Empire in Decline

[sedrosken]

Well, this certainly isn't concerning at all.

 

[Mercutio]

"This page does not exist." I can't wait until that applies to the rest of Twitter as well.

 

[sedrosken]

It was a tweet from OSINTdefender with the following:

Reddit, Meta, and Google voluntarily “complied with some of the requests” from Homeland Security for identifying details of users critical of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has expanded its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in recent months, sending tech companies, including Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, who owns both Facebook and Instagram, hundreds of administrative subpoenas which consist of legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize ongoing immigration operations by the Trump Administration, four government officials and tech employees privy to the requests have told the New York Times.

 

[Mercutio]

I will leave this here without additional comment.

 

[Gödel]

Donald Trump has been a tariffic president.

From Trump throws a temper tantrum after tariff loss in the Supreme Court:

At a hastily called press conference, an agitated Trump railed against the conservative Roberts and two of the courts other conservatives, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both Trump appointees.​

"They're just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats," Trump said, using the apparently derisive acronym for "Republicans in name only."​

And that was hardly all. Trump called the three conservatives "disloyal, unpatriotic," and at one point he launched into a rant about how the court should have invalidated the election results in 2020, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.​

Always the circumspect and reasonable leader of (all) the people, by (all) the people, for (all) the people. (With a few exceptions, like his failed election steal in 2020, which big lie he keeps perpetuating.)

Maybe he should launch an ICE-y Sturmabteilung thug/goon mob attack on the Supreme Court, like he did on Congress in 2021. But also, amend the constitution – there should be only one branch of the federal government, and his name is Donald.

 

[Mercutio]

Chicago named its newest Snowplow Abolish ICE.

 

[Chewy509]

The "President of Peace" has just started a new war...

I just watched his speech on the declaration of the war. I'm lost for words.

Various news outlets are reporting key people in the Iran leadership have been killed in the initial strikes.

 

[jtr1962]

Now oil prices will spike and the markets will tank. Fun times ahead.

 

[Mercutio]

A decapitation strike on a reactionary religious state is not going to end well for anyone. This is just going to turn into another Afghanistan. We'll have to occupy and then spend decades and trillions dealing with bombs and drone strikes that kill a few of our soldiers a week until we decide to pull out, whereupon they'll immediately go back to trying to build a nuke, only with the motivation of certainty that they need it for self determination.

But hey, we made Israel happy.
And while we're at it, Trump said he deserves a third term because Democrats cheated him out of his second term (not the one he's serving now, they one he didn't get in 2020), and during his State of the Union speech also intimated that the only time any Democrat wins any election, it is by cheating.

There is no chance the US is going to have free and fair elections in 2026.

 

[Gödel]

Oh, and as I just Emailed some friends about that warmongerer,

What's One More War?​

I'm betting Trump will invade Cuba within a year.

He's already "saber rattling" about it ("friendly takeover" - what's a little occupation between friends [they were asking for it]?).

That should be a much easier war to win than the one against Iran, and it won't effect the price of gas as badly.

 

[DrunkenBastard2]

Noem out at end of the month.

Trump fires Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary

The president said he would tap Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace her.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[jtr1962]

Interesting how the minute people become inconvenient Trump throws them under the bus. That said, I'm glad "ICE Barbie" will be gone. She's a nasty bitch in every sense of the word.

 

[Mercutio]

Great now do RFKjr, Hegseth and fucking Stephen Miller.

I see the war with Iran ultimately playing out identically to Iraq. We're going to HAVE to put boots on the ground. Air Power is great for a lot of things, but it doesn't hold land. Eventually we'll get tired of their ability to lob missiles into Israel and Bahrain, we'll have a quick land war and then set up an occupational government in walled compounds while whatever reactionary forces plant bombs and take potshots everywhere they can. Sure, we'll make sure they don't have a place to manufacture fissionables, but we'll be there forever and everyone who lives there will hate us in a way that was only conceptual before any of this started.

In theory, there's enough brass at the Pentagon to know how this is going to play out. They HAVE to; they were all LTs and Middies 25 - 30 years ago. But Trump and Hegseth did everything they could to make sure anyone still in leadership is going to go along with it. These are the quagmires that break empires and these dipshits have given up even the pretense that the US has any other kind of power in the world.

 

[Gödel]

Great now do RFKjr, Hegseth and fucking Stephen Miller.

Interesting; I had just read https://arstechnica.com/health/2026...-measles-with-impunity-doj-lawyer-tells-judge.

Trump lawyer asserts in federal court that RFKbaby is above the law. (Just like Trump thinks he is. Or maybe, Trump thinks he is the law,)

 

[Chewy509]

There's a few people who believe that a land invasion will play out in the same manner as Iraq... Except the geography of Iraq is largely flat, lots of desert and well placed roads between all major city centres. Very few people and settlements outside of the main cities.
Iran is closer to Afghanistan in geography, while the southern plans are open, the northern and northeastern parts are mountainous, eerily similar to those in Afghanistan. There are also small townships in those mountains, with often only 1 road in and out...
If the local population doesn't rise up against the government, but instead side with the old government, I suspect things will be closer to the experience seen in Afghanistan than that seen in Iraq.

