Politics And Current Events

[Shyster]

[count2infinity]

I’m surprised that anyone would find that statistic surprising…

[CBear3]

Keep living in fear

[nocera]

Yeah I don't know why that's news. Also I don't know why people can't just own guns without making it an integral part of their identity.

[Trip McNeely]

Yeah I don't know why that's news. Also I don't know why people can't just own guns without making it an integral part of their identity.

Because Obama was right

[Viva la Ben]

Yeah I don't know why that's news. Also I don't know why people can't just own guns without making it an integral part of their identity.

Most of us manage

[Shyster]

[tifosi77]

I’m surprised that anyone would find that statistic surprising…

or useful/interesting/meaningful...

[Dickie Dunn]

Yea it's just internet aggregated insane fandom where the few are also the loudest and instead of being fans of something fun and interesting, they're fans of imaging they're persecuted gun owners ready to show how tough they are by protecting 'Merica. I'd wager at least 75% of our neighborhood are gun owners and the only ones I've ever heard discussing guns are the SWAT sniper team when talking about work.

[count2infinity]

https://www.npr.org/2024/11/25/nx-s1-52 ... trump-case

Federal prosecutors have filed a motion to dismiss the Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump.

The move was widely expected.

The "Department's position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated," special counsel Jack Smith said in the filing. "And although the Constitution requires dismissal in this context, consistent with the temporary nature of the immunity afforded a sitting President, it does not require dismissal with prejudice."

Just a day after the election, Smith began to unwind the federal cases against Trump: the first for clinging to power in 2020, events that resulted in the storming of the U.S. Capitol; the second for hoarding classified documents and obstructing FBI efforts to retrieve them.

Monday's filing is in line with longstanding Justice Department policy that says a sitting president cannot be indicted or tried on criminal charges because it would violate the Constitution and interfere with the working of the executive branch.

In a statement, Steven Cheung, Trump's spokesman, said the Justice Department's move "ends the unconstitutional federal cases against President Trump, and is a major victory for the rule of law."

Over the summer, the U.S. Supreme Court said the Constitution gave the president broad immunity, putting the cases against Trump in peril.

So nothing out of the ordinary...

[Gaucho]

Trump Guitars hit with cease and desist from Gibson over use of Les Paul body shape

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

The fact that “Trump guitars” are an actual thing that exist in the universe is truly incredible

[faftorial]

It would be funny if Trump guitars were the guitars seized:

US Customs and Border Protection have announced they have seized over 3000 fake Gibson guitars.

The government agency revealed the haul in a message to the public on Friday (November 22), explaining they had worked on the seizure in collaboration with Gibson themselves, US Homeland Security Investigations and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

A press release confirmed that it was the “largest seizure of fake musical instruments” in history, and estimated the guitars’ combined value, if they were real, would be in the range of $18million (£14.3million).

https://www.nme.com/news/music/us-custo ... rs-3815649

[Morkle]

https://www.npr.org/2024/11/25/nx-s1-52 ... trump-case

Federal prosecutors have filed a motion to dismiss the Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump.

The move was widely expected.

The "Department's position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated," special counsel Jack Smith said in the filing. "And although the Constitution requires dismissal in this context, consistent with the temporary nature of the immunity afforded a sitting President, it does not require dismissal with prejudice."

Just a day after the election, Smith began to unwind the federal cases against Trump: the first for clinging to power in 2020, events that resulted in the storming of the U.S. Capitol; the second for hoarding classified documents and obstructing FBI efforts to retrieve them.

Monday's filing is in line with longstanding Justice Department policy that says a sitting president cannot be indicted or tried on criminal charges because it would violate the Constitution and interfere with the working of the executive branch.

In a statement, Steven Cheung, Trump's spokesman, said the Justice Department's move "ends the unconstitutional federal cases against President Trump, and is a major victory for the rule of law."

Over the summer, the U.S. Supreme Court said the Constitution gave the president broad immunity, putting the cases against Trump in peril.

