As a lawyer who has had meetings about our clients case hitting the news—they’re probably thinking about getting a narrative out there before the DA or some other agency does. There might not be an option to negotiate not talking to the media. This isn’t normal everywhere though.

As they say: If the facts aren’t on your side, pound the law. If the law isn’t on your side, pound the table.

I think the lawyer is pounding the table. It’s ok to hate lawyers for this. We will still defend you if you get in trouble even if you deservedly hate us haha

Ain’t that the sorry truth? On one hand, I hope you’re right and that we have an after soon where we can enjoy forgetting haha

But — I remember protesting the Iraq war and I told my parent that this war didn’t make sense at all and I couldn’t stand for it. My parent was appalled. They literally cried and said that they was sorry to have a traitor for a child. Haha they hate the Iraq war now! Amazing!

Remember when Michael Moore got booed at his acceptance speech for some Hollywood award because he and the audacity to be like—yo this Iraq war shit is wrong and does not look like it’s based on anything? And even Hollywood BOOED him. Yanked him off stage!

Remember the little American car flags. On everyone’s stupid car windows?

You had to vocally support the troops if you were in public too. People who had become devoted to the Bush admin forced this in every conversation with strangers angling for a fight.

And we found out the Weapons of Mass Destruction were not real. They weren’t real. The have New York Times journalists that testified to admitted falsifying articles for the Bush Admin.

Looking back the atmosphere Then was a primer for Now.

The whole world stood with America and it was a lie. When I was in Italy after 9/11, an entire restaurant stopped service because we were American and the restaurant expressed that they were with us and they felt deep grief for our country. Europe cried with us. Only to be betrayed 25 years later.

People who lived through these times forget these aggravating and tender moments. don’t know how but they don’t seem to remember and connect the dots.

I can only assume those who don’t make choices on principles stand for nothing. They base all their current attitudes on social hierarchy and nothing else.

Dude something very weird is going on on Reddit. I’ve been through it with them for 12 years and this is like nothing I’ve ever seen.

I finally deleted the terrible Reddit app when my feed was blasted with repeated comments that “Reddit is far left and the left are domestic terrorists.” Sorry what?

These very weird not based in reality comments are posted almost verbatim in every thread. These people usually never respond to conversation.

It’s very very weird

I think your prediction is probably spot on. It already feels like incel 9gag with a bunch of Russians pretending to be American college students.

I have no idea what you’re about but just based on this alone I’d let you share my tire barricade

I never understood WorldNews. I said back in November pretty plainly that Trump won and so I fear that America would eventually leave or attack NATO. I said I was afraid that Trump would side with Russia outright. That we would abandon our allies in the Pacific, too. That our inaction would create a gap for China to fill. That the gap might be big enough to embolden China who then might make moves on Taiwan.

And I was downvoted (which is fine) but the comments I got were kind of bewildering. The people who engaged with me were trying to convince me that Trump would never side with Russia and there is no evidence ever of this.

And of course here we are now. And all of these things are happening.

The whole Gaza thing you mention—I understand the outrage—but I wonder how much of it online was manufactured in places like Pics because of the election.

Seeing the conversations here on Lemmy makes me think…there’s something very weird going on on Reddit. I’ve rode out Reddit drama over the past 12 years. This is not the narwhal at midnight website. This is something very dark.

THE HEIGHT OF FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY CUTTING PROGRAMS THAT BANK A NET GAIN OVER TIME

It kind of feels like tacking on the defund the police thing is so that headlines like this can be run. And Republicans then can be like “ohhh democrats DONT want to defund the police? Would you look at that! 😏”

When really, any resistance will be over the cuts to social entitlements and welfare as you helpfully pointed out.

I feel like I’m trapped in the SAW House and a bunch of people with me keep insisting it’s a normal house and we are waiting for the dinner party to start. And I keep screaming, The invitation said DONNER PARTY

Either way— thanks for writing that out for everyone it’s kind of you to take the time :)

Sorry but you seem knowledgeable. Is crown royal safe? If you don’t know don’t worry I’ll do research later. Thanks in advance

Exactly. When it’s a loss of profit to the top it’s “boo hoo think of the workers.” And when it’s profit in surplus it’s “money for the top no money for the workers sry :)”

Thankfully many Americans are starting to see the pattern. The programming is insane and it’s a lot for most to break free from.

Like, you’re exactly right. If you’re worried about labor rights lobby to government for labor rights. Oh what’s that you don’t want that? You just want to guilt Canadians for protecting themselves?

It’s abuse tactics on an international scale. Fuck these assholes. Leck mich im Arsch.

I think you’re right. The statement from the Kentucky Distillers Association is absolutely meant to make you feel bad. It’s apologist slop that shifts the blame to potential foreign consumers.

It should be known that Kentucky’s largest city is deep blue and voraciously in favor of civil liberties and representative democracy. The Louisville subreddit had a thread on this and most people talking called the Association out for this terrible letter.

The general consensus in blue Kentucky is that: Feeling bad just enables the assholes like the Distillers Association. It’s unfortunate that those who tried to stop all this from happening will be hurt by the few who made it happen.

But as someone who will be personally be hurt and impacted by the loss of bourbon sales—give us hell. Don’t buy Bourbon. Don’t buy American. Thank you for not enable this bullshit.

“The officer then proceeded to say ‘We are with the police, you have to come with us.’ The officer told Mahmoud to give me the apartment keys and that I could go upstairs. When I refused, afraid to leave my husband, the officer stated ‘I will arrest you, too.’ The officers later barricaded Mahmoud from me.”

Mahmoud’s wife said they were not shown any warrant “and the Ice officers hung up the phone on our lawyer”. She said they cooperated fully and her husband remained calm, even though it was terrifying and traumatizing.

“Within minutes, they had handcuffed Mahmoud, took him out into the street and forced him into an unmarked car,” she said.

This should chill the spine of anyone reading. A president ordering the black bagging of anyone based on a social media post or association with university clubs is unconstitutional and unconscionable.

Worse—he’s set to appear in New York but they purposefully flew him to New Jersey and then a detention center in Louisiana. So that any lawyer retained would struggle to find or meet him.

Here we go. Wish us luck. We are going to need it.

Well, to be fair, it is still a conspiracy. It becomes a known criminal conspiracy. Criminal Conspiracy is still a crime. :)

but you’re right, it’s no longer a conspiracy theory.

(Unfortunately for all Americans, social murder by policy isn’t usually a crimey crime. They might be more careful about killing us if they paid the cost personally)

I just want to second this comment and chime in with my experiences. (Thanks also for the information on Framework as I’m not familiar and love to learn)

My family primarily uses Thinkpads. We refurbish them for fun (and often give them away to our community). We run Linux easily on almost all our Thinkpads. So far, Linux works very well even on some old machines (as old as 2012 which wouldn’t be what OP is looking for but still worth mentioning).

We try different distros all the time but mostly stick with Fedora and PopOS.

Right now, I am on a refurbished Thinkpad T480s running PopOS. The 7th gen processor is probably too slow for OP but it runs Linux great and it can even handle running a large dwarf fortress through Steam haha. The T480s also has a touchscreen option (and screens can often be swapped out). The T480s screens usually have a hinge where they can lay completely flat (although, I’m not sure if they are pen compatible).

A more recent Thinkpad with a better processor could be an option for OP to consider in addition to the other great suggestions you made. :)