We might have had to suffer it either way. Remember, RFK apparently approached both Kamala and Trump offering to endorse whoever let him be health secretary. Kamala reportedly refused, so good for her. Trump obviously didn’t. But there are a lot of MAHA/vaccine skeptics around the area I live, more than I was prepared for (judging by pre-election lawn signs before RFK dropped out).

It’s possible RFK’s loyalists were enough to effectively pick the president. I think we all underestimated how deeply anti-science contrarianism has burrowed into our neighbors and communities.

Oof…

Ah, interesting. Honestly, glad I don’t see it.

Not everyone wins in a failing economy. If one billionaire makes out, three more lose money.

No, yeah, that’s true. But the billionaires are also competing with each other in a (perceived) zero-sum game and they believe the ones who are cozying closest to Trump will be the best ones positioned to make money - either in a corrupt or a failing economy. But every recession has been a golden opportunity for billionaires.

Heck, in post-collapse Russia, this is how oligarchs first appeared - the “shock therapy” of the 1990s transition to a market economy dropped the value of resources to nothing, and the rich at the time bought them and became the ultra-rich. Some didn’t make it. ( Like a super-bacteria forming from the ones not killed by antibiotics, the ones that survived were even more resistant to control.)

Let’s say the pre-Trump economy is worth $100 trillion, and a particular billionaire’s share is $2 billion. Let’s say Trump catastrophically decreases the economy’s value to $50 trillion, while increasing corruption such that that Trump is getting more power, and the billionaire’s share is $10 billion.

This is followed by a collapsing market that creates a dip in share prices or private valuation, the assets of which can be bought for pennies on the dollar, eventually leading to that billionaire having $30 billion in a total economy worth $20 trillion.

Win/win for Trump and the billionaire, at the cost of everyone else.

That’s basically what’s happening, and will continue to happen.

Thank you for pointing this out. I made a small clarification for when anyone sees my comment first, but you’re totally right.

Edit: See Silence7’s comment below, unlisted planned locations and expansions may undermine the conclusions.

My observations:

The list adds more evidence that Trump/Miller are actively planning to use ICE to interfere with polling in 2026 and (their hope is) 2028. The following states are states that are potentially contestable either as Biden '20-Trump’24 swing states or are close enough to swing that ICE’s racial profiling against primarily Latinos may swing demographics. These are getting high amounts of ICE buildout (Edit: Per the limited, incomplete list of planned locations on Wired):

• Arizona (2)
• Florida (5) (*2026 senate seat)
• Michigan (3) (*2026 senate seat)
• North Carolina (2) (*2026 senate seat)
• Pennsylvania (5)
• Texas (6) (*2026 senate seat)
• Virginia (3) (*2026 senate seat)

California is also getting 5, and that may reflect the plan to use it as the next flashpoint state. Since California may be seen as more likely to be volatile, I could imagine the plan is to replicate Minnesota in California this summer. They may assume they will succeed in getting Fox News-ready violent response footage if they continue acting illegally, and use that propaganda to try to give cover to the Insurrection Act, leading to an antifa “anti-terrorist” push, which then is used nationwide to justify ICE at high-value House/Senate swing district polling stations in the fall.

States that Trump were previously trialing ICE takeover but are safely democratic (Oregon, Illinois) are NOT getting significantly more offices, which again suggests they don’t intend to try to swing those. Neither is Minnesota. That is likely because Trump (i.e., Miller) isn’t going to risk more bad PR there. He knows murdering Nice White People™ is the red line for most of the low-information public who will shrug at “is it or isn’t it” fascism otherwise. Minnesota served its purpose as proving ground for the tactics and violence they plan to use.

Yeah, you in turn nailed it. To paraphrase the Godfather, we have a peacetime government and we need a wartime government - not because we are asking for it, but because we have one party that is already attempting to actively overturn democracy, and there is no clear opposition strategy.

Not sure who is downvoting this.

Oh, people are downvoting? I don’t see anything (lemmynsfw disables downvotes). Didn’t think I was saying anything controversial. Oh well.

Types of congresspeople:

• I’m here for the power: Mostly staying.

• I’m here because I believe in true left causes: Mostly staying.

• I’m here because I am a democrat and there’s literally nothing wrong: Mostly staying.

• I’m here for the money or conservative principles, never intended to change anything, and didn’t sign up for this shit: Retiring to my Swiss chalet.

The article cites some democrats that are retiring to run for higher office. Great, anecdotal, but the only data they provide shows it’s basically a Republican retirement wave. Overall I think it’s a wash.

The retiring republicans will be replaced in small part by democrats if there is a blue wave and reasonably fair election, but many are fake MAGA (i.e., voting with Trump 100% of the time, but they don’t like it and privately think it beneath them) who will be replaced by true-believer MAGA who are going to try to actively push us faster into fascism.

To the huge part of the population that vehemently reject any ideas that feel external, the hardest part of convincing someone is making it seem like it’s their idea. All of those facts were never going to change their mind when they were reported on. It had to be their own realization that, ok, I don’t like racist pedophile con men liars.

Fox News figured out how - it got root access to their brains and rewrote the whole OS - but for regular people to try to convince them of one obvious fact, we practically need to act out the entire movie Inception.

Massie: We need to get rid of Epstein’s BFF, the notorious ally to a child sex trafficker can’t be allowed to remain in power. We need to focus all our attention and energy on the most important one. I’m talking of course about - you know who I’m going to say…

…Howard Lutnick.

How dare he put Trump’s agenda in jeopardy!

Others have said Mother 3 and AM2R which are both legendary.

Another one is Game Center CX: Arino no Chousenjou 2. The sheer variety of era-faithful but still original games is wild, and the translation is an impressive labor of love.

Crazy, I thought they’d wait until the IPO before they start going to the “bleed the users like penned cattle” phase of enshittification. They must need money sooner than they thought.

They’re explicitly differentiating from modifying the search results as a reason why the ads are transparent. I figure in one year they’ll start to insert ads into the answer proper with a disclaimer, and then next fully integrate it.

Honestly, I think the Daily Beast is demonstrating how it doesn’t think strategically about what stories to post, just to get clicks.

There’s no reason to legitimize the conservative “counter” to halftime with this comparison. It’s the same thing that Fox News did to legitimize wacko conservative beliefs starting in the 90s. Presenting fringe elements directly in comparison to legitimate ones only bleeds legitimacy onto the fringe.

This is not unexpected but incredibly depressing.

…until [the appearance of] morale improves.

It actually is a completely true insight into Trump’s mind, when you consider to Trump, forcing something to publicly appear one way is the same as actually changing it. He can’t tell the difference.

Well, that confirms Trump is going to successfully nationalize the midterms.

(To be clear: we need to fight this every step of the way…)

Which, again is… Don’t be fascist? Like, how is “anti-fascist” the winning propaganda term. I can’t even understand how conservatives can say it with a straight face.

I sometimes want to see that too, but then I remind myself, narcissistic sociopath abusers will never be capable of sticking to any standards that do not get them what they want.

Their brains will not only dynamically remake their own reality to make them always have been right, but they will demand the entire world change their fundamental reality so the abuser is right, rather than infinitesimally change themselves in response to being wrong. Any “admission” we get is just helping us delude ourselves that they have the capacity to admit fault.

The only thing for us to learn from them is that they can never be trusted.