It’s not that simple. Deterrence can be useful to minimize certain types of crime being normalized. But it’s not going to stop someone who thinks they’re going to be arrested no matter what they do, nor the person who truly believes they’ll never get caught, nor the person who commits the crime out of ignorance, nor crimes committed in the moment without considering the consequences.

So… these guys are rejecting Jesus’ teachings to follow pharasitical law?

Or do they really plan to follow:

• Love the Lord your god with all your heart, mind, soul and strength
• Love your neighbor as yourself
• Let he who is without sin cast the first stone

Because the stuff in the Old Testament is the stuff that failed to accomplish its goal, which is the entire reason it’s included at all.

Or are they planning a global literalist interpretation of Paul’s instructions to various people? So, take a little wine, don’t let women speak or be uncovered in public, nobody wears jewelry or makeup or perfume, no same-sex sex, no familial sex of any kind, no behaving in a way that may cause another believer to sin, donate regularly to the Christians in Jerusalem?

There’s also the well-established history of projection to consider with the GOP. While I doubt anything at scale was actually pulled off, an investigation is still fair and reasonable.

Wouldn’t THAT be an interesting turn of events… Trump gets into power and the first thing he does is revoke the charitable status of all churches that don’t give him a 10% cut….

When does Jones realize that no matter what happens, it doesn’t end well for him?

Criminal!

But how can you tell they aren’t a criminal criminal criminal defense defense lawyer? Do you have to be a criminal criminal defense defense lawyer lawyer yourself?

Is that “criminal defense” lawyer, criminal “defense lawyer” or both?

Why not? It gives Russia 20 years to subsume Ukraine, so they’ll be fine with it, and Ukraine will be given the choice of “take it or be cut off from all further funding.”

And if he needs an actual example of this… remember when Trump said that Oregon was one big riot and police were getting killed.

When the Feds rolled in, the local police very much stated that they weren’t involved in this and weren’t going to attack peaceful protesters. So when the investigation started, the illegal detainments were all on the feds.

Oh, it has… just not in the ways anyone would desire to be considered exceptional.

I don’t get it. Current nuclear power solutions take longer to set up, have an effectively permanently harmful byproduct, have the (relatively small) potential to catastrophically fail, almost always depend on an abundant supply of fresh water, and are really expensive to build, maintain and decommission.

If someone ever comes up with a functional fusion reactor, I could see the allure; in all other cases, a mix of wind, wave, geothermal, hydro and solar, alongside energy storage solutions, will continually outperform fission.

I suspect that the reason some countries like nuclear energy is that it also puts them in a position of nuclear power on the political stage.

Are those nine year olds also allowed to vote?

I hope she’s your younger sister….

You’re only incorrect on one point: he’s not taking us into the past. There has never been a time in the past that was comparable to the future he’s dumping us into.

The problem is that he’s spread such a large volume of misinformation that people select bits of it that THEY want to believe and accept those lies as truth while dismissing the rest.

One of the lies is that he’s returning America to how it was in some mythical golden age. That’s not where he’s taking it at all. That lie just gets buried under the others.

Yeah; he’ll stay in power long enough for that.

But he’s 78 years old. When he’s supposed to step down in 2029, he’ll be almost 83.

The average life expectancy of men in the US is currently 73.

Based on historical data for people Trump’s age and health in the US, he’s likely to die of natural causes before he’s 86.

So the longest he could likely hang on for is one more term than he’s supposed to.

Bingo!

But what’s been lost can always be found.

Wait… why would the leader of the face eating leopard party appoint a LEOPARD to the post of Facial Analysis?

The thing is, a message that’s simple, resonates, and allows people to blame others will always win out over a message calling people to pull their own weight and do the complicated but correct things.

If he runs again anyway, what are you going to do? Sue the POTUS in federal court?