I just meant that the libel suit was predictable. Trump does seem shaken. I suppose that’s because this time the most fanatical of his followers are the outraged ones.

Trump’s response was entirely predictable so I presume that they predicted it and planned for it.

I don’t understand the long-term purpose of a cease-fire. Is it an admission that Ukraine will not be able to retake occupied territory and an attempt to limit further losses?

Kill them with kindness.

Plenty of people want to inflict pain or see pain inflicted, as long as it’s on the appropriate victims, and these people aren’t all on the right. It’s a common human trait.

I assumed that the VC is talking about small startups, the sort that have a dozen employees and just one project.

I do generally lean towards lowercase-L libertarianism (I don’t support the Libertarian party) but running a huge deficit isn’t libertarian. Taxes shouldn’t be lower than spending in the long term.

I didn’t mean to imply that Trump’s overall budget is a good one - maybe the cuts could be justified as part of a serious effort to reduce the deficit, but I don’t support them when they’re accompanied by even bigger tax cuts and the deficit grows.

So far, Milei has been right and his critics have been wrong. I assume he’ll veto this again.

The thing about government spending (and I’m seeing it come up a lot in the context of Trump’s budget cuts too) is that pretty much all of it is important to someone sympathetic who will experience hardship without it. Reducing spending means taking money away from people who need it, but reducing spending is still sometimes necessary for long-term national prosperity.

they can just hire more people

In software development, it’s not that easy. Having multiple people working on the same code adds a lot of overhead. Also, finding another excellent programmer is slow and expensive. (The “fast, cheap, good: pick two” rule applies.)

Plus, do you want two software developers with a good work/life balance and fulfilling ways to spend their free time, or do you want one software developer with mental issues that, among other things, leave him with nothing to do except work and no source of meaning in life except getting work done? The first option is more dependable, since the guy in the second option is crazy. However, if you’re building a startup then you need to take risks and the second option is the one more likely to create something amazing. (IMO, of course.)

Yes, that’s what I’m saying. There’s no way that anyone except Mamdani will win unless something really bizarre happens. He’s not going to lose to forced-to-resign-in-disgrace Cuomo or should-have-been-forced-to-resign-in-disgrace Adams, and he’s certainly not going to lose to Silwa. People who are afraid that the Democratic establishment will succeed in sabotaging him don’t need to worry. In fact, I’m surprised that Paterson is apparently willing to embarrass himself by trying something so clearly futile.

I think I’d rather have the Republican but there’s no chance that a Democrat won’t be elected.

Approval rating collapsing after the election? Is that the modern version of the “closing the barn door after the horse got out” saying?

I doubt that Trump has ever read Shakespeare.

I think it’s important to note that America’s permissive immigration policy during the 18th and 19th centuries was accompanied by the lack of a government-provided “safety net” for those immigrants.

No, the Republican fantasy is doing that and having the benefit cuts pay for the tax cuts. This is the Republican reality where the tax cuts still require borrowing an enormous amount of money.

Edit: Society is always making a trade-off between helping the poor and using that money for other purposes and if, with the support of working class Americans, a candidate is elected who decides that society will help the poor less, then that’s a reasonable outcome in a democracy even if it isn’t one that I personally support. However, running the debt up like this is an extremely reckless and selfish decision to buy lower taxes in the present day at the expense of America’s future. It’s so short-sighted that I think it isn’t a reasonable choice for any ideology except perhaps nihilistic disregard for anything beyond the next election cycle…

Obama: Your campaign is a mess!

Biden: Who are you? Where am I?

Heck, are there dating sites that work at all anymore? Over a decade ago I had some success with OkCupid but my impression is that ever since swipe apps became a thing, online dating went from bad to terrible for everyone except gay men looking for hookups. Now I might have to go low-tech and ask my grandma to introduce me to her friends’ single granddaughters…

More than every single democrat voting against it?

He’s the man the voters chose - if they didn’t trust his judgement, they could have chosen someone else. His moral character represents American moral character.