So nothing out of the ordinary...

IMO, these clowns had 4 years to do something, and continued to not do much. As much as this is procedural, it really didn’t do anything to sway people into NOT thinking these weren’t weaponized lawsuits.

[Joegap]

Trump Guitars hit with cease and desist from Gibson over use of Les Paul body shape

I am more interested in the stats. Is Trump guitar ownership higher among Republican women or Democratic soyboy men?

[tifosi77]

Oh I've got them beat there. I have five guitars currently on display in my home office plus a bunch of guitar-adjacent bits of ephemera.

[tifosi77]

Re the fake guitars

These are called 'Chibsons' (Chinese Gibson.... get it? so clever) and they are ludicrously cheap low-quality knock offs. You can get them off of AliExpress and DHGate and such where their Les Pauls sell for like $300. One specific area where they have a pretty large presence is in the 'official' endorsement guitar, e.g. an "Ace Frehley signature series Les Paul". This is somewhat alarming to me because for the past year or so I've been 50/50 on the idea of buying one of these Eddie Van Halen knock offs for the sole purpose of it being a display object. I don't even care if the electronics are wired, that's not its purpose.

When they started selling them they fulfilled orders straight from the factories in China, and it was a crapshoot as to whether or not your order was seized at the border. But recently the way they've been getting around that is by landing the goods by the pallet load in the U.S. and warehousing them locally to fulfill orders. Apparently that makes it easier to get any one guitar through the net, but when a seizure happens instead of one guitar it's an entire tractor trailer of them.

"If they were real" does an awful lot of heavy lifting in that statement. They are not real, and from an IP POV I don't think a reasonable consumer would be confused to think that these were in any way shape or form legitimate products any more than the Gucci purse your girlfriend bought from a street vendor in Milan was the genuine article, or the Specht and Sohne "TAG" watches you can also buy on AliExpress. They are trinkets that cost a few hundred bucks vs tens of thousands of dollars for the real deal..... I am not and will not ever be in the market for a 'real' Fender EVH Frankenstrat; I'd rather buy a used Alfa Romeo. But $300 for a wall hanger is something I could see myself doing.

[NTP66]

I still hate Gibson for causing so much trouble that ESP changed the shape of their Explorers to avoid the lawsuits that they were throwing around like candy. As if anyone was ever going to buy one of their Explorers (nobody did).

[tifosi77]

At this late hour my faulty brain processed 'ESP' as 'Epiphone' - for reasons that in hindsight are still not entirely evident - and I was about to anger-post about 1958 being later than 1957.

[NTP66]

Epiphone. Ew.

[Kaiser]

I see the annual Travelpocalypse news cycle has begun. I wonder if it will be difficult to fly THIS year?!

[Troy Loney]

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/11/25/rus ... utter.html

Traditional economic measurements miss the vital “basedness” of putin’s Russia. Can’t judge them on things like inflation and hunger rates

[Beveridge]

21% interest rates. I've got my money in the wrong country!

[Shyster]

I must admit that I have no idea what guitar brands are good or not. I'm aware of Gibson and Fender. I think Martin is a guitar company? And I'm pretty sure guitars are among the billion things that Yamaha makes. That's pretty much the extent of my knowledge. I certainly have no idea as to what would make one electric guitar sound better than another.

[tifosi77]

Gibsons and Fenders from the 50s are sort of magical creatures, close to a solid-body analog for a Stradivari or Guarneri violin (in that at least some of the mystique is attributable to myth if not actual quality). These guitars in great shape are easily worth $10k, way more if they have a provenance.

But new Gibson guitars are fantastically overpriced. Anything since the 1980s and they're charging you for brand equity.

A lot of players I know swear by PRS, and most of them are better than me. But I've never particularly cared for them, too 'soft'.

A friend of mine works for Yamaha and gets a crazy deep discount; he plays non-Yamahas.

Martins are great, I'm just not a fan of that big 'dreadnought' body style.

I've wanted a Charvel since I was a teenager.