Assuming this is actually true:

trump was just angry that there was a meeting he wasn’t invited to. Which… he was, he just ignored it.

Why not just say the n-word instead? He sucks, right. So call him a n****r. Pick your favorite slur.

Maybe, just maybe, we can find a way to insult mother fuckers without attacking other groups? Hmm?

He literally tried to have the senate (and house) murdered by an angry mob.

But yeah, that is definitely going to be the one line he won’t cross. Ignoring their disapproval.

Oh. And he’ll say “Oh no, you got me” and walk away? I mean, he did exactly that on Jan 6 that one time, right?

Like, just to check: he is going to ignore The Law if it is written law or a ruling from a judge or the supreem court. But hey, if the people he tried to have fucking murdered (and worse) say not to do something, he’ll definitely listen to them, right?

How does one judge what is false hope in a struggle that never ends?

When people are celebrating an action that will accomplish absolutely nothing so that they can continue to “get on with their lives”?

And that applies to the rest of your rant. If an action doesn’t move the needle in the slightest and just highlights how little hope there is then it is pointless. Unless you somehow believe that enough court orders will pile up that the guy who engaged in a little violent insurrection last time is going to say “You know what? I get that I am not wanted. I’ll abdicate power peacefully”. Especially when he only failed last time because he acted “too soon” and has been speed running making sure that he controls every gun in the government for this time.

We literally did exactly this last week. People were terrified of what would happen with the tariffs. trump “backed down” and… still bumped up the percentage against basically every country and is still doing everything he can to make xi jinping notice him. But people have “false hope” and are now happy and going back to their days.

Good on “Andrew” for walking away.

But people do need to understand: Just because you aren’t working for Evil Corp doesn’t mean you aren’t working for Evil Corp. Some people get a paycheck for Evil Corp. Others contribute to work that eventually finds its way to Evil Corp.

A great example being that 10-20 years ago, the new hotness in computer science research was “big data” and “graph analytics” with EVERYONE scraping twitter and the like to prove that their algorithm was faster or to correlate data faster. Plenty of people insisted they were doing “pure research” and… I should not need to explain the uses for rapid analysis and clustering of social media data.

Because the reality is that you aren’t getting money to make teddy bears (well… some people do). Because, at best, you are getting paid to make some asshole a bit richer. More likely you are getting money that has been laundered a few times but is going toward “National Security” and that is true no matter what country you are working in.

I very much spent a few years “developing the Death Star” as it were. And I don’t at all regret it. It was some of the most fulfilling research of my life and it taught me a lot of useful skills and has informed my life view. But I’ll also always remember what one of my mentors explained to me before putting me in for certain paperwork: Anyone with a soul turns to either activism or alcoholism. And… I am definitely a bit of column A and a bit of column B if you catch my drift.

So yeah. Follow your morals. But understand that ALL people who work in science and engineering are Chris Knight. And even if you do get your popcorn house moment… that death laser is still up there and someone else will find a way to improve on it.

Pessimism is indeed a cancer.

But so is false hope. Because countless people will just say “See, there is push back. It isn’t that bad”. We saw exactly that happen last week (and the week before (and the week before (…))) with the tariffs. trump did something stupid to destroy the economy and livelihood of the country, he backed off a bit, and everyone praised him while ignoring that he still made things worse.

And same here. Yes, it is great that any judges are willing to throw their careers away and make themselves a target of the fascists. But nothing will change if those rulings aren’t enforced and all signs are that they won’t be.

But it still gives people a way to just keep ignoring it because “I am valuing my mental health”

And what happens if Congress impeaches him?

It is the exact same problem. Laws that cannot/will not be enforced aren’t laws.

Calling it now:

We are all getting distracted by his broken dick. The reason why he uses in vitro is because it isn’t even his sperm. That is why he hates all his kids prior to Human Shield with grimes. Well, except Vivian, he hates her for somehow even more hateful reasons.

We went through this the last time.

These were the Best and Brightest. What comes next are the people dumb enough to get on the backstabbing conveyor belt.

I don’t even know what would be “best” for Kilmar considering he came to America to flee gang violence in El Salvador so…

On the one hand: It is very probable that they just don’t have any records. And it is finding one guy based on a photo of him from a month or two back in a giant mass of “hispanic men”. So it is going “block” by “block” to line everyone up and compare them to a photo. Keeping in mind that his appearance has likely changed due to having his head shaved, stress/terror and, likely, violence.

