[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Mentalist, on 28 March 2025 - 02:33 AM, said:

"how to reverse Brain Drain in 3 easy steps" by D. J. Trump.

Quote

State Dept. demands 'enhanced' social media vetting of student visa applicants

[...] it states that a student visa applicant doesn't necessarily need to express explicit support for "terrorist activity" in order to be denied [...] "[...] conduct that bears a hostile attitude toward U.S. citizens or U.S. culture (including government, institutions, or founding principles). Or [...] advocacy or sympathy for foreign terrorist organizations. All of these matters may open lines of inquiry regarding the applicant's credibility and purpose of travel."

[...] This standard may also apply to current student visa holders. While the cable recognizes that consulates do not have the authority to revoke visas, should they find evidence of current visa holders violating the new standards, they're instructed to contact the Visa Office in order to initiate review.
https://www.thehandb...visa-applicants

[Mentalist]

So now the God-Emperor of Capitalism is having a powwow with car manufacturers to forbid them from raising prices in response to his tariffs.
Surely this won't lead to Soviet-style deficits.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Now they're planning to deport a Harvard scientist back to Russia for opposing Putin. She had been arrested in Russia for publicly protesting the invasion of Ukraine and calling for Putin's impeachment.

She might get an asylum hearing, but the way they've been going they'll probably just deport her straight to a Russian prison, no matter what judges may say...

https://www.theguard...l-ice-detention

[Macros]

Man why didn't Bernie run 5 years ago

[Abyss]

 Macros, on 29 March 2025 - 09:48 AM, said:

Man why didn't Bernie run 5 years ago

lack of support, same as the time before that.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

a Harvard political scientist and author of books on democracy's decline and autocracy's rise[... said t]he first two months under Trump had been "much more aggressively authoritarian than almost any other comparable case I know of democratic backsliding[.] Erdoğan, Chávez, Orbán – they hid it."

Other [academic] observers agree that Trump's moves are of greater magnitude than those seen in other democracies turned autocracies.

"The best parallel that I can see is the collapse of the Soviet Union,"

Spoiler

[...] "A political order that everyone thought had a long shelf life rapidly collapses, is completely disorienting, and people are trying to figure out what comes next.

"We don't really have precedents similar to this moment where you have a longstanding existing democracy that's a major power that collapses so rapidly and quickly and is moving in the direction of authoritarianism. I think its impact will also be felt globally."

[...] "The way he's setting up authority in the White House looks more like a Tudor monarchy than modern authoritarianism," [...] "The White House looks more like an imperial court."

Trump[...] "has a theory of rapid, massive change" that recalled the approach of military coup leaders in the third world who judged that their agenda was incompatible with democracy.

https://www.theguard...ran-ahmadinejad

The new American dream:

Quote

Immigrant women say they were held "like animals" in ICE detention and subjected to conditions so extreme they feared for their lives.

Chained for hours on a prison bus without access to food, water or a toilet. [...] Held "like sardines in a jar," as many as 27 women in a small holding cell. Sleeping on a concrete floor.

[...] There was no access to a toilet, so guards told the women – whose accounts in some cases occurred on different days or different buses – to urinate or defecate on the floor. They watched, helpless, as some did.

https://www.usatoday...on/82029368007/

Quote

A video that has since gone viral shows people sleeping on the floor, and a man pleads for help, explaining there is little to no food at Krome [detention center, in Florida]

"[...] detained in Krome for several days with no water, sleeping outside," [...] "They are being treated like dogs. There's no AC, everybody is sick, God knows what they have, there's no medical attention, much less give them privileges to a bathroom."

https://www.nbcmiami...center/3573640/

Quote

'There's a pattern': Ukrainian man is 3rd to die in ICE custody at Krome Detention Center

[...] 44-year-old Maksym Chernyak[...] "We called the officers and they didn't want to come until we told him that he was dead[.] He passed out. We tried to call medical. They didn't wanna come because they didn't have no staff until hours later, till he was mostly unresponsive."

"There's a pattern of neglecting medical care, [...] when this gentleman went into crisis [...] he received no medical care until the point his brain was bleeding and he was brain dead."

https://www.nbcmiami...center/3556811/

[HoosierDaddy]

I’m too old and tired for a fucking civil war because of a fucking entitled trust fund baby and his enablers trying get him a third turn when the country is already ready for him to die.

