Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the public-octagon dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone with a comment regarding the DOJ's attempts to squash a book, but one that is pretty generally applicable:

Show me a law that the Trump administration understands, and I’ll show you a law they’ve either broken or planned on breaking.

In second place, we've got That One Guy sharing thoughts on the latest example of police getting away with whatever they want:

One of those are much less likely to destroy your life

Let's see...

Criminal without a badge: Stole something from a Walmart, took a shot at police when they tried to arrest him, had two guns and some drugs on them.

Criminals with badges: Utterly destroyed a house that wasn't theirs, to the point that it was condemned and therefore uninhabitable, threw an absolute pittance at the homeowner that might be enough to pay for a hotel for a year, and then refused to own up to their own actions, leaving the former homeowner on the hook for the removal and rebuilding of their house to the point that they had to sue to even have a chance to get recompense.

Oh yeah, with 'drug warriors' like that on the streets I'm sure people will feel much more safe and secure.

While it does acknowledge this narrow reading of the Takings Clause won't encourage officers to be more careful with other people's property when apprehending suspects, it says this won't prevent officers from being held individually responsible for "willfully or wantonly" destroying property.

If that's the lie they have to tell themselves to make what they just did seem less deplorable I suppose...

If police can destroy someone's house and get a pass in the course of their 'job' then they've essentially made it impossible to hold them responsible for doing so, as anything less than an admission on camera that they knew they could achieve the outcome without a given level of destruction and chose not to because they were lazy/wanted to play with their 'toys' is likely to be dismissed as 'just part of the job'.

If a lawncare specialist lit someone's garage on fire during their job they could and would be sued, and held accountable for it.

If someone who installed siding on houses ended up smashing multiple windows during their 'job' they could and would be sued, and held accountable for it.

Give someone a badge though and magically destroying someone's house is 'just part of the job', and the person who now is out a house is left with the entire bill, with nary a hint of responsibility to be found on the part of the police for their involvement.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with Norahc summing up the unsurprising fact that ISPs are cutting back their 2020 infrastructure investment plans:

Hard to spend money on investment and improvements when you've spent it all on lobbying for less regulation and oversight.

Next, we've got an anonymous comment about PragerU's latest loss against YouTube:

It seems contradictory to argue that YouTube is both a public square and YouTube should be forced to let you monetize your videos. There's no obligation to be paid for making your free speech public in a public forum.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous commenter who had an excellent idea for a proposed intellectual property haunted house:

Yeah and one of the monsters can be a 91 year old mouse that just. wont. die.

<whisper> the horror... the horror...

In second place, it's yet another anonymous commenter with a quick quip about Devin Nunes' latest tantrum about a cow:

That is udderly ridiculous

For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got a couple more responses to Nunes, the first one from Bloof offering a suggestion for the rest of us:

I read everything Devin Nunes says online in Marvin the Martian's angry voice. It makes his wild, futile flailing at a fictional cow even more amusing.

And finally it's Stan raising an important question about the accusation of "stalking":

Being stalked by a cow is not possible...unless you removed its cowbell first. Has Nunes offered any evidence that said cow is, in actuality, "de-belled"? NO! Case closed.

That's all for this week, folks!

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