The Donald vs Big Tech

[Ducky]

Had to double check this wasn't The Onion...

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1161

That's a parody right?

Had to double check this wasn't The Onion...

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1161

That's a parody right?

The sponsor is a Republican named Earl "Buddy" Carter, so probably not

[stearl]

America's favourite (checks notes) unelected foreign citizen...

https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-major-social-security-warning-fraud-billion-week-lost-2029244

Everything is "There's so much fraud. Everywhere". But when you ask or evidence it's not forthcoming.

When in the real world there is always a small bit of fraud in relation to social security. But it's nowhere near what he's claiming. I'd be nervous if I was on disability benefit over there.

Sure we have our own enthusiasts here on the matter too - Exhibit A below.

Maybe Varadkar can do a team up while he's lecturing in Harvard 

[Ducky]

Funny how these religious MAGA FUCKSTICKS are "vaccines = bad", but are tickety-boo with a heart transplant. The dissonance is spectacular.

https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/jd-vance-relative-unvaccinated-religion-34669521

[Bürggermeister]

Big JD doesn't understand how vaccines work and, now that RFKJR is in, it's time to open a polio boot factory and get all the $$$$.

[Bürggermeister]

Actually, can JD really be trusted now that he is under the control of the Covid "vaccine" nanobots?

[Yung Led Zeppelin]

Aye that's fair. As I says, we have enough shit of our own here it just doesn't seem to be as headline worthy for the most part but surely as bad as anything they'd find over there. I think they've just found their own bike shed and that will soon die down too, tbh, just like ours did

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/2025-02-13/speech/15/

I was going to say "well....." but I didn't realise they'd actually just start copying the nonsense 

Sharon Keogan in the Seanad asking for the plastic straw craic. Just lol.

[astfgyl]

Oh ffs, here's my saying an oul independent (US one is fairly politically biased, I'd imagine, but let's take the idea in the spirit of bike sheds and children's hospitals etc) audit of government waste might be an idea we could take up here in good faith and what do we get only some shite about plastic straws when we've all surely gotten used to the paper ones by now. There have to be better things that a bit of inspiration could be taken from. Ahhhh well..

I suppose it looks like there might be a bit of hope of some sort of ceasefire or something in Ukraine anyway (although how favourable that would be other than Ukraine getting all their territory back for simply not joining NATO remains to be seen) and I suppose if it puts a stop to the deaths for any length of time that'd be good.

Looks like the tariff idea is going to hurt a few pockets over there though in the near future.

Have been watching CNN this morning and that's what I've gotten from around an hour of it

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

A poignant allegorical parallel of everything that is happening over there at the moment:

A bald eagle in Massachusetts had to be euthanized after it showed signs of neurological deficits and tested positive for bird flu.

https://www.masslive.com/news/2025/02/bald-eagle-killed-after-testing-positive-for-bird-flu-in-massachusetts.html

[Ducky]

This'll end well...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/kennedy-rfk-antidepressants-ssri-school-shootings/

[Bürggermeister]

Worth a listen to all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btdY7eFvlNM

[Ducky]

Sanders and AOC seem to be the only two sane American politicians.

[Ducky]

Damn woke red heads at it again. That'll learn 'em.

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/julianne-moore-donald-trump-bans-book-freckleface-strawberry-1236310153/

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Interesting analysis here, all the more interesting through the lens of what's happened in the 3 months since it was recorded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no

All that worry about Reset seems to have allowed Reboot to slip by unnoticed. Think I made the modest suggestion a few months ago on here that folk display at least as much skepticism wrt Musk & Co as they did wrt Gates & Co.

[astfgyl]

They absolutely should be as skeptical of Musk as Gates, or indeed any other multi billionaire exerting their influence on public policy. There's no way in my mind that one is better than the other or will lead to less digital ID tied to conformity to private interests. Probably won't watch any more videos about any of it though, having made up my mind about that sort of thing long before I became the far right.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Musk isn't "exerting his influence on public policy." He's been given carte blanche to get away with whatever the hell he wants by being granted seemingly unfettered executive control to punish and even cripple departments who were justifiably investigating his businesses.