[Lady Bliss]

HoosierDaddy, on 30 March 2025 - 06:56 PM, said:

I’m too old and tired for a fucking civil war because of a fucking entitled trust fund baby and his enablers trying get him a third turn when the country is already ready for him to die.

Sadly that may just be where we end up.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

HoosierDaddy, on 30 March 2025 - 06:56 PM, said:

I'm too old and tired for a fucking civil war because of a fucking entitled trust fund baby and his enablers trying get him a third turn when the country is already ready for him to die.

Well, since you're devout, you might as well charge into battle
to ensure your place in Valhalla...
then you'll no longer be tired, or old.

For then you'll be youthful as time, and all energies unfolded...

(For anyone who hasn't read about it yet, Trump went on NBC news, said he wants a third term, and clarified that he's "not joking"; Republican congresspeople, including Lauren Boebert, have proposed bills to let Trump run again... but not Obama. However, I doubt Trump will really want to run again... he'll just postpone elections indefinitely, because reasons. Unless he manages to compromise voting so thoroughly that he's genuinely certain that he couldn't possibly lose again.)

[worry]

Abyss, on 29 March 2025 - 03:57 PM, said:

Macros, on 29 March 2025 - 09:48 AM, said:

Man why didn't Bernie run 5 years ago

lack of support, same as the time before that.

Bernie did run 5 years ago, in the primaries....and was winning handily. He had already won 9 states (including California) and was trouncing everyone else, when the DNC brought Biden out of mothballs and got everyone else left in the race to drop out, specifically to stop that momentum.

[Mentalist]

The one bright spot is, Timothy Snyder will be teaching at UfT now. I may get a chance to hear him lecture live.

3 days left until "liberate-Americans-from-money" day.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Mentalist, on 31 March 2025 - 01:34 AM, said:

The one bright spot is, Timothy Snyder will be teaching at UfT now. I may get a chance to hear him lecture live.

3 days left until "liberate-Americans-from-money" day.

Quote

college life as we know it may soon come to an end [in the United States]. [...] Trump [...] has frozen, canceled, or substantially cut billions of dollars in federal grants to universities. Johns Hopkins has had to fire more than 2,000 workers. The University of California has frozen staff hiring across all 10 of its campuses. Many other schools have cut back on graduate admissions. And international students and faculty have been placed at such high risk of detainment, deportation, or imprisonment that Brown University advised its own to avoid any travel outside the country for the foreseeable future. [...]

"Our problem in part is a failure of imagination," [...] a former Columbia president, told The Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this month. "We cannot get ourselves to see how this is going to unfold in its most frightening versions." Now the most frightening versions are taking shape [...]

[...] no university in America was prepared for this assault, and none seems ready to respond.

[...] For the moment, though, the demands themselves (whatever those might be for different schools) seem less destructive than the sudden, chaotic application of extreme financial leverage:

"It's all arson and no architecture," [...]

Universities might be amenable to adjusting the terms of their relationship with the federal government, but they cannot do so quickly and under such duress. The Trump administration appears to want them not to talk, but to die.

The End of College Life - If they persist, [...]Trump's attacks on universities will destroy a cornerstone of American life - The Atlantic

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

worry, on 30 March 2025 - 10:25 PM, said:

Abyss, on 29 March 2025 - 03:57 PM, said:

Macros, on 29 March 2025 - 09:48 AM, said:

Man why didn't Bernie run 5 years ago

lack of support, same as the time before that.

Bernie did run 5 years ago, in the primaries....and was winning handily. He had already won 9 states (including California) and was trouncing everyone else, when the DNC brought Biden out of mothballs and got everyone else left in the race to drop out, specifically to stop that momentum.

We could have been living in our Chobani Yogurt solarpunk future by now if the DNC hadn't fucked Bernie.

[QuickTidal]

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 31 March 2025 - 09:49 AM, said:

worry, on 30 March 2025 - 10:25 PM, said:

Abyss, on 29 March 2025 - 03:57 PM, said:

Macros, on 29 March 2025 - 09:48 AM, said:

Man why didn't Bernie run 5 years ago

lack of support, same as the time before that.

Bernie did run 5 years ago, in the primaries....and was winning handily. He had already won 9 states (including California) and was trouncing everyone else, when the DNC brought Biden out of mothballs and got everyone else left in the race to drop out, specifically to stop that momentum.

