So… Obama’s state dept used a time machine to put him into office three years after Obama’s term ended?

Seriously, are you that much of an idiot or are you hoping that we are?

Oh absolutely. Filing false financial information in order to inflate value is one of his specialties.

Just a reminder that before he even took office, Trump tried to strongarm Congress into increasing the debt ceiling.

There has never been any intention to actually save any money. That was and is a blatant and obvious lie, as evidenced by the simple and undeniable fact that Trump has already signaled his clear intention to not only increase spending, but to increase it even more than Congress was willing to go along with.

So of course the “receipts” don’t add up - they’re part of the lie.

So… seriously, the Democrats are not even going to try to stop the Republicans who are actively overthrowing the government, but are instead just going to try to make them look bad enough that they can hopefully gain some seats in 2026 running as “not the Republicans?”

Well, then here’s the definitive answer to the recurring question of “will the Democrats learn anything from 2024?”

No. No they won’t.

No surprise there.

A great many Americans are angry and stupid, so even the obvious harm Trump and Musk are doing is fine by them, because they actually enjoy seeing other people suffer.

They’ll only potentially care when the whole process shakes out far enough that they themselves are suffering, and even then there’s a good chance that they’ll be unable/unwilling to assign the blame where it so obviously belongs.

No civilization has ever collapsed without the active support of a deluded public all the way down.

There are too many variables for there to be one answer.

For instance, are their intentions sincere or just claimed? If they fail to carry through, is it because of things outside of their control or just because they can’t be bothered to put out any real effort?

Or from the other end, if their actions are harmful, is that by design or inadvertent? If inadvertent, do they feel any regret or do they just treat it as too damned bad?

And so on.

And note this well - he means it.

This isn’t just rhetoric - if Muskntrump and their cronies and patrons have their way about it, Americans are going to start going to prison for criticizing them.

Something that’s been sort of tickling at my brain for a while now just came together with this headline.

Tate, Trump, Musk, Vance, Hegseth, Zuckerberg and a bunch of others of the hard right all share a distinctive personality type.

Essentially they’re incels who somehow managed to get laid.

If it weren’t for particular circumstances (most often undeserved wealth), they would’ve just been typical incels, sitting at home being bitter and hateful and insecure and self-absorbed. But because of those circumstances, they managed to get laid, so they ended up with more or less the same bitterness and hatefulness and desperate insecurity they would’ve had anyway, except it’s countered by a weird situational and entirely undeserved over-confidence, because after all, they’re special, because they can get laid.

That would also go some way toward explaining why they’re so often sexual predators. Essentially they’re bitter incels who don’t have to limit themselves to fantasies alone.

No - actually the west will only survive if we can get out from under the rule of self-absorbed, hate- and fear-mongering psychopaths and clowns.

And it’s not looking good.

In the terms of the cliche, they’re trying to have their cake and eat it too.

They want the immediate gratification of being rude assholes, so they do it just long enough for that initial rush, then they back away to try to avoid the consequences.

I don’t have one.

I have a very simple process for dealing with all of this - I never check my framerate in the first place, so I never know what it is.

I just play games If there’s noticeable stuttering or lag then I maybe try to do something about it, and if there’s not, then I just play and don’t worry about it.

Future histories of the collapse of the US will include a section on the utter failure of checks and balances.

Not personally and directly, no, but broadly, yes - I do know the irreversible damage they’re doing.

And here’s the real key to it all - none of it is accidental. The damage is the point.

Their goal is actually very simple - it’s to utterly destroy every aspect of the government that benefits the common people or inconveniences the wealthiest few, in order to convert it explicitly and entirely into a mechanism for protecting and expanding the privilege of the wealthiest few at the expense of everyone else.

Ah.

Thanks for the legwork.

That’s a shame. They were one of the few left that actually had some integrity, but apparently that’s over.

holding a pro-Russia stance

WTF?

She’s a fucking Russian asset!

When did The Guardian sell out? I missed that. They were pretty good as recently as the presidentoal campaign season, but they’ve apparently now joined the ranks of the compromised media who deliberately shift the narrative to take the fascist edges off of the Musk/Trump coup d’etat.

Mmm… yes and no.

This is a trait that Trump shares (and in fact, Trump is pretty much the ultimate example of it).

And yes - it’s absolutely a strategic advantage to them to toss around accusations to which they themselves are justifiably subject, since that at least diverts some focus from, and potentially completely undermines, the accusations against them.

But I think that’s more in the nature of a fringe benefit that they (and again, especially Trump) have come to recognize over the years and that first and foremost, it’s just plain old psychological projection, and rooted simply in their profound mental illness.

In Trump’s case, look at things like his obsession with crowd size and his immediate rage against anything he considers a threat to his image, or in Musk’s case, look at his cringey edgelord posturing and his lies about video game high scores. Both of them are desperately insecure and overcompensating egomaniacs, and I presume that in both cases, that’s the real root of their projection - that essentially they’re telling themselves, “I know you are but what am I?” Not as a strategy but simply as a defense mechanism for their grossly inflated and fragile egos.

But yes - chicken or egg, it is also an effective strategy to deflect or divert from legitimate accusations against them.

It never ceases to amaze me that so much evil is being carried out by people who are so cringey and stupid.

https://psychopathsinlife.com/psychopaths-and-projection/

A loaf of Skyrim bread.

At this rate, we’re going to reach the gulags and mass graves stage by about April.