1. #106861
    Quote Originally Posted by PACOX View Post
    Real question is does Elon get the first tattoo. But the way he talks about autism and autistic people makes zero sense. Insane even.
    Maybe RFK's weird opinion of autistic people comes from having met Musk and seeing how the man can neither play baseball nor wipe his own ass.
    “There you stand, the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs, and your rigid pacifism crumbles to blood stained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns.”

  2. #106862
    Quote Originally Posted by Mekh View Post
    Maybe RFK's weird opinion of autistic people comes from having met Musk and seeing how the man can neither play baseball nor wipe his own ass.
    he's been on this for a long while.

    probably hung around with his aunt his family had lobotomized too much or something

    they're incredibly weird people

  3. #106863
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    he's been on this for a long while.

    probably hung around with his aunt his family had lobotomized too much or something

    they're incredibly weird people
    Well, @tehdang says if we didn't want the government to read our fitness trackers, Dems should have campaigned harder.
    “There you stand, the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs, and your rigid pacifism crumbles to blood stained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns.”

  4. #106864
    Merely a Setback Sunseeker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mayhem View Post
    Seriously, when all of this is over one way or the other, the world has to get together and have a stern talk with the US because what the shit is this?
    Well the idea is twofold:
    1: Congress may not be available, historically, it could take a while to get them all together, and an imminent attack would warrant a war NOW rather than whenever Congress could get quorum. Alternatively, Congress (or enough of them to make quorum impossible) could be dead, and this allows the President to act on their own.
    2: Congress can be slow, and that's good sometimes and bad sometimes. If say, Russia attacked Maine and half of Congress was debating if we should just cede it to them, a president could say "Fuck that" and bomb the shit out of Russia for a couple months.

    So, it has its uses, but for the past 60 years or so, it's generally been used for "Police Actions", Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan etc... none of which got a formal declaration of war.
    Star Trek teaches us that if we work together, we can accomplish anything. Star Wars teaches us that sometimes violence is necessary against an oppressive government. Both are valuable lessons.
    Just, be kind.

  5. #106865
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kilma...b047d19264e2d7

    The wife of a Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador by mistake said she and her family were forced to move to a safe house after the Department of Homeland Security exposed her address on its official X account.

    “I don’t feel safe when the government posts my address, the house where my family lives, for everyone to see, especially when this case has gone viral and people have all sorts of opinions,” Jennifer Vasquez Sura told The Washington Post.

    ...

    In an attempt to further portray Abrego Garcia as dangerous, DHS posted a copy of a protective order filed by Vasquez Sura against her husband in 2021. The document included her family’s home address.

    “Kilmar Abrego Garcia had a history of violence and was not the upstanding ‘Maryland Man’ the media has portrayed him as,” the department’s post read. “According to court filings, Garcia’s wife sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, claiming he punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt, among other harm.”

    Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, addressed the protective order in a statement to multiple news outlets, saying she got into a disagreement with her husband and acted out of caution after surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship.

    “Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process. We were able to work through the situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling,” the statement read.

    However, Vasquez Sura told The Washington Post that ever since DHS posted her address to millions of their followers online, she began fearing for her family’s safety.
    DHS is doxxing citizens, now.

    There are too many instances of this for this to be an "accident" or "incompetence", this is intentional malice at this point. Just the donald administration doing a bit of the old spreading terror and intimidation!

  6. #106866
    Quote Originally Posted by Sunseeker View Post
    Well the idea is twofold:
    1: Congress may not be available, historically, it could take a while to get them all together, and an imminent attack would warrant a war NOW rather than whenever Congress could get quorum. Alternatively, Congress (or enough of them to make quorum impossible) could be dead, and this allows the President to act on their own.
    2: Congress can be slow, and that's good sometimes and bad sometimes. If say, Russia attacked Maine and half of Congress was debating if we should just cede it to them, a president could say "Fuck that" and bomb the shit out of Russia for a couple months.

    So, it has its uses, but for the past 60 years or so, it's generally been used for "Police Actions", Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan etc... none of which got a formal declaration of war.
    Well, Iraq and Afghanistan were authorized by Congress. But it never got reauthorized and Congress decided to just ignore it.

    But, as you point out, there are legit reasons for the WPA. However, as we can see with Trump, what could be a legit thing could easily turn into extreme abuse that turns into an illegitimate thing because the reasons being used aren't legit.
    Last edited by gondrin; 2025-04-23 at 11:53 PM.

  7. #106867
    Void Lord Breccia's Avatar
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    Why Trump's 'Blame Jerome Powell' Strategy Flopped So Hard

    TIME Magazine has some thoughts.

    Trump knows exactly who to blame for the tanking economy: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who has not acceded to Trump’s whims to lower interest rates to goose the economy.

    For just about everyone else—including Jay “Mr. Too Late” Powell, in Trump’s latest nickname of contempt—the culprit is just as clear: Trump himself, who has threatened, implemented, suspended, swapped, and escalated tariffs like so many wallpaper swatches.

