Alito doesn’t write defenses or arguments. He writes justifications for the outcomes that his neo-pharisee dominionist buddies would most prefer.

In modern usage, the word “family” does not mean a group of people who share s common ancestor.

Instead, it refers to one or more children and those adults who take full legal responsibility for raising and caring for them.

If all Musk does is chuck money at his “baby mamas” but never actually spends any time caring for or speaking with or being a role model for his descendants, he’s not their father. He’s just a sperm donor with some money.

(I don’t know if “carry them around as assassin deterrent” is enough to qualify. The only real people qualified to judge anyone’s parenting are the adults their children grow up to be.)

It was done as a matter of course by essentially every president before Trump. I think the tradition stretches back to Truman, after FDR died in office.

Biden, Obama, W, Clinton, and HW all did so. Not sure about Regan, whose Alzheimer’s was hidden at the end.

It’s hard to say without knowing what country you’re in now. PRC is an undemocratic system to be embraced, escaped, or endured, but so are PRK, Iran, and a bunch others

OTOH, Canada or the USA were designed on the assumption that you’d agitate for the form of government. If you’re in either one, especially if you’re a citizen, you should definitely argue for the government you want.

The rest of the world is an interesting mix of “started undemocratic, embraced democracy” to “started democratic, embraced autocracy.”

This isnt 1984. You have as much freedom to say whatever you want as you did in an equally-dense area in 1955, and you’re exactly as subject to what you say being reported inaccurately.

What’s changed is that you actually have a plausible ability to broadcast yourself. Today’s equivalent of newspapers and TV stations have infinite channels and infinite paper, and mostly just let you say whatever you want.

If you do cross that “whatever” , though, they can and do refuse to publish your stuff, but you’re free to go elsewhere.

And if it’s actual surveillance you’re worried about… Well, much hasn’t changed since “Enemy of the state” and you should be practicing both good privacy safeguards and rhetorical defense of the same whenever you can.

Not even.

2+2=(3,4,5) is just recognizing imprecision in the original measurement.

The “budget” not matching appropriations is “I’m only going to spend 100 on lotto tickets this month, and save 50” and then buying 150 in lotto and putting the 10 you ‘won’ in savings.

It’s not the math ending up. It’s just recognizing that budgets are nonsense if the actual spending is a wholly separate act of Congress.

Unless the town hall is paid for with taxpayer dollars or held on government property, it’s a citizen who happens to be in Congress having a private event with their political supporters.

Same as a political party convention or fundraiser dinner,.AFAIK.

(And, depending on state law, even a function on government property may be legally private.)