Fuck The USA

Synder may result in fewer prosecutions of state and local officials under federal law for gratuities After an official act. When cases are brought, the focus will necessarily be on proving that there was an agreement to provide a gift before the official act.

18 U.S. Code § 666 - Theft or bribery concerning programs receiving Federal funds

Bribe or Gratuity? New Supreme Court Ruling Limits Anti-Corruption Law July 25, 2024

Over the last few years, the U.S. Supreme Court has limited the scope of anti-corruption laws, arguably making it harder to convict public officials. The recent decision in Snyder v. United States continues this trend, addressing a federal law prohibiting state and local officials from accepting bribes. The Court found that the payment made to the official was a gratuity, which was not prohibited. How this may impact other cases remains to be seen.

Facts of the Case

The mayor of Portage, Indiana, was convicted of bribery under 18 U.S. Code § 666, which prohibits corruptly soliciting, demanding, or accepting anything of value from any person with the intention of being influenced or rewarded. Synder had received a $13,000 check from a trucking company awarded two city contracts the previous year. He claimed it was payment for consulting services he provided, but that was contradicted by other evidence. On appeal, Snyder argued that § 666 only criminalizes bribes, not gratuities, and the prosecution failed to show an agreement was made in exchange for the payment before the contract was awarded.

The Supreme Court Decision

The Court found that § 666 prohibits bribes made or agreed to before an official act but not gratuities given after the official act with no agreement beforehand. Part of the rationale was that § 666 didn’t address gratuities given to state and local officials; it only covered bribes. In a similar law that prohibits bribery of federal officials, a separate section applies to gratuities. In addition, gratuities given to state and local officials are typically regulated under state laws. Reading § 666 to apply to gratuities would subject those officials to a new federal regulatory regime. The federal law could also potentially expose them to high penalties for even small gifts.

Impact of the Decision

Synder may result in fewer prosecutions of state and local officials under federal law for gratuities After an official act. When cases are brought, the focus will necessarily be on proving that there was an agreement to provide a gift before the official act.

Because of the danger of having a gift perceived as an illegal bribe, individuals and businesses considering giving a gratuity should always take care to comply with federal, state, and local laws. That includes adopting clear policies and providing training to any employees interacting with government officials to avoid any appearance of bribery.

State and local officials must also stay abreast of the restrictions that apply to them regarding accepting gifts to avoid legal problems.

If you have questions about how the Synder case may apply to your situation, contact us for a consultation.

Cross posted from https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74176210

Anti-war former Army Ranger Greg Stoker breaks down the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group that's been deployed continuously since November 2024, over 260 days at "to support this stupid operation against Iran." Greg discusses the report that a sailor threw himself overboard and the horrible conditions that would make someone do that. He also reacts to Pete Hegseth's jungle-warfare photo-ops in Panama and why the Iran defeat is going to trigger a new South America intervention push.

Chapters: 00:00 Sailor goes overboard on USS Abraham Lincoln 02:30 260 days at sea, 28 days no port call 06:00 Laundry fire, contaminated water, plumbing sabotage 10:00 Why the George Washington was being pulled from Vietnam 14:00 Hegseth's jungle warfare school and the new South America push #IranWar #USSAbrahamLincoln #PeteHegseth #MilitaryReadiness #USSGeorgeWashington

Cross posted from https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74171138

UNBELIEVABLE: American Airlines had two Boeing 737-800s operating as AA2482 — one arriving from Chicago (ORD), while another was preparing to depart Phoenix (PHX) for Chicago. The inbound AA2482 finally touched down at 12:13 AM, more than 90 minutes behind schedule. The outbound AA2482, meanwhile, was already airborne after departing PHX at 11:58 PM. For a period, both aircraft ended up on the same ATC frequency with the same callsign: “American 2482.” The controller says, "I've been working air traffic for 25 years, I've never seen two aircraft pretty much merge with the same callsign." Props to that ATC! So calm and professional! His use of 'arrival' and 'departure' to designate each aircraft was incredibly quick thinking for the controller.

Cross posted from https://lemmy.ca/post/69554167

Your toaster dies the second you unbox it. Pants rip on day one. The quality of everything is trash now. This is what bigheaded people call enshittification. Companies deliberately design products to break right after the warranty. This is due to the so-called “Hunt for Infinite growth.” Steady profits ain’t enough. They need MORE, so they skimp, shrink packages, and shove everything behind subscriptions. Infinite growth is a plague, and it hurts your personal finance.

Disclaimer: This video is satirical commentary and for entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice.

Ha! What are books worth now that we have MONSTER TRUCKS?

screams into the void from inside the dumpsterfire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wVcYEKTb9A&t=2

Cross posted from https://lemmy.ca/post/69430792

WALNUT RIDGE, Ark. – Newly obtained files show the aggressive police officer seen attacking a rail worker in the video had been previously arrested by his city employer for battery. He also held three different positions with three separate law enforcement departments in less than eight months.

