Even one of the hostages who was rescued by the IDF called it out:

6. Patent pool

The AR market is not just entertainment, Microsoft has been failing to build a viable AR helmet for soldiers for years now, after the latest-and-greatest fight jets got them.

Professional use too - think of how much simpler and safer ‘realistic’ training could be for deep sea commercial divers or oil rig workers. Live schematic overlays for aircraft technicians at work/in training.

Those are a few of the applications where an absurdly high unit cost/license fee would be gladly swallowed instead by governments or business.

foreign /fôr′ĭn, fŏr′-/

adjective

1. Located away from one’s native country.  “on business in a foreign city.”
2. Of, characteristic of, or from a place or country other than the one being considered.  “a foreign custom.”
3. Conducted or involved with other nations or governments; not domestic.  “foreign trade.”

Don’t be disingenuous , even in native Russian it has distinction of worth:

…explanation of the concept [near abroad] in Russian: " ‘The term originally had an ironic nuance,’ said the historian Ivan Ivanovich. ‘People spoke of nastoyashchyeye za rubezhye, “the present-day abroad.” But now the words have acquired a purely informational meaning, in order to distinguish the new states of the C.I.S. [ Commonwealth of Independent States, a title now in the dustbin of history ] from the “original” abroad.’ “

Auto translation:

A promise from 382 OBMP 810 OGVBRMP to everyone who doubted the joint work of our guys with foreign colleagues! We work in a well-known area of ​​a well-known region

People SCREAMED at the party. Muslim Democrat voters made all the democracy moves, and got told to get lost:

• Organized a massive protest movement,
• Made their desires and convictions known publicly and directly to leadership who’d listen
• Turned out and protested in person
• Were snubbed any kind of representation or platform at the DNC, even for a curated speech by a sitting Congressional member
• Ran a massive protest vote in the Democratic primaries, which if sustained (which it was in the general) meant that the Dems would loose Michigan at a minimum (which Kamala did) and its 15 electoral college votes went for Trump

The party has to be listening for anyone’s voice to be heard. Until you hit your FEC donor limit and the throw down even more for a Super PAC, or pay for a seat at fundraiser dinner/chat a you’re definitely a nobody to them. We need a new party:

Organizers said about 700 people attended the fundraiser. Ticket prices ranged from $3,300 to a half million dollars. Political experts said this visit is essentially a trip to the ATM.

August 12 Zoom event with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, where tickets ranged from $1,000 to $25,000

Yeah. I understood the (good faith) arguments that the presidency is a high tempo, stressful, 24/7 job and that Biden was wiped out in interviews or public appearances - but that’s an excuse not an exoneration.

If he couldn’t make it through the work each day without being cooked, every single day, then he should have stood aside for someone younger/sharper who could. I voted for Jimmy Carter 2.0 in 2020, not for Biden - the downslope was apparent even before then if you cared to look beyond the news headlines. He never should have ran again in 2024.

Seriously. Why the fuck else would your “top investigators” release these kind of details of an ongoing investigation when the normal comment is “we don’t discuss active investigations”?

1. They have no good leads and are hoping for more tips from the public (lol good luck with that $60k snitch line bounty you stiff people on).
2. They hope to rattle this purported individual to do something stupid like grant a media interview or send an email/letter
3. They are throwing a massive digital dragnet around this and are hoping this purported individual is manically F5’ing any and all stories for counterintelligence of their case.

It’s hard to truly know what went on behind the scenes, but there was a large amount of common disdain for Biden staying in the race after “we beat Medicare” - anyone who hadn’t already been clued into his cognitive decline was suddenly confronted with that reality, and people knew he was a clear loser at that point.

For Biden the floor only fell out beneath him after Nancy Pelosi and the donor class publicly announced they wanted Joe out NOW that the DNC/Biden camp realized the gig was up.

probably involving sex with minors.

Rape. It was rape. A minor cannot legally consent to have sex with a partner of near/equal age, let alone a man decades older than them.

Türkiye, if they’re still interested

Second biggest NATO defense spender, ‘developing economy’ for globalization and offshoring exploitation, major fossil fuel pipelines, significant ally who can shut off the Black Sea transit route legally and pen in the Russian warm water fleet, and a big geopolitical bridge to the Middle East. Erdogan is no saint mind you, but I would pick them as a strategic ally over Israel any day.

The UK has promise and a long history of cooperation unlike Türkiye, but they threw the baby out with the bath water and have maintained an outsized deference to the US. What doe Britain honestly bring the bloc economically aside from the London financial markets?

Why?

For the EU, it makes absolute sense to demand the UK checks off all the current membership criteria they demand - otherwise Romania and Croatia are going to feel like second class citizens, and the next EU enlargement is going to be a shitshow of negotiations with each member trying to pick and choose.

There’s also the spite/making an example argument, why should a former member get to create chaos in the union and dominate the debate (for YEARS) seeking a sweetheart exit deal, only to be let back in with all the rights and special privileges granted in the 70s?

