“USA unable to restrain themselves from giving bombs to Israel”

A federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing parts of his sweeping executive order overhauling federal elections, including by requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and barring states from counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston issued a preliminary injunction at the behest of 19 Democratic-led states who had argued that the Republican president lacked the authority to mandate changes to elections and the states’ voting procedures.

This is what really happens while the clowns are having a fight. Let’s just hope these 19 states do a little more than “argue”.

“The largest public gathering of centrist Democrats.”

WelcomeFest consisted of professional consultants telling politicians, ​“Don’t sound like you listen to consultants!”, followed by politicians saying ​“Ya know in my district there in the Midwest, I talk to regular folks, not consultants.”

Derek Thompson, coauthor of the new centrist Bible ​“Abundance,” jumped in with an inspiration. ​“Stories are for children,” he said, channeling the voice of a politician. ​“What Americans need is a plan.”

“I’m not a storyteller,” he declared, modeling a bold man of action. Then he pulled back from his speech, to pundit once again. ​“What I did there is also storytelling.”

This is how people sound when they’re just talking. Talking and talking, with nothing to say.

I always thought this book was more a techbro nazi utopia sort of bible.

Can’t keep himself from bragging even as his PR people try to tone it down.

Oracle, Amazon, Coinbase, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir, Meta definitely until '22, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram, Coinbase, Coca-Cola

The list goes on. Never has it been more obvious who profits most from stroking his ego.

Just read the whole article!

But I cannot resist quoting some bits that stood out to me:

While some organizations reported from inside the protest itself, most did not: They set up camp behind the police line, or reported using drone footage, or simply asked the cops what to say. “Dozens of people were arrested Sunday and accused of attempted murder, arson and other crimes during a day of violence and protests in Los Angeles,” NBC Los Angeles declared in an article based exclusively on LAPD sources. It’s an understandable decision on their part. Just look at Lauren Tomasi, a reporter for the Australian Channel Nine news service who got “caught in the crossfire” and struck with a rubber bullet while reporting—by which I mean an LA police officer aimed directly at the reporter from close range and shot her. (…) As of Tuesday morning, the LA Press Club documented over 30 injuries to members of the press. Easier and safer to parrot police talking points than face down their guns.

(…)

The idea that cops were just reacting to protester provocation is absurd. Cops occupied intersections in an attempt to split the protest, then occasionally charged the protest lines that surrounded them to force the crowds to temporarily retreat. These assaults seemed unrelated to protester action or lack thereof. At one point, while the cops were unloading round after round of blue-tipped rubber bullets into a crowd hunkered down behind a barricade, a different group of protesters approached from the side and threw a firework into the center of the police line. The cops turned their fire against the group, which ran off, but did not pursue them. Thirty seconds later, the cops were back to shooting at the barricade.

(…)

When I arrived on the scene, the cops were seriously outnumbered—thousands of protesters, a couple hundred cops. If there had truly been a riot, those cops would have found themselves overrun, disarmed, brutalized. But it was a protest. So they were fine.

And yet, the anti-protester framing is relentless, even from otherwise balanced sources.

I like that the writer doesn’t try to gloss over the occasional violent act from the protesters’ side, but instead always points out cause and effect, how understandable a reaction it is when you’re being shot at for - well, protesting.

Trump can call these protests invasions all he wants: I know what I saw. As the sun began to set, riot cops from the LA county sheriff’s department showed up on trucks, fully kitted out with shields and gas masks. The rapidly shrinking protest saw the writing on the wall and, rather than confront these militarized enforcers, turned and walked away, into the night and into the city. For hours they marched, blasting mariachi music and old-school West Coast rap and chanting their simple, reasonable demand:
“No ICE in LA!”

Why do they point out that it was 4 hours ago? Did he tweet truth lie it after the attacks started? That would be …what’s the word… sanctimonious

This is a famous example but you could have chosen any of his “speeches”. I’d claim that the newer ones are even worse.

