[BREAKING] News Thread

[Moonface]

South Korea is going through some interesting stuff right now, with the president declaring martial law on Tuesday night local time, which is the first time martial law has been declared in the country in 50 years. However, he reversed the decision two hours later after parliament gathered to oppose the measure, which required lawmakers who were able to attend that opposition vote to climb over fences to make it to the voting chamber in the first place.

Apparently Yoon has been a lame duck president since he was elected in 2022, and declared martial law in response to his government being constantly undermined by the opposition party. I was trying to see if it was explained what benefit it actually has to him and the best I can gather is he did it to prevent the opposition party from voting against anything his government wants to try and pass. I don't know if what he's been trying to pass has been good or not to know why his plans keep getting voted against, but judging by the reception from South Korean citizens to his martial law declaration I don't think anything he claims the opposition is trying to do is as upsetting to the populous as he seems to think it is.

Source: BBC News

[Maniakkid25]

Meanwhile, in the US, SOMEONE (we don't know who) either thinks they are funny, or has a point to make.

In Lincoln County, Oregon, people woke up and checked their mailboxes, only to find a letter titled "The Brown Round Up Part 1". It listed in specific detail how this was an effort to find "brown illegals", and lock them up, and you can help! It then lists multiple ways of stalking and harassing people in order to obtain this information, and to send it to the cops come the 21st of Janurary.

Yeah, this is vile. Yeah, this shouldn't be a thing. But I'm just glad someone is saying the quiet part out loud. A friend of mine had a good point after this was sent to me: they'd honestly give the document a little bit of respect if they just outright used slurs.

Have a happy new year. This is going to be a long 4 years...

[Moonface]

If law enforcement cared enough, there's a chance they could find who printed those since I recently learned a lot of printers will place an invisible mark on the paper when printing something which is unique to that respective printer. Whoever did post these around should totally be charged with a hate crime.

[Maniakkid25]

They won't invrstigate. They've already given their response, and it boils down to "Yeah, you probably shouldn't do this, guys." Not even a definitive; the literal language they use is "strongly advise against"! They don't actually give a damn about this; they just don't want to be seen by the public for what they are.

[ShiraNoMai]

Damn, it's a shame it's 2025 and not 2012, cuz today would surely be 1-3-12.



(seriously, acab, but I'm pretty sure threatening a hate crime is an exception to first amendment protections...)

Under current First Amendment jurisprudence, hate speech can only be criminalized when it directly incites imminent criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group.

[Moonface]

Damn, it's a shame it's 2025 and not 2012, cuz today would surely be 1-3-12.



(seriously, acab, but I'm pretty sure threatening a hate crime is an exception to first amendment protections...)

Under current First Amendment jurisprudence, hate speech can only be criminalized when it directly incites imminent criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group.

How does a letter suggesting people stalk and harass a particular group of people not fall under inciting criminal activity?

[Maniakkid25]

Oh, I didn't say it wasn't a crime; I said they won't investigate. And they aren't! They gave little platitudes like "do the right thing", and "this erodes trust", but nothing about "we are investigating this as the crime that it is"; no "we are looking into who actually did this and why. Nothing of the sort! They don't care. They just don't want to be seen as the enablers they actually are.

[Moonface]

..."this erodes trust"...

How is doing something eroding trust but doing nothing isn't? That makes absolutely zero sense. x.x

[Maniakkid25]

They're saying the letter erodes trust in the community and officials. Yeah, it makes just as much sense in context.

[ShiraNoMai]

From things on figurative fire to things on literal fire, L.A. sure is: https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1...sades-fire



New fire just cropped up near Hollywood, which, yikes.

[Moonface]

I was just coming in here to share this satellite image that shows just how many houses are on fire in the Western Altadena area: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/npqZKEEUWk

With how often wildfires happen in California I wonder why anyone still wants to live anywhere close to the forested areas and if there could ever be a solution to stop fire spreading beyond the tree areas to houses so that the fire can be guaranteed contained instead of getting to spread like this.

[Mr EliteL]

I did hear about the fire last night and didn't look into it further as I had to go to bed. This is the second time I've come across the news, and damn didn't think it would be in now 3 separate areas...hold on scratch that, looking further on that Incident site, it's now 5 areas, geez.

[Moonface]

I was curious how things are now since I've not really seen anything about it for the last few days, and the first thing I saw was that apparently the fire hydrants stopped working later in the initial day of the fires, which left the fire department without water to tackle any of the fires that were starting or spreading. Worse still, there's still warnings for more fires to break out all the way up until at least Wednesday due to the weather and climate conditions in LA.