Santos would make a perfect Secretary of State, not only is he a former Congressman but he is also heir to the Swedish Throne. He was also the only member of the College of Cardinals to vote for Trump as Pope, so he has that going for him.

I have the scoop of obtaining the first draft of Canada’s official response, written by career diplomats Thomas and Moranis:

You are forgetting Romans 13:2.5 , in which Paul added

“Unless the government is full of Liberals, fuck those guys, amirite?”

I’m sure that’s in the Trump Bible…

Isnt lying a requirement to work in this administration?

Right, but most modern cars have that communication built in, because they use it to update firmware remotely. You can’t turn it off even if you wanted to. Many car companies justify it by saying it is needed to give your location to emergency services if you use their alert button.

I tend to agree (and also an EE). Airplane mode isn’t a total panacea, though. It just disables the cellular radio. While it also disables the Wifi and Bluetooth, those can always be turned back on, even while Airplane Mode is active. A motivated state actor can absolutely track via Wifi or Bluetooth. (Possibly even NFC, but the range on that is so low that I think it would impossible to do without seeing what is tracking you).

Turning the phone off is the best solution if you want to keep rhe phone on your person. Guaranteed that all possible avenues for tracking is off, and also has the advantage that even if the phone is seized, the latest phone OSes require the passcode before doing anything at all when they first power up. Even the Police are limited in the data they can get off a phone that has just powered up and is asking for the passcode.

I hate that when guys like this who wear their faith on their sleeves get found out, it’s all about “repentance and healing”, privately, and never about actually paying the secular penalty for what they did. Ask for repentance not only from God, but from those people you harmed, by admitting what you did publicly and accepting the punishment. And part of healing is spending time in the slammer to reflect on what you’ve done.

I am one of those people who engaged in the sarcasm and mockery, particularly mocking American Exceptionalism. But you can argue that American position as an Indispensible Nation is (well, perhaps was) a real thing. But it’s important to acknowledge that status was not accorded to us because we’re special, but because we aligned our interests to many of the world’s democracies. They didn’t follow us because of any inherent birthright, they followed because we shared their values and interests.

John Kerry got skewered when he implied that American interests might be subject to a “global test”, but he was 100% correct. Other countries backed us because we backed them. If looking to America for leadership is no longer in their best interest, they will shop somewhere else for leadership.

And that’s what makes Trump so insidious. Generations of Americans (politicians, service people, etc.) put this country in a position of respect, and this guy is tossing it all out the window by being a pety asshole who doesn’t listen.

Even the people who are against crypto are probably shilling something. Same song, different key.

So, basically this guy did what ICE does all the time

Haven’t you heard? America is Exeptional, we are the Indispensible Nation. We never need help, because we perfected Democracy. Anyone who says otherwise will be sent to CECOT…

Yet many Catholics voted in line with the MAGA nuts, purely on abortion. The American Catholic Church has turned abortion into its defining political litmus test. Hopefully this new Pope can convince American bishops that there are other issues worth their attention.

Besides, the folks who run the US right now always need an enemy. Once they run through the immigrants, and LGBT people, who’s next? It’s entirely possible these christofascists start ostracizing Catholics. They never liked them anyway, they just liked their votes, and they probably think they won’t need votes anymore to keep in power.

The goodest boy in Washington today

I guess if the kids want to be safe they need to quit school and work on the farm

I’d love to see him run, and I hope he gets a meaningful debate in before the DNC stacks the deck for Newsom

I’m surprised this wasn’t an ex-J6er. Still, I wonder if Trump will pardon him?

There is a difference between customs and immigration. Customs cares about things (and import duties on those things), Immigration cares about people.

As a US citizen, you should be able to just enter as long as your paperwork is in order. (And if Immigration is interested in you beyond the formalities, it means you are probably on some sort of list, and good luck to you!)

Customs will care mainly that you are only bringing in personal goods, and not commercial goods you intend to sell. They will also care if you buy any goods abroad to take back, because you may owe import duties. So they will not care about your Fairphone unless you bought it while in your trip abroad. In normal times you will have an exemption that allows you to bring in some amount of goods duty-free but the world is all topsy turvy now so I would check what the duty-free allowance is before coming back.

They are used to people bringing phones, laptops, camera equipment, and other expensive personal effects with them on trips. They won’t care unless you have a lot of things, and they think you are not being truthful when you say none of it was purchased abroad in that trip. Having five phones for one person would be a red flag, for instance.

Your dad is correct in that every driver gets into an accident at one point or another. You have your license, which means you passed the test. And while the test is the bare minimum, you did meet it.

Every driver starts out new, and has to learn a lot. It can take years before you are truly comfortable, and that’s OK.

My recommendation would be to not give up driving cold turkey, but only drive when you are comfortable. Find an errand you need to run once or twice a week and do that route consistently. (Or, if you are working, do your work commute by a consistent route every day). Learn that route, and where all the tricky things are. You may find that after a month or two, you build enough confidence on that one drive that you are not spooked by other drives.

Fear not, MAGAs! Nature is no match for Donald Trump’s Sharpie

The actual parade route is super tiny, less than a mile. NYT published a parade route map, and the troops have a longer walk to the parade start point than the parade route itself. It is just going by the National Mall, and that’s it. My local town Memorial Day parade (which only had the mayor, boy/girl scouts, fire department, and school marching band) was longer.

(Edited to add: I don’t want to sell the town Memorial Day parade short, it also had a bunch of cool old tractors…)