Journalists around the world have been complaining about this ever since 2016: it’s impossible to write good political journalism about Trump. There was a collective sigh of relief in 2020, manifesting itself as pleasant silence. Then Jan 6 happened…

Unfortunately it also has the backing of a much larger rogue state.

Just like those weapons of mass destruction, way back when in Iraq? I’m shocked, I say, shocked!

obligated by law, to keep sending them weapons

Can you expand on that?

There are agreements but to which extent are they binding? I guess they are not unconditional.

“The West” is a bit too broad don’t you think.

I think that’s blinkered, if not blind. Definitely.

And that username… (edit: oh look they just changed it from “ArgumentativeMonotheist” to “YappyMonotheist”)

Sounds familiar…

Here are the global knock-on effects of Trumpism. The world has been afraid of this for years. And mind you, it’s not because the USA is losing its grip, its role of world police. It’s because of fucked-up diplomacy dominated by egomania, backing the wrong allies in the wrong way. And being so dumb that you’re easily exploitable.

I’m sorry for once again seeing every conflict through USian eyes - Americans do that well enough by themselves - but in this case it’s just true. Fuck Trump, Fuck Netanyahu. Let’s hope this nightmare ends soon.

From the article:

A U.S. official told CNN that the United States had no involvement or assistance in the Israeli strikes

Um, sure. No involvement at all during the last 8 decades.

And Netanyahu:

“This is a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival. 80 years ago the Jewish people were the victims of a holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime. Today, the Jewish state refuses to be a victim of a nuclear holocaust, perpetrated by the Iranian regime.”

‌ Of course they stick to that one however nonsensical it has become, considering Israel is the Nazi regime now, inflicting its own holocaust on others.

One reason is that IP’s can be more granular as another user pointed out. OTOH that doesn’t always work so well, either - I often get pinpointed to a location some 100km from where I actually am.

Another reason could be to circumvent people’s privacy settings, which are becoming more popular even without using a VPN. Essentially a sort of “we don’t trust you with the data you give us about yourself”.

And since others brought up search engines etc., there’s a third reason: I always use English on my computer UI, but I am not in England and English is not my first language. Sometimes it’s nice to still get localised results (DDG has a drop-down to change this on the fly though).

Oh, and while trying to find a site that tells me where it thinks my IP is located right now I noticed that the top search results all ask location permissions and show me nothing without them. And “Location” is a combo of IP, cell tower and GPS. It might come down to IP only on a laptop, but soon maybe not anymore.

using Google Translate on the backend to transparently translate the website on the fly.

This is what they call “modern cloud-based solutions”. Except, now it’s “modern AI-based solutions” - same shit with a different label.

I am now trying to imagine how that works. Every time a client calls the website with an unseen (and IP-based of course) language? Do they at least cache whatever google returns?

Storing translations and switching between them at a technical level isn’t really hard.

Esp. as you yourself pointed out, the internet has been multilingual for decades now.

I’m the opposite: I find it increasingly harder to distinguish car makers just from looking at the car (without seeing the logo of course). They all look snazzy.

I just know that when I see a fancy car, and check the make, it’s BMW or something high end, and when I see a pygmy hippo lookin’ motherfucker, it’s made by one of those “buy one, get one free” type manufacturers that appeal to meth head soccer moms.

First of all, car manufacturers invest A LOT of resources into evoking that specific reaction in (potential) customers.

And I don’t like your attitude towards people who have less money than you.

You absolutely can slap a Lambo body on anything (provided it fits) and there is a literal cottage industry that exists around doing so. It’s not popular because, let’s be honest, it’s pretty silly, and everyone involved acknowledges its pretty much just for fun and entertainment.

There used to be one or two pretty popular versions of this though; not an exact copy but just a sporty chassis on top of a ubiquitous and cheap model, like the Karmann-Ghia on top of the VW Beetle.

I asked in another thread if there’s some media coverage of what the troops themselves think, in LA. Or how they act. You wouldn’t happen to know some?

https://web.archive.org/web/20210422014523/https://www.gnu.org/education/how-i-fought-to-graduate-without-using-non-free-software.html