We could have been living in our Chobani Yogurt solarpunk future by now if the DNC hadn't fucked Bernie.

upvote for Solarpunk ref.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 31 March 2025 - 11:38 AM, said:

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 31 March 2025 - 09:49 AM, said:

worry, on 30 March 2025 - 10:25 PM, said:

Abyss, on 29 March 2025 - 03:57 PM, said:

Macros, on 29 March 2025 - 09:48 AM, said:

Man why didn't Bernie run 5 years ago

lack of support, same as the time before that.

Bernie did run 5 years ago, in the primaries....and was winning handily. He had already won 9 states (including California) and was trouncing everyone else, when the DNC brought Biden out of mothballs and got everyone else left in the race to drop out, specifically to stop that momentum.

We could have been living in our Chobani Yogurt solarpunk future by now if the DNC hadn't fucked Bernie.

upvote for Solarpunk ref.

upvote for Chobani Yogurt.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Mentalist, on 31 March 2025 - 01:34 AM, said:

The one bright spot is, Timothy Snyder will be teaching at UfT now. I may get a chance to hear him lecture live.

3 days left until "liberate-Americans-from-money" day.

Fascism expert Jason Stanley has now left Yale and fled to Canada because of Trump. Though on the bright side since he's accepted a position at University of Toronto that probably means he doesn't think Trump will be invading or successfully bankrupting Canada (at least without plunging most of the rest of the world into a new Great Depression) anytime soon.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 01 April 2025 - 11:23 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

 Azath Vitr (D, on 01 April 2025 - 11:23 AM, said:

 Mentalist, on 31 March 2025 - 01:34 AM, said:

The one bright spot is, Timothy Snyder will be teaching at UfT now. I may get a chance to hear him lecture live.

3 days left until "liberate-Americans-from-money" day.

Fascism expert Jason Stanley has now left Yale and fled to Canada because of Trump. Though on the bright side since he's accepted a position at University of Toronto that probably means he doesn't think Trump will be invading or successfully bankrupting Canada (at least without plunging most of the rest of the world into a new Great Depression) anytime soon.

Crikey. His book "How Fascism Works" should be required reading at secondary schools across the world.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Trump will hit top US trading partners with the highest level of tariffs possible on Wednesday, to serve as a cap for potential reductions, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has reportedly said. [...] Countries could negotiate the level down if they meet US demands

https://finance.yaho...-191201577.html

Official announcement at 4 PM ET... right after the US stock market closes. Ominous.

(Granted, there is still after-hours trading...)

Bessent has tried to "talk down" the stock market before and ended up iirc being wrong about what Trump ended up doing. So we'll see.

Even if he's right that Trump won't go above the levels set on Wednesday, many people won't believe it. Many certainly won't feel much certainty about it.

And while a cap on maximum tariffs would provide some clarity going forward, unless the cap on tariffs is much lower than expected, US business investment is largely going to continue to be paralyzed waiting to see how much the tariffs go down by. And whether Trump is going to pile on some more, out of spite or whimsy or whatever....

[Cause]

After Trumps DOJ asked a judge to dismiss the federal corruption charges against NYC mayor Eric Adams he has decided to do so with Prejudice. This means that if Trump feels Adams isnt being co-operative he cant threaten to reinstate the charges. Okay. This just means Adams is a bigger winner than ever. Crazy abuse

_________________________________________________________________

I really feel like I am watching American democracy die slowly. Not an exaggeration. Not a joke. The people with power to stop this are treating it like one though and that only makes the feeling worse. Deporting innocent people to foreign prisons. Treating the inner members of Trumps orbit as untouchables who cant make mistakes (Signal Gate). Breaking the safety nets for people. We all know this but we all seem to be waiting for brown shirts marching on the capital before we act. no wait that happened already.

He pardoned them and then even floated paying them reperations. He is not joking about a third term he says. The man isnt leaving.
________________________________________________________

Smartest thing happening is the Senate is apparently going to vote to block Tariffs. It either blocks Tariffs or more likely every republican must endorse them on record. We shall see waht the markets says later.

[Lady Bliss]

Democracy isn’t dying slowly, it’s actually happening quite quickly. The US reputation around the world is ruined and it will take years to rebuild.