That’s an accurate summation for my understanding as well. Things that the judge should look at when considering a minimum sentence are defendant cooperation, displays of genuine remourse, and indications that the defendant is unlikely to continue breaking the law. If the judge can find any of that, it’s beyond me how.

None of his current convictions are expected to come with a custodial sentence

Strict adherence to sentencing guidelines actually would see him jailed on his current convictions. If he isn’t given some kind of imprisonment it will be because the judge was afraid of the aftermath.

I’m not so sure he’s much of a security risk, unless he is still in possession of sensitive documents. I sincerely doubt he is capable of remembering anything in the way of valuable secrets. Anyways, even if he did, any adversary would be daft to trust he remembered correctly.

Anybody that the Republicans put in charge of any federal agency is there for the purpose of destroying that agency. I used to think defense was an exception but, given Republican’s new found love for Russia, I don’t think that can be assumed any longer.

Trump’s way ahead of you there.

It was Wells Fargo, and he was actually fired under threat from Congress led by Elizabeth Warren. The board replaced him with his chosen successor who had also been implicated and Congress actually stepped in again to force the replacement out. It would be nice to see them charged with something, but there is really no evidence that they actually broke the law themselves, they just created the massively over-competitive environment that made some desperate workers into criminals.

It’s not the justice I would want, but “slap on the wrist” seems like an accurate description.

He was arguably a worse president than even Trump. Which of them is a worse human being is a different question.

Agreed. It’s pretty telling that none of these corporations would accept an open ended arbitration clause in their dealings with any other corporation.

I could see very specific cases where arbitration makes sense with a very well defined scope. “Parties agree that disputes over widget quality related to this agreement are to be adjudicated by the Widget Quality Counsel”. The courts are not always the best arbiters for every dispute.

However, what we have now is every corporation finding ways to slide arbitration clauses of global scope into every transaction. That is always bullshit.

Arbitration contracts, especially in click-through licenses, are always bullshit and should be universally thrown out.

Doesn’t seem all that smart to me. Does the company offer an API to the device so consumers can write their own “server”? No, I’m sure they have it locked down behind some proprietary encryption scheme so that anyone who tries can be charged with violating the digital millennium copywrite act.

I was in IT back in 2001 when the Code Red virus hit. It was a very similar situation where entire enterprises in totally unrelated fields were brought down. So many infected machines were still trying to replicate that corporate networks and Internet backbone routers were getting absolutely crushed.

Prior to that, trying to get real funding for securing networks was almost impossible. Suddenly security was the hottest topic in IT and corporations were throwing money at all the snake oil Silicon Valley could produce.

That lasted for a couple years, then things started going back to business as usual. Microsoft in particular was making all sorts of promises and boasts about how they made security their top priority, but that never really happened. Security remained something slapped on at the end of product development and was never allowed to interfere with producing products demanded by marketing with inherently insecure designs.

She was never a federal prosecutor. She has never been accused of this kind of “behavior”.

The party of working Americans. /s

Europe is selling new bonds all the time, and the price buyers will be willing to pay for them will fall.

I think you are assuming way to much rationality on the part of Republican voters. Republican politicians will just blame the Democrats, immigrants, and DEI for the failures, and Republican voters will eat it up.

There is a surprising variety among even those who call themselves Marxists or anarchists. Some are way more practical than others. Marx was first and foremost a critic of capitalism, and his criticisms were way ahead of their time and right on the money. Anarchism covers a whole lot of ground that I wouldn’t consider anarchism myself. The umbrella basis for anarchism is anti-authoritarianism. To me, that makes them less extreme than authoritarian socialists like in the Soviet Union or China. I’d consider myself an anarchist, but only in the margins that realize that government does play a critical role in establishing and defending freedoms.

I find that foolishness is spread pretty evenly across the political spectrum. I think most people believe what they want to believe and figure the “details” will work themselves out. Anyways, here in the US, the “far left” means things like universal healthcare, which seems a lot saner to me than the alternatives.

Neither of us live or are from the USA. So I don’t think this is relevant here.

A lot of foolishness is born in the US but doesn’t stay here. It might still be relevant.

If your friend calls themselves a libertarian, then my starting assumption would be they are wrong about everything.

It’s true that Trump made some kind of declaration as President, but that was pretty much a meaningless gesture. The US actually has no official list of domestic terror organizations, only foreign. In any case, calling antifa a terrorist organization is absurd.

A quick note on libertarianism: I consider myself a libertarian, but what passes for libertarianism in the US is anything but. Libertarianism is a left wing political philosophy, while the US Libertarian party is far right. It would be more accurate to label them as anarcho-capitalist.