 

[Gödel]

Donald Trump has been a tariffic president.
Always the circumspect and reasonable leader of (all) the people, by (all) the people, for (all) the people. (With a few exceptions, like his failed election steal in 2020, which big lie he keeps perpetuating.)

Maybe he should launch an ICE-y Sturmabteilung thug/goon mob attack on the Supreme Court, like he did on Congress in 2021. But also, amend the constitution – there should be only one branch of the federal government, and his name is Donald.

I just came across this damning testimony about Trump's failed 2020 election theft:

 

[sedrosken]

I had to tune out from the news. It's getting to the point where it's all that's in my algorithms and I just can't handle it anymore. I'm starting to have fucking panic attacks when I wake up in the morning wondering "what's happened now".

 

[Gödel]

Yeah, I don't read a lot of articles about Trump; I can guess the gist of them by the headlines.

And a friend just sent me a link that I don't know if I'll ever open:

LEST WE FORGET THE HORRORS: AN UNENDING CATALOG OF TRUMP’S CRUELTIES, COLLUSIONS, CORRUPTIONS, AND CRIMES

 

[Mercutio]

Mutual Aid Hub

Find Mutual Aid Networks and other community self-support projects near you. Join these important efforts, offer resources, or submit needs requests.

www.mutualaidhub.org

Two of the places I have found organizations to volunteer with a through my personal doctor, who is a first-generation Mexican-American. Both her Husband, a legal immigrant from the Bahamas (and also another physician) and her sister (an Immigration Attorney herself) have been detained and released by ICE in the greater Chicago area. I've gone to LatinX neighborhoods in Hammond and East Chicago, Indiana just to blow whistles and document ICE activity on a few Fridays.

The other, even more improbable place I have found like-minded people has been "The Church Ladies" who visit my local Deja Vu. A ministry that these women have been doing for decades is to come in on Wednesday nights with treats and snacks for the dancers. They don't proselytize, but they do try to listen to what anyone working there has to say about their life and, when possible, try to offer assistance, which can be as little as getting someone some diapers but has been as much as making connections to get someone's wisdom teeth out at no charge. I found out that these same women also make regular trips to meet Indiana's state and federal congressmen for constituent lobbying efforts. They rarely amount to much since they're often advocating for social welfare, but they do still make the effort. I have gone with them a few times now. Which means I'm lumped in with a bunch of progressive Methodists, but I have also seen their efforts do some good, even with some of the more detestable people who run my state.

If you have time, I promise there's something around you that needs some help, and if you know you can't change anything on the larger scale, maybe you can find a way to help on a smaller one like a food bank or community center.

 

[sedrosken]

If you have time, I promise there's something around you that needs some help, and if you know you can't change anything on the larger scale, maybe you can find a way to help on a smaller one like a food bank or community center.

I'll look more into that when the helpdesk team takes over more duties to turn my job into much more of a traditional 9-5 instead of 9-5 plus being on-call for everything 24/7. It's nerve-wracking enough just trying to schedule in time with friends and family without having call anxiety. It seems I only ever get pulled away from off-time when it's the least convenient it could possibly be -- I'm not trying to complain, that's just the reality of the job especially with us being such a small outfit. But the fact remains that it's definitely not great for my health.

 

[Mercutio]

What do you think made the Secretary of the Treasury look like he's going to faint after being pulled out of an interview to speak with Trump, then come back to finish? He starts talking about how he's proud of his kid. Friday evening is the traditional point when release terrible and/or stupid news, so I'm expecting some combination of troops on the ground or one side or other getting a lot more serious about places where atoms get split.

 

[jtr1962]

I'm reading this as a sign they want to bring back the draft, as one of the comments mentioned. If we send troops on the ground in Iraq we'll need far more than a volunteer military can provide. All of here had better get prepared to be drafted. Age won't save you. They were going to draft up to 65 year olds in WWII. With people living longer now they'll probably go up to at least 75.

So much for Trump saying he won't start any more wars. As usual he lied.

 

[Gödel]

From yesterday's Saturday Night Live, "quoting" tRump:

“You might remember me from such campaign promises as lower gas prices and no more wars.”​

“Psych We love to make promises because a promise is just a lie that hasn’t happened yet.”​

 

[Mercutio]

The most recent two episodes of the It Could Happen Here podcast have been a discussion of the goals of the Venture Capital class and the ways in which Tech Bro billionaires are attempting to reorganize the world around them. The guest for these episodes does a lot of putting pieces together to explain how these people are building their own financial systems completely external to taxation, how they're bribing State-level entities into operating beyond the reach of law and where we can see the outcomes of this most clearly, mostly in semi-failed Latin American nations. These episodes are well worth a listen.

Separately, the Swedish researchers who have been studying Democracies around the world for the last several decades have concluded that the Trump Administration has retracted more from representative government than any other state they have ever studied, having accomplished a similar level of decline in one year as Orban did in four years in Hungary and Erdogan in eight years in Turkey. So, you know, go Trump. woo.

