What's the alternative? I want to protest, but if I miss work then I might lose my job, which would cost me my health insurance and likely my house. I want to get back on social media and show people where I stand, but these MAGA people are rabid and will come after me for it. I'm ready to step up, but not while Trump has half the country behind him. I'm waiting for a numbers advantage. His approval rating is tanking, and once it gets low enough, I think people like me will be more willing to take bigger risks. Until then, we're doing what we can while keeping our heads down.

"They say, 'Evil prevails when good men fail to act.' What they ought to say is, 'Evil prevails.'

Bleak quote from Lord of War that has stuck with me. Reminds me of Sophie Scholl.

Apologies, assumed it was implied by community rules. To be fair it is a serious conservative statement, and IMO one worth mocking.

Then why aren't you nicer to Trump? Hmm?

Edit: /s

Trump just wants peace. He wants the killing to stop. And he wants to cut life-saving aid to impoverished countries. And Medicaid.

Social security and Medicare are considered mandatory spending. The chart above is presumably showing discretionary spending, which is a subset of the overall budget. I can't speak to it's accuracy beyond that.

I wonder if Taiwan is mulling over a peaceful reunification with China as a result of this mess. Their independence depends in large part on US support, but with Trump at the helm they're likely to face extortion when they need it most.

I'm curious to see how DOGE ends up handling this. Given the scale of potential fraud, you'd probably need a dedicated task force just to help sift through cases and figure out what's going on. If you do uncover fraud, then you'd need more people to hold the guilty parties accountable. It might take a few years to work through such a huge number of cases, and with more people aging out of the system each year, it'd likely need to be an ongoing effort. You'd basically need to create a whole new fraud agency to deal with this problem, which is ironic given that the IRS already does this and we're actively trying to downsize them.

Honestly, fixing this whole mess might be as simple as calling up Trump and offering him a bribe. Give him a hotel or something.

Wouldn't this have had value as a bargaining chip in peace talks? The fact that they're saying this now suggests that they're about to pressure Ukraine into a truly shitty deal.

Harris's approach presumably would have been a continuation of Biden's, waging an economic war of attrition against Russia for as long as Ukraine was willing to hold their ground. The whole endgame here, under the Biden/Harris strategy, was going to come down to which side blinked first. Putin must have gambled that he'd win if Trump won, which is exactly what's playing out now. If Harris won, it'd be a continued stalemate, which of course benefits the western coalition - not Russia.

I don't think he's sending them there to torture them, but to minimize how much money is spent on their care (which in itself is torture I suppose). Migrant children held in US territory are entitled to education and pediatric care - not sure that applies if they're in Cuba. Extremely fucked up either way.