no more US wine/liquor here in Ontario. I've never been much of fan of California/Oregon/NY wine so that's no biggie for us. I did like Tito's vodka, but Stoli works.

Lesser of two evils aka no good Karma

“But a Los Angeles Times investigation found that for thousands of farm laborers south of the border, the export boom is a story of exploitation and extreme hardship.



The Times found:

Many farm laborers are essentially trapped for months at a time in rat-infested camps, often without beds and sometimes without functioning toilets or a reliable water supply.

Some camp bosses illegally withhold wages to prevent workers from leaving during peak harvest periods.

Laborers often go deep in debt paying inflated prices for necessities at company stores. Some are reduced to scavenging for food when their credit is cut off. It's common for laborers to head home penniless at the end of a harvest.

Those who seek to escape their debts and miserable living conditions have to contend with guards, barbed-wire fences and sometimes threats of violence from camp supervisors.

Major U.S. companies have done little to enforce social responsibility guidelines that call for basic worker protections such as clean housing and fair pay practices.

The farm laborers are mostly indigenous people from Mexico's poorest regions. Bused hundreds of miles to vast agricultural complexes, they work six days a week for the equivalent of $8 to $12 a day.

The squalid camps where they live, sometimes sleeping on scraps of cardboard on concrete floors, are operated by the same agribusinesses that employ advanced growing techniques and sanitary measures in their fields and greenhouses.”

https://graphics.latimes.com/product-of-mexico-camps/

Mexico is South Africa without Nelson Mandela.

[summilux]

What is wrong with the fucking world? Someone ran an SUV through a crowd of people at a Canadian street festival. Vancouver, along with so many other Canadian cities, is an unbelievably multicultural, multiracial, sexuality positive place. I'm not going to say the "thoughts and prayers" shit but how is it possible that in this world we live in, someone wakes up in the morning, brushes their teeth, looks in the mirror and says: today is the day that I'm going to kill some kids eating ice cream cones.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...arty-1.7519778

[TMB]

What is wrong with the fucking world? Someone ran an SUV through a crowd of people at a Canadian street festival. Vancouver, along with so many other Canadian cities, is an unbelievably multicultural, multiracial, sexuality positive place. I'm not going to say the "thoughts and prayers" shit but how is it possible that in this world we live in, someone wakes up in the morning, brushes their teeth, looks in the mirror and says: today is the day that I'm going to kill some kids eating ice cream cones.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...arty-1.7519778

The worst thing is that every time one of these happens we hear “ the perpetrator is known to police …” , this guy has seemingly had 30 interactions with police in the last couple of years.