@hex@kolektiva.social2026-04-08 05:09:12
Every time leftists talk about escalating against Trump, liberals point out that Trump is looking for an excuse to invoke the insurrection act. This is true. But they don't notice that he's the least popular president in history and the military has largely already made it clear that they won't be used against civilians. That risk assessment completely lacks context.
Trump could not possibly win against an insurgency because the only thing he could possibly offer to end it would be his own resignation. If Trump tried to escalate to civil war he would either lose or be removed.
More importantly, Trump compulsively escalates. He will continue to start wars because he thinks he's doing a good job and he's a hero. When he gets frustrated at some foreign enemy because he's actually completely incompetent and only able to win against incompetent and wildly unpopular opponents, he threatens war crimes.
I am familiar enough with history to fully believe that he ordered a nuclear strike last night and people said "no." Humanity has been saved multiple times by people refusing to follow orders, and you don't find out until years later. (This is also not the first story of a president dangerously deep in mental decline. Reagan lost the nuclear football.)
The longer this goes on, the greater the risk that eventually someone will actually let him do something unthinkable. But that's significantly less likely if he's trying to fight within the US border.
Just looking at things from a risk perspective, "he's going to invoke the insurrection act" is not nearly as big of a threat as democrats think it is, and it's about time they think realistically about this fact.
@cdarwin@c.im2026-02-08 03:41:38
@markhburton@mstdn.social2026-02-07 20:08:07
In Cuba now, lives being lost in hospital because no electricity, so, for example, can't ventilate a critically ill patient.
This is Trump
This is cruelty
This is genocide.
https://mastodon.social/@JDanielSsp/116026739948880529
@timfoster@mastodon.social2026-02-07 15:03:16
Wrt that last boost, as much as Jenkins can be a slog at times, not having direct access to my builds and build machines would drive me completely insane.
@annsev@troet.cafe2026-04-08 12:23:57
Darth #Trump is lying to the American people in every way imaginable. The full extent of his mismanagement will likely only become apparent once the Republicans are no longer in power and the legal investigations into breach of trust, embezzlement, fraud, and other criminal activities come to light.
Then there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Quite biblical—spoon-fed to the evangelicals.
@memeorandum@universeodon.com2026-03-04 19:20:57
Strong Majorities of Democrats & NYC Voters Support Gov. & Leg. Giving NYC Ability to Raise Income Tax on Its Residents Earning At Least $1M (Siena Research Institute)
https://sri.siena.edu/2026/03/04/strong-majorities-of-democrats-nyc-voters-support-gov-leg-giving-nyc-ability-to-raise-income-tax-on-its-residents-earning-at-least-1m/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260304/p98#a260304p98
@theodric@social.linux.pizza2026-02-07 23:25:07
Have tidied up kwin_wayland patch to change the hardcoded gestures to sensible defaults, and I am working my way through implementing a file-based configuration interface for all possible inbuilt gestures that kwin_wayland can send. I'm not sure if this is all going to work thanks to Wayland's certifiably insane paranoid security model, but at least I should be able to let you decide how many fingers to swipe with what direction of swipe triggers a built-in gesture in the wm.
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-04-07 10:55:43
The US IRS is yet to issue guidelines on whether prediction market gains should be taxed as derivatives, gambling winnings, or income, worrying accountants (Kate Knibbs/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/nobody-knows-how-to-file-taxes-on-predi…
@hex@kolektiva.social2026-02-08 05:06:12
FPS is the biggest available channel that I'm aware of to funnel Academi into ICE/CBP enforcement operations. The point of using FPS to support ICE agents is that FPS is stocked full of troops from EriK Prince's private army (now called "Academi" but formerly called "Blackwater"). This means that carrying out ethnic cleansing can dump money directly into the pockets of America's version of the Wagner Group (side from, of course GEO Group).
The Erik Prince angle also means that there can be an alternative chain of command that exists outside of official channels. ICE is already bad enough, but similar people have worked as mercenaries for a long time. Having an established chain of command over armed occupiers, one based entirely on economic incentives, one that can't be legally monitored or audited, one that's completely outside of the government, should be especially worrying.
I don't believe we've ever seen a clear explanation of who was kidnaping people off the streets, but I know that Academi had a contract (I believe with FPS) in Portland at the time. We also don't know who is on the ground in US cities right now, because they're wearing masks.
The bit reason J6 didn't go as planned is that Erik Prince wasn't behind it. Now there are troops with experience occupying American cities who can be called directly via Erik when Trump wants to make sure he doesn't lose again. And Erik won't back out at the last minute this time, because he's already seen that there will be no consequences for participating in a coup... if the time comes.
#USPol
@cdarwin@c.im2026-04-06 18:56:53
The “neural fingerprint” of psychedelics was spotted among hundreds of brain scans of people on LSD, psilocybin, DMT, mescaline and ayahuasca,
pointing to a shared impact on the brain’s behaviour.
The finding emerged from a major study that combined 11 brain imaging datasets from around the world
in an effort to build a reliable picture of how the substances temporarily rewire the brain.
Dr Danilo Bzdok and his colleagues analysed more than 500 brain scans from 267 p…