First Amendment was always a polite fiction of the regime. Americans get to pretend they have it until they upset someone with actual power.
But you’re always free to run scams, to slander the weak and vulnerable, and to rally bigots into a lynch mob. So the idea of Free Speech remains valuable to demagogues and unscrupulous marketing goons alike.
Cunnalingus appreciators win again
I mean, the title may be true, but I’d hardly call this a crazy law. Draconian censorship is routine and endemic globally. It’s the Free Speech policy that’s “crazy”.
As more media is heavily monetized, the real appeal of censorship is as a revenue source. Surveillance, draconian administration, and targeting of dissidents all become income streams for the platforms.
Nothing unusual about that, either
Because Trumpism is seen as unstable and of dubious logevity, there’s not an enormous rush to build defunct factories for meeting energy demand under inefficient mediums. You’re never going to see another newly built coal plant. Gas plants aren’t coming online any faster, with the specter of Peak NGLs on the horizon. Solar and Wind are the future purely because of their low cost, long term profitability, and rapid ROI.
Delaying these projects when fossil fuel usage is already dropping (gasoline is falling to $2/gal levels not seen since the COVID crash) means starving the electricity hungry digital economy purely out of spite.
All Hail The Hand!
We appease The Hand with our thoughts and prayers, that we might live within it’s palm and be lifted up to the heavens!
Live Handedly And Thou Salt Receive The Eternal Thumbs Up!
Romulans are already pretty sexy
Did you mean IUDs?
… yes.
Insurance is about compensation for loss, and that’s it.
That’s certainly not true of medical insurance. Preventative care is part of the whole package. In fact, certain preventative care is encouraged. Health insurance companies are more than happy to pay for UTIs, for instance, because they’re so much cheaper than pregnancies.
I’ve got a few friends who work at Amazon, and while the story certainly sounds embellished and a bit too “just-so”, the corporate attitude of make-work to justify a promotion even when its a waste of time and resources rings true as a bell.
Did this guy actually oversee a fully transition to a new service and waste a bunch of internal time and money for a system that’s sub-optimal by any conceivable measure? Idk, maybe. If he’d just written “Twitter” instead of “Amazon”, I’d have taken it at face value no problem.
Did this guy author an overly-complex plan as part of his promotional material, get it vetted and reviewed and rubber stamped by a bunch of friendly higher-ups because they wanted to justify his promotion, and then stuck on a shelf marked “Maybe we’ll do this in 2029 if we’re not busy with something else”? Equally likely.
Does Amazon have a bunch of bread and butter break-fix work they could be dedicating staff to, rather than chasing the next digital White Whale so they can feel cutting edge? Yeah, no shit. Absolutely.
There are people in literally every country that wants foreign influence or bases out, that proves nothing
You don’t think an enormous population of foreign military resulting in high rates of unprosecuted sexual violence and organized crime demonstrates anything about the state of politics in the host country?
So you believe people in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines at the highest levels of power just… want this for their people? Or do you think they’re so beaten down they don’t believe in their own capacity for self-defense?
Random, but did you know an alternate name for Russians where I live is “occupiers”?
I mean, you keep coming back to Russians, as though you think they’re a different species.
I guess you’d call them, what? Orks?
Is the violent occupation of conquered territory only a problem for you when the occupying army is Slavic?
Brother, this isn’t Pravda
why?
Because investors will cut you a blank check now that we’re in the middle of an inflationary hype cycle
Excited to see a “No AI” aisle at Best Buy that looks like the “Organic” section of the grocery store
Japan Taiwan Philippines South Korea
Are client states under the occupation of the US military. They aren’t worried the US might fall to act. They’re worried the US might act to remove their leaders and replace them with more pliant ones.
Nuclear proliferation will follow
Why would an occupied territory hosting US nuclear weapons build their own nuclear arsenal?
Why would the US allow them to do so?
It is tragic what is happening to their parishioners right now, but the bishops can only blame themselves.
No shortage of liberal bishops who promoted like-minded candidates. Everyone from John Kerry to Joe Biden got a healthy windfall of support from the Catholic community at-large. As a consequence, Dems have historically been very squirrely on their support/opposition to abortion, with “Pro-Life” Democrats being a significant chunk of the elected bureaucracy.
The biggest opposition to ACA in the first two years was from these very Democrats - folks who twisted and squirmed at the prospect of extending the wrong kind of health care to the wrong kind of people. This wasn’t a “Catholics brought this on themselves by electing Republicans”, it was “Democrats allowed misogyny to fester within its party under the cover of the Catholic vote”.
In the same way, Democrats have historically demonstrated a chronic unkindness to migrants and their families whenever they saw an electoral advantage in kicking people while they were down. This dates back to the Clinton Era of the 90s, when Bill ran to the right of Bush Sr on immigration and won California on the anti-Mexico vote. Catholics who were staunchly pro-immigration ran around backing migrant-friendly(ish) Republicans like Bush, Rubio, Romney, and Kasich only to get their backsides blown out by Trumpism.
Tell that to Ukraine.
States with large pools of disposable income and businesses with big PR budgets will pay top dollar to squelch activists and opponents.
How much is Palantir getting paid? How much is Black Cube getting paid? There’s always a pricetag on this work and plenty of organizations - especially fascist governments - are happy to outsource the work to friendly contractors.