I bet that guy's a fantastic teacher!

I watched the video, and was mildly shocked that it was an official Trump ad. The story is absurd on its face. If it were legitimate, the FBI would be confirming it. Instead it's being promoted exclusively by partisan hacks with zero credibility. Hell, in Giuliani's case it's already a known fact that he's compromised by the Russians. It's also known that the Russians have been planning to promote disinformation. Text is by far the easiest evidence to fake.

But I'm quoting you because after watching the video and going into the comments on an ad this stupid, you managed to follow it up with some absolutely batshit projected attacks, and reading your comment honestly made me guffaw. I fucking guffawed Bob, good-naturedly at the actual hilarity of it. No joke, the upside-down topsy-turviness of it actually legitimately tickled my funny bone because what you wrote was so insanely bonkers. There aren't just *hints* at Trump having actually fucking raped children, it's damned near certain when you look at the various evidence. He's a fucking child fucker. Trump. He almost certainly did it, and it's goddamned obvious. So this whole line of attack of "Biden = pedophile" is hilarious. Ghastly too, but hilarious.

You're such a weird enigma, Bob. I don't like to buy into conspiracy-esque shit like "Bob's a Russian account with multiple people behind it," but... sometimes it feels on point.

"The chonkiest of these boys..." (@4:02) - for some reason I love that they worded it this way.

The only points he made were "keep America great" and "don't replace a coach when you're winning superbowls." Bob, what specifically has Trump been doing well, that you'd like to see more of? Actual specifics please, not vagaries. Are you a big fan of the 2017 tax reforms? The boondoggle border wall that's been paid for by redirecting funds meant for the military, and definitely NOT by Mexico? Breaking faith with our historic allies while promoting authoritarians like Kim, Putin, and Erdogan? I really am honestly curious: what has Trump done, specifically, that you feel has been a positive for the US?

Technically correct: the Constitution does not provide specific details of how Supreme Court appointments are to be made. The fine details have been left up to the Senate and Executive (to a lesser degree, I believe). The executive branch has the right to nominate someone to the court, the Senate then has a duty to serve as a check on that. Technically there's nothing in the Constitution stating you're not allowed to advance a SC nominee weeks before an election.

It IS however, a naked partisan power grab. In 2016 one party argued, 8-9 months prior to the election, that their political opponents should not be able to have their SC nominee even get a hearing prior to the election. There was no actual precedent for this, but they insisted that the will of the electorate must be respected, and that we therefore must await the results of the election. So we did. Now 4 years later, the same party that insisted on respecting the will of the electorate in 2016 is taking precisely the opposite stance. Because last time they could potentially gain from the delay, and this time they almost certainly won't.

The CNN guy was correct: it is NOT unconstitutional to ram through a SC appointment. The authors of the Constitution didn't see fit to include that level of granularity in how the process would work. There is a process to clear this all up though: let's amend the Constitution! That's a super American thing to do! Let's establish, once and for all, the specific rules of the process. Then there won't be any back-and-forth like this about when a nominee can move ahead and when they can't. Nice and tidy.

The question then becomes: at what point in a President's term do they no longer get to nominate a replacement to the Supreme Court, when an election is pending? Should there in fact be no limit (like prior precedent, or lack thereof), and you believe that Merrick Garland should have been allowed hearings, and by extension the Amy Barrett hearings now are legit? Personally, I say we establish a cut-off to spare the political arguments in the future. Let's make it 100 days prior to the election: it's nice round number, bit over 3 months (so time for meaningful hearings and background checks), and should be after or at the end of primary season most cycles. That would of course invalidate both the 2016 and 2020 schemes by the Republicans, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

What's your take, Bob? How should this be handled? You posted the video, so I assume you have a stance on the issue?

I could see that.

"Hey, can I use your car to go pick up [whatever]?"

"Yeah that's cool, but maybe throw in $10 of gas on the way back?"

The first five seconds of that are all you need!

I seriously hope there's "court packing" next year. It's the only way to bring things back to any semblance of normalcy if Judge Amy McCultPants is installed.

You got me excited that he'd made a new one...

Cool, cool. Evidence?

In most states you can drop off absentee ballots at a polling location. Guaranteed paper ballot (no one should trust machines without paper trails, if those still exist), no possible mail fuckery, and minimal time spent in a building with strangers.

I had no idea this was an issue. It's also bonkers how low the starting pay is, given what's needed to even get to day 1 at an airline.

So for anyone else who thinks "Oh, that's cool, I'm going to sign up at Curiositystream to watch the rest" - yeah, turns out if you don't do it through the referral link you don't get the Nebula trial. Whoops.

I would thing a strategically placed, fairly large mirror would correct a fair amount of the problem. Suppose that starts getting into "too expensive" territory pretty quickly though, with inevitable vandalism and whatnot.

I love Smarter Every Day, but I worry that if someone ever figures out how to combine laminar flow and snatch blocks that Destin's brain might literally explode.

Gotta love that dig in the last line!