jakee

Hilarious results coming out of Australia. Lot of wannabe populists learning the hard way that MAGA does not travel well.

Careful now - absolute free speech is only free when it’s not about Elon.

Well that’s like 0.01% of the trillion bucks that Doge is gonna save, so really it’s just sensible budgeting.

At least now we know what him and Putin were really discussing on those phone calls. A birthday military parade is very Soviet chic.

She doesn't care. Do U?

But you're going to have to. One of the unique things about Trump is that he has no loyalty or respect whatsoever for the wider Republican party, so he doesn't really give a fuck about what's going to happen in the midterms. Elections that other Republicans are going to lose are a them problem, not a him problem. Therefore, while pretty much any other administration would already be panicking about how to change tack and stave off a potential electoral wipeout in Congress, he's going to just carry on full steam ahead for the entirety of the next 18 months, right up until polling day.

Problem is that, as Jan 6th proved, those who see themselves as willing to take up arms (and don’t already live in the woods) are far more likely to do so in support of an illegal authoritarian regime than against one.

I suppose unfortunately there are several Supreme Court Justices who definitely should be arrested (for non-partisan reasons) but the Trump admin are the absolute last people who ever would go after those particular ones.

Brilliant! Stunningly mediocre would be a refreshing, reliable alternative to the mercurially incompetent incumbent. Except it doesn't, because it isn't. There is no 'back atcha' involved in the tariff formulas. None. It is unprovoked and unwarranted attack. In addition (and I can't believe I have to say this to a functioning adult), having no rational game plan is a Bad Thing. I would laugh if what you were saying wasn't so depressingly racist. Trump is presiding over a huge expansion of Federally mandated DEI programs. This is the demand he made to the major private universities: By August 2025, the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse..... Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity. There's your MAGA 'merit' based hiring system - you have to hire enough Republicans. Engineering Professors can't be hired on the basis of purely being the best Engineering teacher if it means a Republican is going to be overlooked. Chemistry Professors can't be hired on the basis of who has the most promising research if it means a Republican is going to be overlooked. Mathematics undergrads can't be admitted on the basis of who had the best SAT scores if too many of them sound like they might be liberals. But hey - you're just happy they definitely can't give someone a little extra chance of an interview because they're black. Exactly the same reason to vote for the leprechaun who promised you the pot of gold, with about as much chance of success. Truly, you are an amazing specimen of the Dunning-Kruger effect. I marvel at how a person so desperate to be viewed as having an unparallelled grasp of the interconnectedness of history, society and politics can also be so completely uninterested in actually knowing anything about the world in which they live and the subjects on which they speak, and so ready to credulously swallow any line of bullshit that the conservative elites throw at you. If political scientists and biologists could team up to find a way to reverse whatever the heck it is that's going on in your brain we might even be able to develop an effective antidote to the new world order of populist authoritarianism before it's too late.

Moms and regular people did that when Trump was in power.

Only by people being deliberately obtuse.

Doesn’t matter at all though, because she doesn’t work there. Wendy would probably have some great input to a bunch of Pentagon meetings but it doesn’t matter, because she doesn’t work there. Any other staffer at the Pentagon might want their spouse to look over their shoulder while they work but they can’t do it, because they don’t work there. When my partner was in the military I went to some fun Officer’s Mess parties but I definitely couldn’t sit in on any meetings about the work because… well it’s just obvious, isn’t it?

Except no, thats bollocks. She shouldn't be there anymore than Bryan Noem should be in meetings about border security and domestic terrorism. Has the Trump administration seriously managed to normalise nepotism to this degree already?

He brings his wife into serious meetings with foreign counterparts. I mean for christ's sake - we're dealing with people here who've literally watched House of Cards and used it as a fucking instruction manual.

You give him far too much credit. He's only ever been an opinion contributor and 'TV personality' - he's never been a news journalist as in someone who investigates and uncovers stories. That would be way too much like hard work.

$3k? That’s not theft, it’s civil asset forfeiture.

Where does that number come from? Had a million or two people like you shown up we wouldn't be having the discussion. You had a binary choice between an agent of chaos with a declared intention to destroy the constitutional system of checks and balances and a normal politician who happens to be a Democrat, and you were unable to choose the normal person. Given your comment above you do appear to be happy with the idea that people who failed to vote against Trump are culpable, so it's baffling that you refuse to consider yourself one of them.

It now turns out that Hegseth shared the same information at the same time on another group chat he started using his personal phone... with members of his family and friends. I look forward to hearing him explain how his own wife tricked him into inviting her into the Yemen Warplans Casual Group chat. "It's not my fault, she changed her screen name! I thought she was the babysitter..."

Ok, so you admit that you lied. Why then do I need to watch videos to understand your point of view when you admit that your point of view is fake? People did assist him - and despite that he still killed Floyd. Would you expect him to give an honest answer? Would you expect any murderer to tell the truth? What is undeniably true is that, at the very least, he did not care if he killed Floyd. A man accused of a $20 fraud. Every single F'ing time the right accuses the left of something, it is what they themselves are actually doing. I think that the violence that is allowed to run rampant in US prisons is an absolute travesty that makes a mockery of the concept of justice and destroys any hope for an effective system of rehabilitation. I would be willing to bet that you have no problem with the idea of criminal 'shitheads' being shanked, raped and murdered in prison, just as you have no problem with the police murdering people over suspicion of petty theft.

Considering you are one of the people who was suckered by the Republican rhetoric about Harris that’s a question for you to answer.

Turns out that when Trump thought he'd be able to stop the Ukraine war on day one, it was because no-one had ever told him it might be difficult. So that's understandable. Likewise the absolute priority of stopping all the people dying - well plan A of, um, just asking Putin nicely didn't work so he can't be arsed now. Which is totally fine. "Now if, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we're just going to say, 'You're foolish, you're fools, you're horrible people,' and we're going to just take a pass."

The dynamic of that was interesting too. El Salvador gets paid a lot of money to take deportees and stick them in prison for no legal reason. When asked in the White House to send one of them back El Presidente said (paraphrasing) 'fuck you, the USA doesn't tell me what to do" and President Trump who is so sensitive to disrespect and ingratitude said "Hey this guy is so great isn't he?"

It's cute that you think 'not moving forward' is what you have to worry about here.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that Constitutional bars cannot stop a candidate standing for President if he's really really popular.

Trump demands that Harvard introduce sweeping Affirmative Action policies in admissions, staffing, course content and disciplinary processes specifically to help one racial/religious group it feels is underserved. Spoiler alert - it's not black people. Trump freezes $2bn in Harvard funding after university rejects demands