    Here’s the thing: Investors crave certainty. That’s why the United States is the far-and-away top destination for foreign direct investment, logging more than $5 trillion in holdings from non-Americans. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly 10 cents of every FDI dollar invested globally, according to IMF data.

    On Tuesday, Wall Street rallied on Trump’s and Bessent’s remarks, but you talk to anyone in Washington in touch with major investors and it’s clear no one is taking those statements as reliable for more than a few days. For now, things look to continue racing in the wrong direction. The IMF forecast downgraded U.S. economic growth to a meager 1.8% this year, down from an expected 2.7%. (In Biden’s final calendar year in office, the economy grew by 2.8%.)

    The White House continues to sell all this as a hiccup that won’t stop the ushering in of a new golden age of manufacturing as firms realize they’d rather invest in factories here than pay the import taxes. The real culprit, in the West Wing’s mind, remains Powell. Or at least he is a viable place to offload the blame. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday told reporters that the Fed was needlessly keeping rates steady “in the name of politics, rather in the name of what’s right for the American economy.”

    Among those who watch the Fed and the billions of dollars it moves on Wall Street, the story the White House is telling doesn’t match reality. And as investors brace for the bill to come due from Trump’s standoff with, well, the world, the Administration's constant messaging shifts are beginning to drown out the messages themselves.
    Simply put, while Trump cultists are either brain damaged enough to watch Trump unilaterally damage the economy then blame Powell, or are at least willing to pretend, they are not just demonstrably wrong but outnumbered.

  8. #106868
    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    Why Trump's 'Blame Jerome Powell' Strategy Flopped So Hard

    TIME Magazine has some thoughts.



    Simply put, while Trump cultists are either brain damaged enough to watch Trump unilaterally damage the economy then blame Powell, or are at least willing to pretend, they are not just demonstrably wrong but outnumbered.
    I just had to listen to one today braying about how the market always goes up. I wanted to slam his head into his desk and yell directly into his ear about the destabilizing bond market and how his orange god has lost a trillion dollars from the market in less than 100 days.

  9. #106869
    Titan PhaelixWW's Avatar
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    Legitimate question for y'all...

    Did anyone here, during Trump's disastrous COVID response, think even for a second that Trump might later preside over an even more disastrous situation entirely of his own making? That the history books might look back at Trump's first term as the relative calm before the storm, rather than the storm itself?
    R.I.P. Democracy


    "The difference between stupidity
    and genius is that genius has its limits."

    --Alexandre Dumas-fils

  10. #106870
    Void Lord Breccia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Xath View Post
    I just had to listen to one today braying about how the market always goes up.
    Yes, today the market recovered some of Trump's losses. It gained 400 today, meaning Trump has only lost 4000 since he was inaugurated.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by PhaelixWW View Post
    Did anyone here, during Trump's disastrous COVID response, think even for a second that Trump might later preside over an even more disastrous situation entirely of his own making?
    Yes, but not in the first 3 months. I legit thought he'd wait longer before destroying the country.

    - - - Updated - - -

    CNN posts a video "Trump Chickened Out" about how China is mocking Trump on trade, going viral on social media.

    My favorite headline is "Today's Trump beats Yesterday's Trump"

  11. #106871
    Quote Originally Posted by PhaelixWW View Post
    Legitimate question for y'all...

    Did anyone here, during Trump's disastrous COVID response, think even for a second that Trump might later preside over an even more disastrous situation entirely of his own making? That the history books might look back at Trump's first term as the relative calm before the storm, rather than the storm itself?
    I honestly didn't think people who be insane enough to vote for him again. But I also didn't think MAGA would metastasize through the entire republican party to the point they wouldn't even bother having a primary. I also didn't think that people could see something like p2025 or the pieces on Yarvin leading up to the election and just not vote because of what was happening in Gaza. Really I didn't think America as a whole could be this fucking stupid and that's my fault.

  12. #106872
    Quote Originally Posted by PhaelixWW View Post
    Legitimate question for y'all...

    Did anyone here, during Trump's disastrous COVID response, think even for a second that Trump might later preside over an even more disastrous situation entirely of his own making? That the history books might look back at Trump's first term as the relative calm before the storm, rather than the storm itself?
    i'd be shocked to find any credible predictions of just how quickly donald managed to complete obliterate trust and confidence in the US, while also throwing global markets into chaos and potentially triggering a recession.

  13. #106873
    Titan PhaelixWW's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    Yes, but not in the first 3 months. I legit thought he'd wait longer before destroying the country.
    Well, the question was more asking about how you felt in 2020/2021 rather than 2024/2025.
    R.I.P. Democracy


    "The difference between stupidity
    and genius is that genius has its limits."

    --Alexandre Dumas-fils

  14. #106874
    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    CNN posts a video "Trump Chickened Out" about how China is mocking Trump on trade, going viral on social media.