 

[jtr1962]

Hopefully Trump will go the route of all dictators and wannabe dictators. To quote a line from the movie Valkyrie "The portrait will be unhung and the man will be hung."

 

[Mercutio]

... and here we have the actual Nazi shit. Actively illegal medical experiments on imprisoned transpeople with an emphasis on preserving the fertility of transmen.

 

[jtr1962]

Holy crap! I knew this administration was evil but this takes the cake.

Maybe he took a cue from his former buddy Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani partially solved the homeless problem in NYC by having the police round up homeless people and sell some of them to NYU for medical experiments. No idea what kind of experiments.

 

[sedrosken]

I chipped a tooth clenching my jaw at that. Holy shit.

All of a sudden I absolutely understand the line about not being taken alive.

 

[Mercutio]

Regarding the White House Correspondents Dinner event, apparently, Homeland Security was notified by the shooter's family more than a day ahead of time, and nonetheless allowed him to travel by two trains and to stay overnight in a hotel in the DC area under his own name before letting him get within earshot of the President with a firearm.

This is after the US Supreme Court said Trump couldn't have his ballroom without a pressing security need.

I really hate thinking this, but this has every single hallmark of being a manufactured event, a false flag, to get a specific legal outcome. The FBI or Secret Service had day's notice to pick this guy up and could have done it at any time before the event. He wasn't even remotely secretive about his activities leading up to that night. Trump was even joking about how the guy was very slippery and should have been recruited to play football, and it seems like his usual mouthpieces had remarks about the incident prepared for the aftermath.

Conspiracy-minded thinking should absolutely be examined in light of Occam's Razor, but here is a case when I can't discount the likelihood that this was allowed to happen on purpose.

 

[Gödel]

From this free NY Times article:

Trump Seeks to Abolish Iran’s Atomic Stockpile, a Problem He Helped Create​

President Trump withdrew from the Obama-era nuclear accord in 2018, saying it was the worst deal ever. But Iran responded with an enrichment spree that haunts the negotiations to this day.​

Oh, Donnie boy, always the game-show host at heart. Let's Make a Deal. Then unmake it - he had his fingers crossed behind his back.

​

 

[fb]

It's all Norways fault. Before he didn't get the Nobel peace price, he only thought about peace and stopped more wars than anyone in the history of mankind. Sometimes even stopping the same war several times in one day!
But after Norway refused to give him the peace price, he has started to think about war.

 

[Gödel]

The Empire has been declining for a long time (Big Brother is at least 20 years old ):

"The Whistleblower Who Uncovered the NSA’s ‘Big Brother Machine’"​

On January 20, 2006, the front doorbell rang at the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s offices . . . in the Mission District of San Francisco. . .​

“Do you folks care about privacy?” the guy asked. . .​

“Why yes, we do,” Shari answered. “Then I have some information for you. I am a retired AT&T technician. I know how the NSA is tapping into the internet at an AT&T facility downtown.”​

“This guy named Mark Klein, who just came to the door, has something,” . . . Mark had presented us with unequivocal evidence that the National Security Agency was engaged in mass, untargeted spying in the U.S. by tapping into the internet backbone.​

 

[Mercutio]

I just BARELY remember the tail end of the 1970s,, but that also means that I do remember the '79 oil embargo, albeit mostly as something that was shown on the evening news.

The Iranian embargo back then resulted in the loss of about 5% of the global oil supply and resulted in rationing and hour-long waits for a fill-up in some places.

The current state of things in the Strait of Hormuz impacts 25% of the global oil supply and there is literally no more oil coming our way. The current administration has done everything it can to limit EV and renewable energy production in the USA, and while we do have substantial ability to pump oil here in the US, we don't have the ability to refine enough to meet petroleum demand and won't for at least a decade if we start today.

Every single US President prior to Trump understood the strategic reality of war with Iran. Even noted rocket surgeon Bush II never rattled that particular sabre. We're going to see inflation on everything like nothing US Citizens have ever experienced.

The level of stupidity that we're probably going to see over a formerly stable situation is absolutely breathtaking. The only consolation I see in this is that it might be the one thing that will get Trump voters to understand what they did. Being an adulterous convicted rapist and probable pederast with the vocabulary of a precocious elementary schooler wasn't disqualifying, but MAYBE Uncle Bubby will finally see the light when $500 doesn't get their F250 super cab a full tank.

 

[sedrosken]

Where I'm at it hasn't been much over $4/gal but we had cheap gas to begin with, and it still went up almost 100% relative to what it was. My gas budget for the month has had to eat into my "everything else" budget.

My old contacts from the truck stop have reported less traffic for trucks too, meaning the fuel surcharges have hit shipping hard as well. Not to mention, a significant chunk of our fertilizer came directly through the Strait of Hormuz before all this stuff started up -- we haven't even seen the start of the real problems and probably won't until it's harvest season.

Frankly what has me more surprised than anything is that we haven't started to see fuel shortages or rationing yet. Especially since diplomatically we're in a much more precarious spot than we were in the 1970's oil crisis.

Since this seems more relevant here...