I didn’t say they were equally stupid. I said one explanation was most likely correct, but thr other wasn’t completely implausible.

Yes, faking an attempted drugging for attention/politics/whatever is less likely to get someone killed. But it’s so a really fucking stupid plan that had to actually be completely premeditated. Just look how well it worked out for him.

The potential child abuse plan is monstrous and risks killing them, but pedophiles do risky and horrible things all the time. And at least the part of the plan that involves showing the cops the drugs can be seen as a bad decision made in the moment by someone panicking and not thinking clearly.

The article says that he did both of those things, but it isn’t clear on what happened between those two events. Did he put the pills in and go straight to the cops? Did he give the ice cream to the kids? Were the pills clearly visible or were they buried?

I agree that the most likely explanation is that he was trying to create a story and/or attack DQ and its employees. But it isn’t totally implausible that he might have been trying to drug the kids and pivoted when they found the pills. He has to be an idiot either way, they are both terrible plans.

Breturn

This administration and the Supreme Court have been systematically shredding the constitution and destroying the rule of law. They have declared the president to be above the law, are eroding the limits of executive power at every opportunity, and have essentially declared that the rights of the people can be ignored without consequences.

This might seem great to an authoritarian when they are in power, but the flipside is that it fundamentally changes the moral equation faced by the opposition. Normally those who actually have principles and want to maintain the rule of law are going to show restraint and reinforce the norms. But when the other side responds by becoming an even bigger threat, there must be a tipping point after which the danger of using unjust powers against your opponent are outweighed by the danger of allowing them to continue damaging civilization and risking their return to power.

The gerrymandering situation in California and Texas is a perfect example of this. In principle, gerrymandering should not be allowed. But if we want to protect democracy, it is more dangerous to let one side cheat than it is to respond in kind.

I would like to believe that we will be able to close pandora’s box and return to something resembling normalcy some day. But with each new abuse of power and each attack on the laws and norms that are supposed to keep the government in check, it gets harder to see a way out that isn’t horrific in its own right.

For context, it’s incredibly rare for a grand jury to not indict someone. The bar is incredibly low and there is no one representing the defense. Failing to secure an indictment once is an embarrassment and a stain on someone’s career. To fail a second time in the same case basically guarantees beyond a shadow of a doubt that the case is utterly without merit and that everyone involved should be fired immediately.

To put this another way, this is like a surgeon amputating the wrong limb twice on the same patient. The first time is undeniably bad and raises serious questions about how it could happen. The second time it happens, we don’t need to bother with all those questions before concluding that the people responsible need to go.

It’s almost exactly what a jury determined he did to E. Jean Carroll.

Reasonable doubt is not a low bar, and you can’t bypass it by just believing. Yes, we need evidence to support accusations. People are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

Not that this would ever go to a criminal trial, because at this point the only way Trump is facing justice is if half the government is heading to the gallows along with him Nuremberg style.

That said, it doesn’t take much for allegations against Trump to be credible. If we just believe the shit Trump himself has said unprompted he’s a sexual predator that molests women and peeps on under age girls. There’s a reason a jury found that he probably sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll despite having almost no evidence of the specific incident. He’s made it abundantly clear how he treats women, and it doesn’t help that he got caught in obvious lies.

There was a lawsuit over the previous giant pay package. And I recall at least threats of legal action over Elon siphoning resources from Tesla to his other companies. However, the move to Texas allows them to require at least 3% stock ownership to sue as a shareholder.

At this point, anyone who chooses to own Tesla stock is unlikely to sue anyway since they’d have to be completely unaware, an idiotic true believer, or just someone who is fully aware and is betting that the bullshit inflating the stock price will be able to push it even higher. The first two wouldn’t know to sue and the third would only be bursting the bubble their trying to ride.

Are we not going to acknowledge how fucked up it is that someone was behind bars for five years before getting a trial?