2024 US Election

Got to say this is less bad than I expected, even if threat of sanctions is nothing new:

Trump tells Putin to end 'ridiculous war' in Ukraine or face new sanctions

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjw4q7v7ez1o

Calling the war 'ridiculous' is somehow apt

The pettiest motherfucker out there

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/23/trump-disbands-cybersecurity-board-investigating-massive-chinese-phone-system-hack

tl;dr Biden established a review board to investigate the Salt Typhoon hacks. Trump disbanded it. Which is obviously fucking stupid. 
 

  Quote

Still, even as all the headlines remain fixated on TikTok and its supposed (and still totally unproven) national security threat, the new administration has dismantled the team of experts tasked with figuring out what happened with an actual Chinese hack on critical US infrastructure.

  On 1/24/2025 at 9:23 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

you think?  He might not be particularly bothered by that, but you think he wants it?  For what reason?  I don't really get the sense he's a psychopath, just kind of an asshole who likes attention.

he said it out loud. 

https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/elon-musk-trump-hardship-austerity-taxes-rcna177732

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-warns-hardship-americans-163015991.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/economy-if-trump-wins-second-term-could-mean-hardship-for-americans-rcna177807

edit:

  On 1/24/2025 at 5:57 PM, ignatius said:

he said it out loud. 

https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/elon-musk-trump-hardship-austerity-taxes-rcna177732

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-warns-hardship-americans-163015991.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/economy-if-trump-wins-second-term-could-mean-hardship-for-americans-rcna177807

edit:

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So yeah, he doesn't care.  Though he may genuinely believe those hardships he's indifferent to may lead to some better future outcome for the nation as a whole.  I wish I could understand his actual motivations.  He's just such a weird guy, there's no way to tell what's actually going on in his brain.  He already has so much power with or without Trump's approval.  I have a very hard time understanding why people who already have everything would want anything but the best for everyone else.  I know it's clearly not the case, I just have a hard time wrapping my head around that.  Why choose to be a villain if you could be a hero?

  On 1/25/2025 at 12:30 PM, Zephyr_Nova said:

So yeah, he doesn't care.  Though he may genuinely believe those hardships he's indifferent to may lead to some better future outcome for the nation as a whole.  I wish I could understand his actual motivations.  He's just such a weird guy, there's no way to tell what's actually going on in his brain.  He already has so much power with or without Trump's approval.  I have a very hard time understanding why people who already have everything would want anything but the best for everyone else.  I know it's clearly not the case, I just have a hard time wrapping my head around that.  Why choose to be a villain if you could be a hero?

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The type of people who tend to rise to the top in our capitalistic economic scheme (the top being insane amounts of money) are not the type of people who want the best for everyone, they're the type of people who would step on anyone and everyone to get to the top.  After spending their entire life doing so, they've lost touch with reality and typically have hordes of yes-men surrounding them and so the spiral continues.

Sure there are exceptions like that dude who owns Arizona Tea and refuses to raise the price of his product, and is Mark Cuban a relatively decent guy (?), but our monetary compensation system definitely does not reward altruistic behavior above asshole behavior.

also.. good discussion with news/facts/law suit info etc.

^^^ i wonder if he's going to use this money to help pay for the operating costs

Meta said Wednesday it would pay $25 million to settle a four-year-old lawsuit from President Donald Trump over the social media company’s decision to suspend Trump’s accounts after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/meta-agrees-pay-25-million-settle-trump-lawsuit-rcna189918

also he signed another one of those "executive orders" today for a new iron dome. cost? about $2 trillion

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-directs-the-building-of-the-iron-dome-missile-defense-shield-for-america/

  On 1/30/2025 at 2:27 AM, Nebraska said:

^^^ i wonder if he's going to use this money to help pay for the operating costs

Meta said Wednesday it would pay $25 million to settle a four-year-old lawsuit from President Donald Trump over the social media company’s decision to suspend Trump’s accounts after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/meta-agrees-pay-25-million-settle-trump-lawsuit-rcna189918

also he signed another one of those "executive orders" today for a new iron dome. cost? about $2 trillion

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-directs-the-building-of-the-iron-dome-missile-defense-shield-for-america/

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massively, insanely, ridiculously stupid & impossible. these trash pieces of idiot shit need at least one human person with a half a brain somewhere in the vicinity to explain the absolute scale of the undertaking they're even proposing. this is orders of magnitude dumber than the Mexican border wall

Wouldn't be surprised if the top Rs let Trump push through a bunch of stupid / hard shit in the first year, get Vance entrenched with the public and wacko right-wing voters, then Trump has a mysterious medical emergency and swift death, then they slide Vance in there to start the real party.

