This shit is exactly how things were reported in the runup to the 2024 election. Even if they don’t fuck with the elections, I am confidently predicting the midterms are not going to be a blowout like people are hoping.

The Dems might, might, barely squeeze out a majority in the House. And then starts the age old game of having to capitulate to the 2-3 congresspeople who say they’re Dems but vote with the GOP every time.

Not a snowballs chance in hell of Dems winning the Senate.

People are going to be hit with a truck of reality come the mid terms. Not that they’ll learn anything. Next election will be the same shit of “we’re totally going to win guys!” before fizzling into nothing.

If you are hoping for the midterms for justice to be served against this administration, keep dreaming. It’s not going to happen. Ever. Trump will die before he ever sees the inside of a courtroom regarding Epstein. No matter who the next leadership is, they’ll choose to move on without giving any consequences in the name of “unity”.

And the people will grumble, and ultimately do absolutely nothing about it.

Did you ever watch parks and rec? Do you remember the episode where Ben is working on a senatorial campaign and the Senator is essentially a robot? He comes out, makes some generic statements on camera, says a few scripted lines to the people around him “stay cool, it’s a scorcher out there!”, and then goes into a room and stares blankly at a wall until they need him for something else.

That is essentially what a good portion of our politicians are like. They make no decisions. They have no opinions or thoughts of their own. They are surrounded by handlers every day who tell them what to wear, where to go, what to say, and how to vote. They have zero autonomy of their own. And unfortunately, this is far more apparent on the left rather than the right. I don’t get why people are surprised that the Dem leadership has been so ineffectual; it’s essentially just a collection of cardboard cutouts with voice recorders going “When they go low, we go high!”

Dude… Just no. They have not thrown the kitchen sink at us. Tear gas, unconstitutional arrests, even shooting people in isolated incidents is not even fucking close to how bad it could get. Short of sending an M1 Abrams? How about just unloading full auto rifles into a crowd? How about taking out targets with predator drones? FFS, they only just started deploying LRAD.

Things can, and very well may, get so, so, SO much worse even before tanks start rolling in the streets.

“Everything I know about the Kardashians I have learned against my will”

Why would someone be humiliated that their money laundering scheme is laundering money?

You people don’t honestly believe she gives a shit, right? And you certainly must recognize this movie as just being a grift, and that it wasn’t made with the intention or expectation of being successful, right?

Please tell me you all aren’t that fucking blind.

People suspected fox or pig urine and I just don’t understand. Who would plan out an attack, knowing they will go to jail for it, just to spray some pee on someone with a syringe? Like I know we aren’t dealing with the sharpest tool in the shed here, but damn…

Your title originally left off the part about it just being a judges order and simply said he was to appear in court.

AMD is also in Israel. As is Intel.

Change your title. You make this seem like it’s definitely going to happen, when that is far from the case.

Not only has Todd Lyons given no indication he will comply with this order, but the Judge even gave him an out. If they release a guy who was already ordered to be released on the 15th, Lyons doesn’t have to appear.

I doubt that Lyons ever winds up in the same room as this judge, let alone a courtroom.

Edit: Title previously stated “ICE Chief to appear in court…”

“How can we trick the public into thinking we’re pushing for change while not actually doing anything AND getting kickbacks for ourselves?”

If things continue the way they’ve been going, you’ll be dead either way.

My 15 year old dishwasher makes a happy little jingle when it’s done to let me know it’s finished. Alternatively, I can just look at it the next time I’m in the kitchen and see if it’s done. I can’t think of any scenario where I am so pressed for time that I must be notified the second my dishwasher is done, but also be far enough away that I don’t hear it’s pretty loud jingle. All so I can… What? Do another load of dishes? Who would ever need that?

I like giving it impossible tasks, like spell OPERATION with only 4 letters, and arguing with it as it refuses to just admit that I’m wrong and have requested something impossible, or when it tries to cut corners. “No, I don’t want an abbreviation, or a word that means the same thing, I want you to spell the full word OPERATION with only 4 letters. Why can’t you get this right?”

Yea, I’d agree with 7th and 8th. 13-14 year olds are old enough to be relatively smart and know what things can hurt others, but young enough that most haven’t fully developed a sense of empathy. While most kids are relatively good, more than a handful will exhibit literal psychopathic tendencies that would get any adult labeled as highly dangerous or criminally insane. And they locked us all inside with them.

I’m not exaggerating when I say those were the darkest days of my life. High school wasn’t much better, but holy shit middle school was definitely responsible for the majority of my childhood trauma at the hands of my peers.

While I understand the desire for medical confidentiality, I think when it comes to space travel, the public, or at very least the scientific community, deserves to know some details. It’s not like we’re swimming in data about medical emergencies in zero-G, every little bit is important.

Your cynical take is far more optimistic than mine. I am more of the opinion that these incidents will be treated like the race massacres from post-civil war reconstruction: almost entirely forgotten and barely talked about. Actually, it will be even more forgotten than those. People died in those incidents by the thousands. No one is going to remember a few protests with a handful of injuries.

I don’t know if people are just not recognizing the metric fuckton of nuance with this situation, or they’re being willfully ignorant. Either way, not my monkeys, not my circus.

A lot of people don’t seem to remember Alex Jones getting banned from YouTube in 2018. While rightwing, ultra-MAGA’s were already a thing, they were relatively small compared today. Alex Jones was the first high profile ban from social media and it was like tossing gasoline onto a small bush fire.

You have to remember that Trump did not win the first time because he had an army of fanatics. A lot of other factors were at play; from people still upset about the DNC’s snubbing of Bernie, to people who weren’t fully paying attention (remember, politics used to be boring), to people who voted for Trump simply “for the lols” (don’t discount this last group, any historical account that doesn’t factor in how important internet memes were to getting that man elected is being willfully ignorant) . Die-hard MAGA’s were relatively rare, and usually a source of ridicule.

Until their spokespeople started getting banned from places. It seems so small by today’s standards. People get banned and deplatformed all the time. But Alex Jones was the first real incident, and people saw it as a massive attack on free speech. To his relatively small number of followers, the man had his free speech rights violated by the left-wing news cabal for daring to speak the TRUTH™. Suddenly, all their bullshit was justified.

I’ve always been pretty far-left but I got a deep chill when that happened. I remember remarking to my friends that banning political speech, no matter how full of shit, would only cause problems in the long run, and so it has. Precedent was broken, and the right took it as a declaration of war. I truly believe things would not have gotten nearly as insane as they are had Google not decided to ban him. He deserved it, but they opened a door that couldn’t be shut again; and following this was a couple years of high-profile bans of rightwing figureheads and safe-spaces, all cumulating to the shut down of /r/theDonald in 2020. And the infection, which had been contained to a few small corners of the internet, suddenly exploded.

You also don’t need a parks pass to visit the national parks… It’s not even all that economical.