Following several Freedom of Information Act requests by NEA Report, we received the personnel files of former Walnut Ridge Police Department Officer Matthew Mercado. With the video depicting Mercado both physically assaulting and verbally assaulting a railroad worker in an unmarked truck, questions from the public have emerged about Mercado, his employment, his background and more.

The detail which stood out the most in the hundreds of pages of files we received was that Mercado reported he had been arrested by Walnut Ridge Police Department for third degree battery in 2014. The reported arrest was on June 10, 2014 by Captain Walrupe, according to Mercado’s written application. He states he was found not guilty and all money was refunded.

The second of the two most significant details found in the files were that he worked at three different law enforcement agencies in a span of about eight months. He was previously employed in Colorado by LaJunta Police Department from April 30, 2016 to May 24, 2016 – for less than one month. He was also employed by the Crowley County Sheriff’s Department from May 28, 2016 to August 4, 2016 – a span of a little over two months.

After leaving that job, he was not employed again until October, 2016 – as a pump technician for an oil company in Parachute, Colorado. He worked there for two months until December. His personnel file says he left it to, “relocate family back to Arkansas.”

He was hired by Walnut Ridge Police Department on December 15, 2016. It was merely 11 days after he was hired the incident took place with railroad worker Adam Finley.

Mercado said he felt like the most concerning social problem was the, “entitlement mentality.” This was under a section of the application related to attitudes on different topics.

Another addressed deadly force, when necessary.

“I have no reservations about using deadly force to protect the innocent, a fellow peace officer, or myself,” Mercado wrote. “I would also attempt to use non-deadly force if the situation permits.”

Mercado’s psychological evaluation was completed by Brad Williams, PH.D. Little Rock. In the evaluation, Williams wrote he felt Mercado was, “found to be free of any significant emotional or behavioral problems at this time in his life and is recommended for further participation in police work.”

Resignation At 7:46 AM on Feb. 7, 2017, Mercado resigned from Walnut Ridge Police Department through a text message to Chief of Police Chris Kirksey. In Kirksey’s attached letter, he wrote Mercado said he literally thought about it all night and decided to resign his position at WRPD, citing being able to provide for his children as the reason. He also stated he would like to think Kirksey would reconsider him as an applicant if a consolidation of Walnut Ridge and Hoxie were to happen.

“Morning Chief,” the text message began. “I’m sorry but I have thought about it and I am going to resign sir.”

Kirksey wrote glowing praise for Mercado in an email.

“I would like to take this time to thank you for the time you have spent with us as an employee and police officer at the Walnut Ridge Police Department,” Kirksey wrote. “You have truly stood out in a great light through the hard work you’ve displayed in the short time you spent here.”

https://www.orangecountygov.com/m/newsflash/home/detail/1719

Cross posted from https://lemmy.ca/post/69423073

Finefart

American Culture lacks vigor and vitality. Every realm of creative activity is sterile producing nothing but poor grade material meant for rapid consumption and even quicker removal from one’s system.

In this video I discuss why America lacks the ingredients necessary to birth a truly explorative, multi-layered, fantastically colorful, intellectual and profound culture.

Hoekstra made headlines in June by saying that Canada's annexation by the United States would be a great topic of discussion for Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hoekstra told a crowd in Halifax last September that he was disappointed and frustrated by the "anti-American" tone in the most recent federal election campaign. He said it was dangerous for Canadian political leaders to describe the Trump administration's tariff campaign as a trade war.

A major dereliction by the feeble Democratic Party leadership is their unwillingness to address the political amnesia they have allowed corrupt, lying, cruel, outlaw tyrant Trump to enjoy with political impunity. Trump has been more than willing to fill the vacuum created by this abdication. That is his business and political modus operandi (MO). His daily lies, boasts, and fantasies have polluted the political landscape. Moreover, his false claims are rarely rebutted by the haughty Dems who view his diatribes as beneath them to counter.

Cross posted from https://lemmy.ca/post/69176608

Taylor Farms is recalling more than a dozen jalapeño products amid a multistate salmonella outbreak linked to peppers.

U.S. strikes on a school in Minab as part of its war on Iran, which killed more than 150 people, including 120 children, and on a migrant detention center in Yemen, which killed and injured dozens of civilians, underscore the continuing horrors of armed conflict. Since returning to the White House, the Trump administration has rapidly reversed progress on civilian harm mitigation and response (CHMR) procedures, failing to implement the Department of Defense’s 2022 Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP) and the subsequent formal instruction, the 2023 Department of Defense Instruction 3000.17 (DOD-I). Both laid out steps to institutionalize and strengthen the U.S. military’s approach to preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian harm caused by its own operations. 

The conditions that prompted the U.S. to overhaul its approach to CHMR, including as a much-needed avenue for amends, have not disappeared. If anything, they have become more acute. Over two dozen Democratic senators have called on the Pentagon to publicize their investigation on the Minab strike so that there can be a “clear accounting ‌of what happened and a credible plan ​to prevent future failures.” Another group of senators raised concerns about Secretary Hegseth’s “abandonment of legally-mandated civilian protection efforts” at the Department. A recent bill to legislate responsible military use of AI includes a provision requiring a civilian harm mitigation and response office.

