No shit Sherlock

I believe the most obvious is they benefit (or at least believe they will benefit) from that outcome.

Except this is also how the “democracy” that is modern day Russia was created. Everything that’s happened in the U.S. since ~2012 that has been driving us to the brink of collapse by furthering the divide between left and right has been eerily similar.

Psychological Inoculation and Astroturfing: Preparing for exploitation of U.S. secession movements

A lot of people don’t know this, bc it’s not exactly clear what they were doing there, but coincidentally the Heritage Foundation also seemed to play a role in the creation of the first free market in the earliest days of post-soviet Russia.

Isn’t this all footage that we’ve known about for a long time?

Just to be clear, I felt like we shouldn’t be electing a creepy rapist that hung out with Epstein even before he got elected the first time. I never thought we would somehow do it twice, especially after he almost killed us all the first time around, but c’est la vie, I guess.

Just wonder how much of this is just a reality TV/wrestlemania style distraction IRL. Like what does it really change that Elon is reposting information we already knew?

Like there is other big shit going on with Israel, Gaza, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and the EU going on right now but nobody is really talking about it bc we are paying attention to Elon re-screening videos of Trump/Epstein that we’ve already seen.

Yeah I don’t trust this guy. He’s got no moral backbone or real ideology other than a desire for power. I seem to remember him being very vocal against Trump at points, then backing away from criticisms at important times during Trump’s first term. Putting a D next to his name now definitely doesn’t make me trust him. Even fucking Trump would have stuck with being a Democrat if he thought it would have made him rich and powerful.

If Walsh actually wanted to help this country he’d run as a Republican, but be vocal against Trump. Or better yet, just remain an independent. This country needs to start electing 3rd party candidates, especially with name recognition on his side, he might have a decent chance with the positions he’s taking.

We don’t need more people like Fetterman weaponizing the title of Democrat to keep putting a “bipartisan” spin on Republican policy, and move the party more towards the right.

If that’s where the Democrats really believe we should be headed then yeah now is the time (before we get any closer to midterms) to decisively say we’re going to need a new party for left candidates.

2019 viewpoints of Walsh

No Republican with any common sense or shred of decency would have this take: 2012 Republican Joe Walsh: abortions to save mother’s life never necessary

People can change, and I applaud him if he has genuinely changed,… but we also need to stop pretending like an older conservative with name recognition, is somehow the best way forward for the party.

There are younger progressive candidates who actually have the drive to make this country better than it was in the first place, instead of just returning us back to normal, only to keep compromising, and losing the little ground we managed to get back over and over again.

Yeah, I thought it was pretty clear, but I guess not. I definitely would have on Reddit but figured it wouldn’t be necessary here

I agree, and just to be clear I was being sarcastic. I would also guess it’s way more than half the money.

Between health insurance companies, hospital administrator salaries, liability insurance for doctors, and drug patents making most medications unaffordable, I would say it’s pretty easily about 3/4 or more.

I volunteer in a free clinic in a red state that has had the Medicaid expansion for less than 10 years. It provided the absolute bare minimum healthcare to essentially everyone in need, but it still made such a huge difference in terms of patient health outcomes to just offer that bare minimum.

Now the U.S. is targeting that entire program through budget cuts, and in addition, at least in my state, private hospital oligopolies have been ramping down acceptance for months now because they seemed to know what was coming before anyone else.

The argument is that the cost of providing that bare minimum is unsustainable. Even if that were true, and the cuts weren’t actually only necessary to provide another tax break for the wealthy, there are clearly so many other places we could be making cuts to reduce the cost of healthcare, rather than to the tiny amount that goes towards actually providing the barely minimum healthcare coverage to some of the most vulnerable patient populations.

Ugh George Soros poisoned Progressivism!

By “affordable” I’m assuming you mean free. Always wanting a handout, of course.

I just want untaxed inheritance, corporate welfare on top of more tax breaks for me and all my friends, unregulated surveillance and data collection of the plebs so I can continue to make even more money (untaxed obvs), exclusive and elite private universities, and a justice system where I can live free of consequence and purchase a judge at a reasonable price because I believe in being fiscally conservative.

Food, shelter, and healthcare are things I’ve just never had to think about really. Although, I would also prefer that if too many people are worrying about those things in my immediate vicinity, they be shuffled around or forcibly moved to a different vicinity.

That way I don’t have to start thinking too much. It’s really unfair when that happens, because it starts to make me feel all kinds of uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is not something I’m used to feeling, and since I don’t like to think about things, I never stop and think about why somebody else being uncomfortable would also make me feel so uncomfortable.

Logically, the solution is to just put those people somewhere not visible to me, and then complain about what society is “turning into these days” when they slip through the privilege perimeter.

Until then, his chair on the dais of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee had sat empty all year.

Mr. Fetterman does not enjoy participating in these hearings that he has sat through in recent weeks as he seeks to prove that he is capable of performing the job he was elected to do until 2028. In fact, at a critical moment for the country, he appears to have little interest in the day-to-day work of serving in the United States Senate.

In an interview, Mr. Fetterman, who represents 13 million people, said he felt he had been unfairly shamed into fulfilling senatorial duties, such as participating in committee work and casting procedural votes on the floor, dismissing them as a “performative” waste of time.

Ohhhh this mother…

k…,so this is the committee that determined fitness for Trump’s Science Advisor, Michael Kratsios. I literally begged for them to not approve his fitness. I wrote about this here, and fun fact even have a screenshot of me @ing fetterman and others on the committee on bluesky included in the article. Little did I know he wasn’t even bothering to show up bc he thinks it’s “performative…?!”

Quick summary: Kratsios is a protege of Peter Theil, who actually served as Chief Technology Officer during the first Trump administration. During that time, he helped set up all of the dangerous AI shit we’re now dealing with, making sure they wouldn’t be restrained by any pesky regulations.

Unregulated surveillance and facial recognition tech use by ICE, the FBI, and other LEOs, you can thank Kratsios.

Access and use of private government data to train AI, you may think that’s all on DOGE/Musk but that is actually something Kratsios mentioned back in 2018

Senate Dems knew how dangerous deregulated AI was, particularly facial recognition tech for profiling use. Yet, with a few exceptions, they either approved his fitness or they just didn’t show up like Fetterman

I guess it’s ok bc Kratsios is now agreeing maybe we should dial it back and start to regulate AI…

Lol jk, of course he’s actually saying we need to somehow further deregulate it so we will have even less protection for our privacy, rights and liberty.

Thanks Dems of the committee for taking your job so seriously 👍

And OF COURSE Fetterman showed up for this one. Not because he felt like his depression was being weaponized, it’s because he just weaponizes the D next to his name to help force through Republican policy

Here is an article about that May 8, 2025 hearing.

Altman, during the hearing, said that Texas had been “unbelievable” in incentivizing major AI projects. “I think that would be a good thing for other states to study,” Altman said. He predicted that the Abilene site would be the “largest AI training facility in the world.” But Altman also later cautioned against a patchwork regulatory framework for AI.

“It is very difficult to imagine us figuring out how to comply with 50 different sets of regulations,” said Altman. “One federal framework that is light touch, that we can understand, and it lets us move with the speed that this moment calls for, seems important and fine.”

Here is a quote from Kratsios about regulation in 2019

“A patchwork of regulation of technology is not beneficial for the country. We want to avoid that. Facial recognition has important roles—for example, finding lost or displaced children. There are use cases, but they need to be underpinned by values.”

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