Remember when the republicans regularly accused the democrats as being soft on defense and the party of “cut and run?”

It’s not a totally unreasonable impression, but no, this will not turn into a second civil war. The Guard units of each state can be called up for federal duty. The National Guard is part of the US Department of Defense and thus ultimately answers to the DoD and the US president as commander in chief. The US military has multiple components, including regular services (eg the full time Army), reserve components (eg US Army Reserve) and National Guard components. The latter two are part-time military with one weekend per month training duty plus an annual training. Guards members and Reservists hold regular full time jobs.

The Guard units are deployable by the governors of their respective states, and so can be used in emergency situations like natural disasters. They have also been deployed against what have been perceived as riots that threaten lives and properties of the individual states.

However, they are subject to activation by order of the US president and they fall under the national command authority. Guard personnel take the same oath to the constitution as other military personnel, and cannot legally refuse federal activation. Guards personnel would be subject to courts martial and face potentially extreme penalties including being discharged from service under criminal conditions, being stripped of rank and benefits, and jail time in federal prison. This would be what we call a career limiting rule.

So, if push comes to shove, Biden can activate the NG and order them to stand down or to implement policies to maintain order. Thinking the NG units and in particular their commanders would disobey a presidential order because they just love their state governor and hate the president so much is getting into Turner Diaries levels of right wing apocalyptic fantasy.

This is an actual OMG moment.

The next Y2K style problem will happen on this date, January 19, at pi o’clock in 2038. I was really hoping he’d get to see that.

He was ironically taken too soon.

So if an armed and violent group were to break down the doors and windows of the Supreme Court while it was in session with the announced intent to disrupt their proceedings and possibly commit bodily harm to the justices and their staff and personnel, that’s all cool?

It’s a custom mode for people developing Angular.

Sue.

Given every election that’s happened since 2016, this is exactly what every single Democratic candidate needs to hang around the neck of every single Republican. No more blue state moderate republicans. Link them all to 100% supporting a national abortion ban, outlawing marriage equality, and forced Christian prayers in public schools. Anti-civil rights, pro-child endangerment. Every single market should get this message, and it should be clear and consistent across the country.

Honestly, it could be a real power move for some blue state republicans to flip parties. If they could pull a Reagan and say that the Republican Party has changed but they haven’t, they could take both the democratic voters and centrist republicans while losing the MAGAs, and still carry their district.

That would be something for the history books.

Legally, no. You cannot use an NDA to force someone to help you cover your a crime. That’s illegal.

What it might do is get people to come forward, because the threat of the NDA was perceived as real.

Most noncompete agreements are also illegal and unenforceable but if people follow them without seeking advice, they’re doing what the employer intended them to do.

When I had to sign a non-compete as a requirement to accept a job I thought I wanted, my lawyer’s advice was to just sign it because it was completely unenforceable. He said to basically sign it and forget about it.

I’ve never understood how a Trump NDA as something agreed to by members of the US government would have any teeth whatsoever. Any NDA I signed as an employee of the government was between me and the government. I couldn’t imagine my manager making me sign one with him personally.

Edit: If this is actionable, I would be interested in participating in a class action suit against Philips for materially altering a product’s functionality after purchase. This is like buying a normal car and being told a year later it was given a remote update and now can only use Ford (tm) brand gasoline which costs $10/gallon.

If you do have an existing investment in Hue products, I suggest reaching out to them to request a refund because your purchase was made under a different policy, and this policy change is going to render your products useless without consent on your part. If they’re going to force a significant change that compromises the functionality of what might be hundreds of dollars worth of equipment without permitting recourse for legacy users, they should have to accept returns on what essentially is now a product you did not purchase and would not have purchased.

This is revisionist heresy. Gary Gygax, who is expected to be cannonized via a trebuchet in the next couple of years, explicitly said that the official books are more like guidelines than actual rules.

And I mean that I actually had beverages with Gary at a science fiction convention back in the early 90s, and he said stuff like “If you want to pack a healing kit that heals +5 damage, do it.” Being serious now, it’s about the story, not the rules. I know that’s the point of the joke, but it’s been almost 50 years now and people we are still arguing about rules lawyers.

I always thought the White Wolf games that called the DM the Storyteller and explicitly made dice rolls optional were the apex of the interactive story idea.

For anyone else who is wondering - the game works great on the steam deck. I actually prefer it over my macbook pro because it’s easier to read the screen. I’ve gotten hours logged into the game so far.

It is a perfect update of the franchise. The storylines and writing are top notch, and the technology is blowing me away with how they managed to update everything while keeping the feel.