I’ve also ran into some issues simply accessing youtube through my vpn, but that’s been going on for a while.

“What the hell do you have to lose” is one of those great little artifact statements from 2016. The kind that kinda could plausibly work for him back when he was a “political outsider” but I don’t think it really works on anyone these days.

Even among his cult, there’s an understanding and an acceptance of the fact that Trump essentially runs the republican party now. Everyone’s bowed down, everyone’s paid homage. Almost definitionally now, being in the republican party means you are pro-Trump. That may very well be the only metric upon which GOP politicians are judged in the modern day.

“What the hell do you have to loose” is one of those kinds of statements that worked in the context of “the establishment running the party aren’t racist enough don’t have your best interests at heart so why not give me a shot?” that comes with a kinda tacit admission that “I’m probably not going to be much better”. But in 2024 Trump’s just not the outsider anymore. He is the republican establishment.

Among the many other delusions he is clearly trapped in, I think he’s also trapped in the delusion that he’s some kinda evergreen outsider, despite the fact that he served four years as president and another four basically running the GOP opposition. I think that delusion is not helped by the fact that the republican base is so rabidly anti-intellectual that you kinda have to present yourself as “an outsider” in order to get anywhere, but if it’s an outsider your looking for Trump just aint it.

Bro took a long shower I guess.

Absolutely. So much of the right wing media space is inhabited by, funded by, and glorifies grifters that they’ve created a constant chunk of their audience that is vulnerable to their tactics. Values or policy prescriptions don’t even really need to come into it, if you are a grifter it’s just a smart business decision to start drifting to the right. It opens up those audiences to you because you are “one of them”.

There’s also just no creativity. I’m pretty sure I saw a new “let’s go Brandon” sign out and about recently. By this point that is very nearly a three year old meme. Like, I’m not really surprised that they can’t do better, but it’s a little telling that they come up with one thing they think is “good” and stuck with it basically though Biden’s entire presidency. “Creatively bankrupt” does not even begin to describe it.

I think it’d also count as a full term in office so far as the rule against running more than twice goes. So you could run for reelection, but that isn’t a “one werid trick” to getting three terms in office.

I’m gonna be honest, I was thinking of Dracula flow when I posted this.

Mother fucker could be Dracula for all I care. Still voting for him.

Just to add to this, every plane is vulnerable while on the ground. It doesn’t really matter how stealth an aircraft is if your bombarding the hanger they’re in with artillery.

But Russia doesn’t even really bother with hangers. This plane was just out in the open, on the fucking tarmac, for God, observers, satellites, and anyone else who cared to see. Even stretching a fucking tent over the aircraft would have at least introduced a certain amount of guesswork to the strike. But no, Russia put “the pride of their airforce” out there for everyone to see and paid the price for it.

I was nearly born in Tennessee and my parents have some fucking horror stories from when they lived there. I’m shocked that out of all the states to start doing this it’s fucking Tennessee.

Those who believe in conspiracy theories have become our conservative party. Some (myself included) would argue they’ve always been there or that that’s always been the nature of the republican party. But the important thing here in the modern day is that the conspiracy theorists now control half of the country’s political system.

I’m personally of the opinion that conspiracy theory is the result of a fundamental unwillingness or inability to engage with reality. If that is the case then why on earth would you choose to believe in climate change? It’s scary, and an existential threat to humanity if it’s taken seriously. Besides, theres a lot of money to be made burning the planet.

I think at the end of the day that’s what the American right’s denial of climate change boils down to. Everyone in that party participates in some way in denying reality in favor of a collective fantasy. What’s one more denial?

A little off topic but I’m kinda new to Linux myself, why do you dislike Gnome?

This… this is news to people?

That’s not a dumb question. Of the ones you listed I’ve only ever used Obsidian and Notepad++. I’m not sure notepad++ can do that, but Obsidian can I think. Obsidian has a core plugin (expansions made and supported by the developers that ship with the program by default) that allows for audio recording and embedding in your notes. I think that by default you have to go and turn it on in settings, but once you’ve done that you should be good to go.

While the other cable news networks stuck with live special coverage for the rest of the evening, Fox News decided that its audience needed a break from the deflating electoral results for conservatives. After Hannity signed off at 10 p.m., Fox aired its regularly scheduled broadcast of “comedy” show Gutfeld!, which was pre-taped and didn’t make any mention of the elections.

Gutfeld acting as a conservative american “swan lake” might be the saddest thing I’ve heard all day.

Shit, after 2016 I just stopped paying attention to polls all together. I veiwed them as flawed even before 2016. After? Shit man I might not even be living in a democracy tomorrow, a pollsters opinion on who might win an election a year from now is interesting but post 2016 it’s something I refuse to loose sleep over.

This is why they’re losing advertisers left right and center.

Fixed that for you.

I’m already planning to. I run Windows 10 and as soon as that stops receiveing security support (or really as soon as I have the time) I’m gonna be swapping over to Linux for good.

Plus, would the rule remain that it only takes one house member to initiate a vote to expel the speaker? If so then that’s all they’d be doing. I mean I’d say fuck it, if yall can swing it give a shot, I just think that dems fucking with the republicans heads by backing McCarthy is more likely.

If McCarthy survives with democrats help than I think it solidifies the idea of an intraparty split between what used to be called establishment republicans and the hard right. For my part I think the republican party is causing real and actual harm to the nation and to the world at large. If this breaks their coalition and gets them to fight amongst themselves then great. Aside from that I don’t really care all that much.