But the powerful people behind the scenes who are using him as a figurehead learned a lot from his first term and have been developing their plans for years since then. Biden winning a term just gave them more time to work on it. Though there’s still chaos like last time (so we don’t pay attention to the Project 2025 actions ), we see the lightning-fast implementation of their agenda from Day One: Schedule F (getting rid of civil service workers to be replaced with loyalists), firing the inspectors general to remove a major obstacle to implementing, the rash of executive orders for everything from the shibboleth “Gulf of America” to declaring a national state of emergency to clear the way for everything else. Trump’s impulsivity can sometimes get in the way, but he’s otherwise the perfect figurehead because he also agrees with the agenda.

Going back in time to mess with things can create all kinds of unintentional butterfly effects.

omg, maybe this timeline is a butterfly effect!

Not so sure how many republicans in office aren’t Russian assets at this point. There’s a bunch of them though, have been for a while.

Believe it. Sure, that may not be the only purpose of sowing this chaos, but it’s a nice side gig for the billionaires who scooped up stocks on Monday and Tuesday while they were “on sale”.

Merrick Garland was Biden’s biggest mistake. By far. But it’s still ultimately McConnell and the other repub senators’ fault. They had the power and more importantly the constitutional responsibility to stop him. They violated their oaths and failed in their duty. It was their cowardice and corruption that allowed this.

Well said.

You may be right, it’s certainly been that way so far. It’s amazing how they never blame him for anything. But also, so far they’ve never experienced real negative consequences from his actions either, other than maybe a few small things they could easily dismiss as not related to trump (even if obvious to others). So we’ll see what happens when they and their friends and families start feeling some real pain. Obviously some still won’t be hurt much and some will never be able to admit trump screwed them no matter what, but others have already realized it and more of them will ‘find out’ as things keep getting worse for them.

As someone who grew up before the negative effects of computer/internet technology became apparent, and who was excited and impatient for it to develop, I agree with the points made in the article. It didn’t have to be this way; in a different kind of society it could have been a boon to everyone. But in our society all the benefits of good things are appropriated by the powerful so they can more readily exploit the less powerful for profit.

So many wonderful possible benefits that might have come from these technological advancements, to help people lead better lives, to address many of society’s issues (hunger, climate change, disabilities, education, etc) simply never happened, because in our society money must be invested to develop them, so only things that would make more profits for the greedy were able to be developed. Yes, some things did get funded by governments or foundations, but they’re only a drop in the bucket to what could be done.

Plus McConnell as leader could have gotten R’s to convict, at least in the second impeachment after Jan 6th, which was a short window when they would probably have gone along with him. It would have made trump ineligible to run again. So I place a large part of the blame on McConnell.

The SCOTUS ruling is just icing on the cake for trump, because once he got into power again, SCOTUS isn’t going to be much of a problem for him no matter how much they might rule against him. He’ll just ignore it and no one will do anything about it because the entire repub party supports him–they are the ones who would have had to check his power but they’re completely on board with him and they have the trifecta, total control.

That’s why I’m worried about the midterms–they aren’t going to give up that power willingly which means they’re more than prepared to do whatever it takes to stop a free and fair election in 2026.

The USA manufacturer can increase the price to $120, and still be cheaper than their Canadian counterpart.

Unless there is no USA manufacturer, or there is but they don’t make nearly enough of the product to satisfy demand. More importantly, if the manufacturers we (USA) have buy much of the needed raw materials to make their products from Canada or other places with tariffs imposed, then a USA-made product becomes that much more expensive.

It’s stupid, and hard on everyone but the blame is entirely on trump. Canada (and hopefully Mexico) imposing retaliatory tariffs is basically the only way to get trump to back down. Like with MAD (mutually assured destruction), the assured part has to be there or it doesn’t work. Even though it causes pain to everyone, retaliation is the most effective way to end this madness sooner–it will hurt the US economy, raise prices, and turn trump’s supporters against him. The more it hurts, the sooner people will be out in the streets.

Officially? Jan. 20, 2025

Great show!

That fucking wormy-brained piece of shit.

“CDC is aware of a publication about a new bat coronavirus, but there is no reason to believe it currently poses a concern to public health.”

Beside, it’s almost Spring, these things go away as soon as it warms up.

I have a flip phone with a touchscreen so I can type via the onscreen keyboard. When I bought it I wondered how well it would work since the screen is so small, but it works great! So much easier than using the keypad. BTW it also has maps with voice navigation.

Walmart doesn’t let you use contactless pay unless you use their app.

By “contactless pay” I assume you’re talking about paying by using a smartphone app? Obviously I don’t care about that because the whole point of my post is that I’m not using a smartphone, so obviously I have no apps of any kind.

But if by “contactless pay” you meant paying with your debit card by tapping it or holding it near the card reader, yes they do have that like everyone else.

yes

It’s called “Active Listening”

https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/

I use a dumbphone. I’m not buying a smartphone just so I can play these stupid games, and I’m not installing an app for every fucking business I interact with. I realize there will one day be a point where I won’t be able to do things I need to do without one, but until then I have no desire for one. Fortunately they haven’t made the parking meters here require a smartphone yet.

My grocery store still uses loyalty cards for most discounts (which is irritating enough), but also has “digital coupons” that require an app so I can’t get that. Theoretically I could go to their website and print them off but that’s not worth the effort. I have to pay close attention to the price signs they put up because some of them say “with digital coupon” in small print, meaning “not for you, bitch”. You know who doesn’t pull this kind of shit? Walmart. So I wind up getting a lot of my groceries there so as not to be discriminated against.

If they aren’t stopped, it’s only a matter of time before women won’t be able to own property, take loans or have credit in their names, and maybe even have bank accounts in their own name. Only men will be able to file for divorce. etc, etc.