    My favorite headline is "Today's Trump beats Yesterday's Trump"
    I suppose this means we can expect the tariffs will be back on by next Monday because of this, since people are daring to mock Lord Ego.
    confirmed by my uncle nitnendo and masahiro samurai

  15. #106875
    Merely a Setback Kaleredar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhaelixWW View Post
    Well, the question was more asking about how you felt in 2020/2021 rather than 2024/2025.
    Economy was better under Biden compared to now, what can I say?
    @Somewhatconcerned hasn’t been able to really address this.
    “Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    Kaleredar is right...
    Words to live by.

  16. #106876
    Void Lord Breccia's Avatar
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    China returns Boeing planes over tariffs.

    Kelly Ortberg said two planes had already been returned and another would follow after trade tensions between the two countries escalated.

    Boeing's chief executive told CNBC that 50 more planes were due to go to China this year but their customers had indicated they will not take delivery of them.
    Boeing is a known Trump ally. This was intentional provocation.

  17. #106877
    One thing I wonder. Trump being able to start a conflict for 30-90 days (can’t remember how long) without congressional approval. What is to stop him from just restarting it every time it’s up to pass that time limit on just another false pretense over and over again?

    I mean even if they don’t actually sign onto it, if they don’t remove him, what is to stop him from just restarting it every time it’s about to expire?
    Since we can't call out Trolls and Bad Faith posters and the Ignore function doesn't actually ignore it. Add
    "mmo-champion.com##li.postbitignored"
    to your ublock or adblock filter to actually ignore ignored posters. Now just need a way to ignore responses to them as well.

  18. #106878
    Void Lord Breccia's Avatar
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    The WSJ isn't having this.

    First he carved out space for Mexico and Canada from his reciprocal tariffs. Then he put his reciprocal tariffs on everyone except China on a 90-day pause. Then the Customs bureau gave exceptions to Apple, Nvidia and big electronics companies. Now comes word that Mr. Trump may substantially cut his 145% tariff rate on China.

    That’s a long way in three weeks from the declarations by White House aide Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that there would be no tariff-rate changes. It’s hard to see this as anything other than a retreat amid the harsh reaction of financial markets, worries about recession and price increases, and a sharply negative reaction from the rest of the world—friend and foe.

    The good news is that at least Mr. Trump is finally listening to reality.
    Imagine writing the sentence "the President started listening to reality". Imagine looking it over and saying "yes, this is a fair and accurate representation of the situation". Imagine thinking "gosh, I've literally never had to write this sentence before".

    The CEOs of Walmart, Home Depot and Target paid a visit to the White House this week and told Mr. Trump prices would soon rise and store shelves might soon be empty as the tariff impact grows. This would be more than the “little disturbance” Mr. Trump warned about when he first unveiled his tariff barrage.

    Financial markets have also had an impact, as they rise or fall based on the latest news about tariffs and Mr. Trump’s plans for Fed Chair Jerome Powell. There couldn’t have been a clearer market test in the last three weeks about the economic damage these columns warned about. The MAGA media echo chamber that praised Mr. Trump’s tariffs as strategic genius looks foolish.
    The best indication of that last line is the absence/silence of our usual trolls. This is too much for even them to pretend to defend.

    Another harsh reality is that China called Mr. Trump’s bluff and seems to have won this round. When Mr. Trump imposed his tariffs in the first term, President Xi Jinping retaliated with some restraint and sent a delegation to negotiate a trade deal. This time he retaliated in tit-for-tat fashion and pushed all of his anti-U.S. economic and diplomatic levers. He has cut off U.S. access to crucial rare-earth minerals, stopped the delivery of Boeing jets, looked elsewhere for food and natural-gas imports, and unleashed regulators against American companies.

    Beijing has also warned countries not to do trade deals with the U.S. that exclude China—or else. With even U.S. allies facing Mr. Trump’s tariff assault, Beijing’s threat has resonated in a way that it never previously did. U.S. diplomatic sway is ebbing.

    The question going forward is whether Mr. Trump is internalizing these economic and political lessons or merely pausing to fight his trade war another day. We doubt even Mr. Trump knows the answer, since so much of his decision-making is ad hoc. He’ll keep his universal 10% tariff in any case.
    This is the WSJ, remember, a traditionally right-leaning source.

    "They must really regret endorsing Trump, huh?"

    They endorsed neither candidate.

    "They must really regret endorsing neither candidate, huh?"

    Yes.

  19. #106879
    Legendary! Collegeguy's Avatar
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    Walmart and the big box stores should be strategic with the tariffs and make the shelves empty in Republican states first. That way the constituents that voted for this get a taste of what erecting the Berlin wall they asked for feels like.

  20. #106880
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    i'd be shocked to find any credible predictions of just how quickly donald managed to complete obliterate trust and confidence in the US, while also throwing global markets into chaos and potentially triggering a recession.
    That part I called if he got in power again I just didn't think the American population would be stupid enough to not just elect him but give him a fully controlled congress.

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