And the other is that he is probably dead. Because he was thrown in a “maximum security” concentration camp with many of the gangs he fled from.

1. Because, even in a world where you can buy assault rifles at the mall, it is generally only the upper middle class who are able to afford to arm themselves
2. The idea of “Everywhere I go it is high noon at the o-k corral and I need to be ready to quickdraw on a toddler at a moment’s notice” is a decidedly White American mentality
3. People are generally either getting rounded up at border control (where you can’t have a gun because other countries are sane), at work during a raid, or getting head bagged off the street. None of which are situations where pulling your EDC glock with one in the chamber is going to do much because they have body armor and assault rifles

We THINK they are based in the Netherlands. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t (VPNs and shell corporations are a thing). Either way, we don’t know if they’ll insist that Netherlands/EU law will protect them or if they’ll just hand over everything the moment they see the kind of headache they don’t want to deal with.

Again, OPSEC.

Friendly reminder that we are looking at a government that is likely going to imprison political dissidents and you do not know who the admins of lemmy.world are or what they will and won’t turn over before and after getting a call from the secret police.

Just like the rest of us don’t know who you are and don’t know if you are that “protester” with a very visible body armor and gun bulge under your shirt.

The Internet is a beautiful thing to make disseminating information and organizing protests MUCH easier. But it is also a great way to release insane amounts of personal information to bad actors. Practice good OPSEC and understand who you are communicating with AND who is listening.

trump led a violent insurrection to lynch his vice president and many other horrific things to congress. He experienced no consequences and has since pardoned his army.

So no, being a politician isn’t protection and pretending it is is just self delusion.

What is the Supreme Court going to do? Even if Sotomayor whipped out a baton, marched down to the oval office herself, and took him into custody, what would happen?

Let alone him having permission FROM THE SUPREME COURT to do whatever the fuck he wants.

There are two ways to really interpret that:

1. What was previously at the discretion of different orgs (with a strong suggestion to use burners) is now official policy.
2. This now applies to personal devices

I used to do some work for the US government and even going to the frigging UK we would always have a “private meeting to go over logistics” a week or two before going over where we would be told that we need to request and use a burner phone and laptop. Never in writing because the UK was our closest ally but anyone who tried to bring their “real” work devices would rapidly be told that something went wrong with their paperwork and they can’t go on that trip anymore.

The US military is not draft friendly. Far too much of our doctrine is built around “skilled” combat (e.g. maneuver warfare) and our superiority comes from technology which has a high cost per soldier (the NVGs that Scumbag Steve lost cost more than it would to rush him through boot camp…) and requires maintenance. And, if we move forward with the XM7, that means fewer bullets per soldier which means a greater need to actually aim (and be indoctrinated so that they will aim at the brown person rather than fire over their heads).

Obviously we can do a massive doctrine change. But “senior military” will gladly support efforts that remove competition so that they can get promoted into a woman’s place. They won’t support efforts that will make them look incompetent when (and it is “when”…) we actually use the military… or that will impact all those “totally friendly” gifts and vacations they get from the companies building this gear.

In the event of a land war against Canada? All bets are off and you can be damned sure there will be “patriotic” efforts for “new recruits” to buy their own AR-15s from Walmart before reporting to the trenches. But that will happen regardless of whether the pesky women and gays and brown people have been cleansed from the military first.

Everyone (rightfully) shat on how ill equipped the russian military was outside of their “elites”. And… there is a reason for that. You don’t give someone off the street optics that cost a down payment or two on their pickup truck. Partially because they will lose (or sell) it. Mostly because they won’t know how to use it. WW2/Vietnam era boot camp was basically “This is a gun. Point this end at the <ethnic slur>. Pull the trigger a few times to keep their heads down while someone competent does the rest”.

Have you ever interacted with a magat?

They are cowards. All they have going for them is that they are going to call the cops or get their gun. They don’t see trump as a sniveling coward. They se themselves. And since they are big and strong that means trump is big and strong.

Pelosi has a LOT of conflicting loyalties and interests but she is a leader. She is not the leader I want, but she is a leader.

Schumer has actively undermined Democrat efforts. It is hard to argue why we should even fight for Senate seats (and by association, House) when he is actively going to give up what little strength we have so that he can go home earlier.

The Democrats need to make him stand down as minority leader ASAP and I have repeatedly said as much when calling in at the various levels.