Trump was semi-ineffectual during his first term because he was an outsider candidate. It was Jeb’s turn to get the RNC nod, but Trump won and spent the first year plus of his four trying to wrestle power from the entrenched Republican establishment and define his own administration and agenda.

Not anymore. We’re still weeks away from Jan 20 and the Republican talking heads are already murmuring about recess cabinet appointments. He’s got the party wrapped around his finger, and loyalists running the RNC, complicit Supreme Court, a House majority leader in his corner, and an affable Senate majority leader.

I hope he gets distracted trying to unfuck the effects of his policies or bogged in culture war distractions, but honestly there’s a lot of damage he can do solo as the chief executive.

“Unjust political persecution” - in whose eyes? Trump pardoned a lot of his cronies (for a likely quid-pro-quo) that were involved in J6 - is that a good use of pardon powers?

A president’s or governor’s pardon is inherently anti-democratic and political. One person gets to decide if the Justice System is allowed to finish it’s work or not, and thus we avoid having to address the why that in/justice was done by the system in the first place. When Biden pardoned non-violent drug offenders, that was a good use of pardon to reincorporate people who had erred and give them a second chance in society - but it did nothing for those who will fall foul of those same laws still on the federal register. The same with every death penalty clemency - we solve the scenario without addressing the issue.

You’re missing my point, Biden did not give his failson a targeted pardon nor a blanket universal pardon for his whole lifetime. The gun charge stems from a crime in 2018. The tax charge is from as early as 2015. The illegal lobbying/FARA investigation stretches to at least 2014. Witch hunt investigation or not, it was sustained into federal charges and was going to trial, out of a California and Delaware court - not Texas or Alabama.

If this pardon is just about the gun charge, as Biden alleges, why extend it back beyond 2018 and into 2014 when the alleged FARA/lobbying crimes were committed? Or if he’s so concerned about his son’s future unjust prosecution under a Trump DoJ, why is Biden blithely consenting to handing over power to Trump after the Supreme Court gave him near unlimited executive power?

Despite what Biden may try and spin this as, this is not just about the (aggressively politicized and pursued) 4473 ‘unlawful user’ perjury charge - otherwise why include the years prior to that act?

President Joe Biden’s son is charged with lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days in Delaware

Because Biden pardoned him from 2014 to present, it also includes the known tax evasion and FARA illicit lobbying concerns.

The Justice Department on Tuesday [June 18th 2023] said the investigation into Hunter Biden was “ongoing” even as it announced terms of a plea agreement [for gun and tax charges]

DoJ felt that there was more to investigate even if the tax and gun charges were covered in a plea deal. Read: there’s something there regarding Hunter’s lobbying efforts - and from internal Burisma emails he knew about the law and FARA concerns.

In the same April 2014 email, Hunter Biden indicated that Burisma’s officials “need to know in no uncertain terms that we will not and cannot intervene directly with domestic policymakers, and that we need to abide by FARA and any other U.S. laws in the strictest sense across the board.”

Biden is right that most 4473 charges would never get this far - what he’s cynically not pointing out (from the bully pulpit, lame duck or not) is the context of why prosecutors drop gun charges in plea deals or pursue maximal charges at trial, or the wider criminal case against his son.

Click through two links and there’s a video clip of him saying just that, with a smug smile flickering across his face, instead of an ashen expression one might expect if Lammy actually wanted to understand the context of why there are “no journalists” left in Gaza.

While Hansard doesn’t publish everything in text online, if you cared to look beyond dismissing a headline you don’t like, there’s transcripts from the chamber on the 26th, though Lammy is not credited/recorded.

😇

I already peg Tesla drivers next to Altimas and Ram 2500s, just different energy

Tesla is for the people who don’t want to drive a car, and their driving aptitude is frequently on full display

Altimas and Ram needs no further explanation, you already know

IMO that’s the height of economic policy stupidity because if/when Taiwan gets invaded, China will own nearly all semiconductor manufacturing outside of the highest end fab houses such as Intel or GlobalFoundries. The future of domestic manufacturing is high tech or specialty like Corning glassworks or L3-Harris, even car manufacturers get beat out by imports with our current tariff structure

And this is the absolute brain rot fantasy of tariffs that I keep explaining to these idiots, and keep getting blank stares or awkward silences.

Tariffs are 100% punitive, without a domestic/alternative sourcing strategy. They can work long term to reduce a foreign nation’s competitive advantage in an industry while allowing a domestic industry space to exist, but that only works if there’s a domestic industry that already exists (at enough scale to meet demand) or a long term government program to nurture and build those industries - education/vocation training, regulatory concerns, infrastructure development, raw materials availability, etc

Tariffs Chinese steel/electronics/machine tools/etc into oblivion? Either buy the imported at a high price, or buy the domestic at a slightly less high price - but the cost is always carried by the consumer no matter what.