UnderpantsWeevil

joined 2 years ago
[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 23 points 8 hours ago

"Have you tried rebranding?"

Brilliant.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

But this is another case where they chose not to openly defy the courts.

I suspect this is more likely a backlash from Republicans internal to the administration who are carrying student loan debt, benefiting from Pell Grants, or otherwise finding themselves directly impacted by the program.

Very routine for Trump to announce a thing, have someone in his admin whisper in his ear, reverse his decision, have a different person whisper in his ear, double down, have a third person whisper in his ear, get distracted and let his cabinet secretaries do as they please.

Don't get excited. You can still guarantee the money entrusted to the DoEd is going to get embezzled, while people who aren't friendly with the administration will be targeted for harassment and hardship.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 10 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Old enough to remember libertarians who were smugly asserting Social Security caused the Iraq War.

Now we're stuck with the libertarians who smugly assert that the Department of Education causes transgender teenagers.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago

On paper, sure. But I might argue that the process of accruing paper wealth as a backstop against misfortune and a reserve during retirement is inherently deleterious - forcing people to forego quality of life in the immediate term as a hedge against the future. This is a highly inefficient process for individuals to manage - who carry the whole cost of an incidental risk/exceptionally long life. And it is the whole reason public pensions and public insurance came to exist.

That's before you get into the moral hazard of certain professions and fortunate individuals being predisposed towards retirement, while others work right up until their dying days.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 23 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (2 children)

Imagine if the public sector did this and didn't limit it to a single development.

We could even build bigger-than-tiny sized units. Maybe include additional amenities like schools and health clinics and food malls in the immediate vicinity. Throw in a rail stop so people can get to the metro center easily. You know... actual urban development.

No idea where we could get money for that, though. Maybe if Canada didn't exempt 50% of capital gains income from taxation for some reason... But no, that would never work.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 points 10 hours ago

Crazy to talk about "cheap housing" and look to the suburbs in the year 2025. That ship sailed decades ago.

That's before you start pricing in the time-value of an hour or more a workday trapped in traffic.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 13 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

"The problem with the American economy is too many pocket computers", I say while sitting on the toilet in the Bigger Bombs factory at Raytheon.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Trying to imagine a universe in which Patrick Stewart won't talk your ear off about his favorite musical, and the only ones that come to mind involve him wearing a tiny goatee.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 14 points 13 hours ago

I'm not saying we have state-mandated couples

The need to make this clarification should be grounds for divorce.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

I would love for such a fund to invest very liberally in these companies, on the condition that anything it funds must be free and open source

That's not how the game is played. You absorb the public losses. But they privatize the gains. Otherwise, there's no deal.

If the money just gets funneled into these companies so they can build their own lock-in, the EU would be recreating the same dependency on a few small companies that happened in the US.

That's the goal, yes.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

There's a squishy American centrist block that just gets mad any time there's any degree of adversity (or just negative news media on their screens) and decides to vote the most reactionary candidate on the ticket in response.

Conveniently, Democrats have been marching to the right in order to sweep up those votes. Expect a lot of "Republicans are turning American into SOVIET RUSSIA! and we need the free market to fight back!" liberal campaigning in 2026.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

One bright spot of a big American economic crash would be the correlated plunge in carbon emissions. Those first few months of COVID were fantastic for emissions rates.

 

Ross Glick, a pro-Israel activist who previously shared a list of campus protesters with federal immigration authorities, said that he was in Washington, D.C., for meetings with members of Congress during the Barnard library demonstration and discussed Khalil with aides to Sens. Ted Cruz and John Fetterman who promised to “escalate” the issue. He said that some members of Columbia’s board had also reported Khalil to officials.

“This unfolded very quickly because it was obvious,” Glick said in an interview Monday.“Everybody was upset,” he recalled of his meetings on the Hill. “The guy was making it too easy for us.”

 

"Indivisible is urging people who are scared to call their member of Congress, whether they have a Democrat or Republican, and make specific procedural asks," Greenberg said.