This is beyond fucked up


Musk has single-handedly made the second Trump presidency far more dangerous than the previous. "Hostile takeover" is exactly what this is.

At the very least the ICC should issue an arrest warrant like they did with Netanyahu, because nobody in DC seems capable or willing to stop this.

  On 2/1/2025 at 7:42 AM, ambermonk said:

This is beyond fucked up


Musk has single-handedly made the second Trump presidency far more dangerous than the previous. "Hostile takeover" is exactly what this is.

At the very least the ICC should issue an arrest warrant like they did with Netanyahu, because nobody in DC seems capable or willing to stop this.

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it's super fucked. and worse. that trump corruption video from andrea pitzer gets into some of it as well.. but this take over of different agencies is happening across the board. fbi, the fucking fed! the payment system of the treasury etc..  it's insane. it's a coup more or less. 

Makes sense. A couple of business men trying to run the government into the ground. The reality of it though, those businessmen have a political mandate to do so.
 

I’m going in deep hibernation mode and set the alarm clock 4 years from now. Hopefully humanity has survived. I’m not going to bother being outraged. Watmm has died by then though…

  On 2/1/2025 at 8:03 AM, Satans Little Helper said:

those businessmen have a political mandate to do so.

how so?  not from the election. he barely squeaked by. no mandate as far as i can see. this was no landslide. no reagan like ass wooping. they're pushing their way in while they have the opportunity. 

Looks like a coup to me.

  On 2/1/2025 at 8:34 AM, ignatius said:

how so?  not from the election. he barely squeaked by. no mandate as far as i can see. this was no landslide. no reagan like ass wooping. they're pushing their way in while they have the opportunity. 

he won the election. the margin of his victory is irrelevant. he run on this and won the election. that's his mandate. whether you want to see it like that or not. i'm sorry, that's just the way it is. they're doing what they said they would do. this was their program.

i do wonder though, whether all these flight accidents that are currently happening are a consequence of the same attack on governments agencies. if it is, the deeper concerning thing is that even the inspection agencies that are supposed to address these problems are also under attack. effectively making the government unable to execute the law without any guardrail. the only thing that's left are the (privatised) news agencies. scary shit.

  On 2/1/2025 at 9:20 AM, Satans Little Helper said:

i do wonder though, whether all these flight accidents that are currently happening are a consequence of the same attack on governments agencies. if it is, the deeper concerning thing is that even the inspection agencies that are supposed to address these problems are also under attack. effectively making the government unable to execute the law without any guardrail. the only thing that's left are the (privatised) news agencies. scary shit.

one of my buddies was saying something similar in relation to the flight accidents and the private news agencies, suggesting that these incidents would continue happening and the news would be hyper focused on it, everyone watching noticing (with different levels of awareness, or no awareness at all) that the whole thing is going off the rails and that the people in charge (and I do not mean just the trump admin but anyone who wields political or corporate power, no matter their political party affiliation), that the people in charge are no longer able to even sustain the facade that the whole shit is not falling apart or that they are in control etc.

just normal shit... 

  On 2/1/2025 at 9:00 AM, Satans Little Helper said:

he won the election. the margin of his victory is irrelevant. he run on this and won the election. that's his mandate. whether you want to see it like that or not. i'm sorry, that's just the way it is. they're doing what they said they would do. this was their program.

oh i know it is the wya it is and they were always going to ram all this shit through regardless of the margin of victory.. seizing the moment.  doing pretty much exactly what they planned to do. 

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/899?overview=closed

educations is for losers

  On 2/3/2025 at 2:53 AM, chronical said:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/899?overview=closed

 

educations is for losers

just closing up shop and kicking everyone out. then turning it over to corporations for people who can afford to pay. jfc. just turn america into one big Alien Vs Predator playground set to the loudest PA we've got. 

at least there's funny cartoons for 13 seconds