...

Over the past 18 months, the U.S. has transformed from a flawed CHMR proponent to openly expressing its disdain for the laws of war. Rhetorically, this has included a shift from previous top officials recognizing the strategic value of minimizing civilian harm, while continuing to cause it, to today’s senior officials openly threatening war crimes (like “no quarter”) and denigrating rules as needless restraints. As Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has proposed in his “warrior ethos,” the U.S. military is now focused on “maximum lethality, not tepid legality; violent effect, not politically correct.” Similarly on amends to civilians harmed by war and long-standing international legal rules on repair, the Trump administration has shown little interest. Of the war in Iran, President Trump told the press, “to the victor belong the spoils.” 

The Trump administration’s disdain for CHMR goes beyond rhetoric. Yet the unraveling did not begin with Trump. Previous administrations’ callous disregard for mass civilian harm contributed. In late 2024, two highly respected civil society organizations pointed out that “the CHMR-AP’s security cooperation commitments on paper have stood in stark contrast to the [Department of Defense’s] actual practice … particularly regarding the US government’s virtually unconditional military support to the government of Israel in the face of catastrophic civilian harm using US weapons.” Devastating air campaigns and razing tactics, from Gaza to Lebanon, appear to have shifted the goal posts for what was deemed acceptable levels of civilian harm.

He described how a team of detention center guards would physically restrain him while ICE medical staff forcibly inserted a feeding tube through his nose and down his esophagus and pumped nutritional liquid into his stomach.

“I was respectful. I just told them I am protesting for humane treatment, nothing else,” Choli said. “But they were determined to break me.”

Ironically, the targeting of the ICC may actually get members of the administration or congressional allies in the war on the court in trouble. Article 70 of the Rome Statute criminalizes impeding, intimidating, or corruptly influencing any ICC official as part of an effort to prevent them from performing their duties or retaliate against them for having done so, a provision that even applies to non-signatories.

In his op-ed last month, Rubio claimed the ICC “threatens every aspect of our political and legal system.” He insisted that the ICC and its supporters are “waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts, and the force of so-called international law.” To address this alleged threat, he announced a new diplomatic campaign that will not only increase the administration’s pressure against the ICC, but will also withdraw foreign aid and impose other penalties on countries that continue to cooperate with it.

While the United States is among the minority of the world’s countries to have never joined the ICC, it has been pressuring member countries to pull out. The Trump administration during its first term successfully pressured the Philippines to withdraw in 2019. The U.S. pressured Hungary to announce its withdrawal last year, and Venezuela and Chad to announce their withdrawals last month, after Rubio announced his campaign against the court. Like Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, both Venezuela and Chad mentioned allegations of “bias” against the court, but Chad specifically referenced a request from the U.S. to review its membership.

In March 2025, ICE agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and prominent pro-Palestinian activist after DHS claimed that his student visa, and then his green card, had been revoked. His case was an early test of the State Department’s AI-enabled “Catch and Revoke” initiative, which scrapes social media to identify foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups and cancel their visas. Framed as a counterterrorism measure, the tool functions as a dragnet capable of sweeping up ordinary, constitutionally protected speech. It is one piece of a much larger build-out: DHS’s own AI use case inventory shows that immigration components such as ICE, CBP, and USCIS already rely on AI for social media surveillance, visa revocations, targeting “self‑deportation,” and triaging asylum and benefits cases—applications that directly affect who is arrested, detained, or allowed to stay. Reporting based on internal DHS and CBP documents has revealed, for example, that CBP uses an AI tool to scan online content for “sentiment and emotion” to generate enforcement leads, and has tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track people’s movements using commercially sourced location data.

Immigration is also where durable governance safeguards can first be built. The window to establish disclosure requirements, meaningful human review, and independent oversight while these systems are still evolving is not open ended. Every month that passes is another month in which this infrastructure becomes more deeply embedded, for a population that was never going to be the last one it reached.

Teachers across America are sharing the same disturbing stories about what’s happening inside today’s classrooms. From extreme student behavior and disrespect to teacher burnout, lack of accountability, and frustrated parents, educators say something has fundamentally changed.

In this compilation and reaction, we hear directly from teachers describing their experiences with Gen Alpha students and the growing challenges facing schools today.

Are these isolated incidents, or are we witnessing a much bigger crisis in education?

Watch the teachers’ stories and decide for yourself. If you’re a teacher, share what you’re seeing in your own classroom in the comments.

Cross posted from https://thelemmy.club/post/54055978

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against StubHub — over tickets that don't actually exist.

The giant company claims it just connect buyers and sellers, but it recently came out that the CEO is actually invested in massive ticket resale operation, all on StubHub.

It looks more and more liker StubHub is in bed with scalpers, and is raking in cash from these shady relationships.

The seven-decade embargo, as discussed at the General Assembly, highlights the ripple effects entrenched across all sectors of Cuba’s economy, stating that the differences between the two states cannot be used to justify the collective punishment faced by a group of people.