"Our supporters are asking Democrats to demand specific red lines are met before they offer their vote to House Republicans on the budget, when Republicans inevitably fail to pass a bill on their own."

 

Sponsor: Rep. Carter, Earl L. "Buddy" [R-GA-1] (Introduced 02/10/2025)

Committees: House - Foreign Affairs; Natural Resources

Latest Action: House - 02/10/2025 Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

 

 

Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, has said that any immigrants who pose “public safety and national security threats” will be targeted for deportation first. Rhetoric that paints America’s 45 million immigrants as “threats” to public safety is a key Republican strategy to drum up support for mass deportations. One of the first bills passed by the Republican House in the new Congress was the Laken Riley Act, after the 22-year-old nursing student who was killed in February 2024 by a Venezuelan man who had entered the country illegally. The bill would require any undocumented person or DACA recipient arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting-related offenses to be detained, even if they are ultimately never charged with a crime.

 

"CPS will continue to protect our students and their families in alignment with the Illinois TRUST Act and Chicago's Welcoming City Ordinance," one school official said.

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates called the situation "unprecedented" at a news conference Friday afternoon.

 

After receiving the text for the ad quoted above, a representative from the advertising team suggested AFSC use the word “war” instead of “genocide” – a word with an entirely different meaning both colloquially and under international law. When AFSC rejected this approach, the New York Times Ad Acceptability Team sent an email that read in part: “Various international bodies, human rights organizations, and governments have differing views on the situation. In line with our commitment to factual accuracy and adherence to legal standards, we must ensure that all advertising content complies with these widely applied definitions.”

 

After more than two years undercover, he’d been growing rash and impulsive. He had feared someone was in danger and tried to warn him, but it backfired. Williams was sure at least one person knew he was a double agent now, he said into his phone. “It’s only a matter of time before it gets back to the rest.”

In the daylight, Williams dropped an envelope with no return address in a U.S. Postal Service mailbox. He’d loaded it with a flash drive and a gold Oath Keepers medallion.

It was addressed to me.

The documents laid out a remarkable odyssey. Posing as an ideological compatriot, Williams had penetrated the top ranks of two of the most prominent right-wing militias in the country. He’d slept in the home of the man who claims to be the new head of the Oath Keepers, rifling through his files in the middle of the night. He’d devised elaborate ruses to gather evidence of militias’ ties to high-ranking law enforcement officials. He’d uncovered secret operations like the surveillance of a young journalist, then improvised ways to sabotage the militants’ schemes. In one group, his ploys were so successful that he became the militia’s top commander in the state of Utah.

 

Body camera footage shows the moment an LMPD officer hands a woman in labor a citation for unlawful camping as she waits for an ambulance.

 

In 2025, Mexico’s current challenges are likely to worsen, as the recently inaugurated Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo administration (2024–30) has shown an unwillingness to depart from the policy playbook of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration (2018–24) — a playbook that has already proven unable to resolve most of the country’s problems.Political and diplomatic relations are headed for a rocky year, as Mexico drifts further away from a strategic allyship position with the United States on several items.

 

Anyway, please stay safe and don't be afraid to defend yourself.

 

Yoon has been a lame duck president since the latest general election when the opposition won a landslide.

He was not able to pass the laws he wanted, instead, he was reduced to vetoing desperately any bills that the opposition had been passing.

Yoon is also mired in several scandals, mainly one around his wife, who is accused of corruption. She is also accused of influence peddling. The opposition has been trying to launch a special investigation against her.

This week, the opposition slashed budgets that the government and ruling party had put forward - and the budget bill cannot be vetoed.

In the same week, the opposition is moving to impeach cabinet members, mainly the head of the government audit agency, for failing to investigate the first lady.

Yoon has gone for the nuclear option - he claims it is to restore order when "anti-state" forces he says are trying to paralyse the country.

Edit: South Korea Parliament Votes to End Martial Law, Opposing President’s Decree. The Country’s Stocks Are Falling.

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