This has apparently become a new vector for transferring bribes - Trump files a suit, and then the corporation that wants influence pays a “settlement.”

Ah …

I’ve been wondering what Trump gave the Chinese in exchange for that cringeworthy credit as the supposed savior of TikTok.

And he’s 100% right.

They’re all lining up to kiss Trump’s stinky ass because they expect him to provide them with an unprecedented opportunity to thoroughly and completely fuck us all, and there’s nothing they want more in the world.

Never loan anyone anything unless you’re willing to give it to them, because that could well turn out to be exactly what you’re doing.

ETA another one that just came to me, that I’ve always liked because it’s a witty turn of phrase in addition to being useful:

If you’re doing something that leads you to wonder if you should have some safety gear (gloves, particle mask, hearing protection, etc.), then the answer is “Yes.”

No shit?

He collected kickbacks in exchange for sending kids to for profit jails. If anything, 17 1/2 years was too light a sentence - it should’ve been life withour parole. Let the motherfucker rot in one of those prisons himself - it’d serve him right.

Or more precisely, Meta bought shares of Trump.

If the United States was a family, Missouri would be the creepy bachelor uncle who drives a pickup with flags, won’t set foot out of the house without a gun and has a computer with a Don’t Tread on Me wallpaper and a D drive full of bondage porn.

Meta: The whole tone of this article is weird.

It’s as if it’s written explicitly by and for some entirely separate social group that’s sort of condescendingly viewing the quaint folkways of members of a “primitive tribe.”

Which is likely pretty close to the truth, in a way.

No war but class war.

Mace actually sort of fascinates me.

Her hateful bigot piece of shit act is a bit too over-the-top, and I just don’t entirely buy it. I keep thinking at least some part of it is that she’s actually more of a greedy unethical piece of shit, and has figured out that hateful bigoted piece of shit is a profitable role to play, and she’s playing it to the hilt.

Not that it matters - she’s a piece of shit either way. It’s just an idea that wanders through my mind, a bit more solidly every time, whenever she sleazes her way into the headlines.

I’ve been posting on internet forums for almost 30 years now. It’s just a thing I like doing.

I’m here now because it’s the best place I know of at the moment.

Oog - my little brother.

He’s a walking stereotype of a tech libertarian (which is to say, a shallow, bigoted, reactionary, right-wing IT guy who for some inexplicablec reason seems to think that all that’s necessary to count as “libertarian” is to rail against “the woke mob.”)

The first time I heard the term “mansplaining,” I knew exactly what it meant, because it’s his customary mode of communication. I already know that by about the third time I hear him say, " Well, what you have to understand is that…" I’m going to have to leave the room.

He likely won’t bring up politics directly - not surprisingly, he’s generally ignorant of both the philosophical side of it and the practical side of it. Instead, he’ll bloviate about whatever the right-wing/tech media bubble is bloviating about, so essentially political issues without the complication of political context.

It’s invariably awful, and it’s always a matter not of if but merely of when I’m going to have to leave the room because the only alternative is going to be a messy verbal explosion. And I presume it’s going to be worse than ever this year, since he’ll undoubtedly want to mansplain the mindless dogma he’s been fed about Trump and Musk and Ukraine and tariffs and immigrants and trans athletes and so on…

Ah, the irony.

Saying the quiet part out loud again.

They believe that us not being forced to do what they want simply because they want it is a “privilege,” and one that they can and will just arbitrarily decree to be null and void.

That says pretty much everything you meed to know about what they really think about everyone other than themselves.

And ironically enough, what they think is that they themselves are privileged.

Yeah - that’s what happens when you elect somebody who’s painfully obviously profoundly mentally ill - they make insane proposals to do insane shit.

Since when has reality made any difference at all to Trump?

He doesn’t believe he has a mandate because the numbers add up that way, so he’s not going to believe he doesn’t because they don’t. He believes he has a mandate because he’s the bestest and smartest and most perfect president ever in the history of ever. And he’s never going to stop believing that.

I don’t want to hammer on this really, because I think you mean well, but…

You’re not condemning the specific assholes who treated you poorly - you’re condemning “men” generally. Your point and your focus isn’t that they were assholes, but that they were men, as if that’s the actual problem - as if their failure isn’t being assholes, but simply being men.

I don’t know if that’s your actual view, but that is the way it comes across. And broadly, that view is part of the problem, since it alienates men who deserve no blame and diverts attention from those who do. And that’s exactly what I meant when I said that countering misogyny with misandry is a poor strategy.

but I feel that it is important to recognize and call out the misogyny element in this story

I don’t.

I think that countering misogyny with misandry is rather obviously a losing strategy.

This broad dynamic isn’t new and it isn’t unique either to gaming or to men. Every single creative volunteer community on the net is filled with assholes and drama llamas, of any and all genders. It’s just the nature of the thing. You see the same things over and over with game modding, cracking, romhacking, emulation, manga scanlation, anime fansubbing, vocaloid production, mmd modeling, fanfic, fanart, and so on and on.

People often (generally?) are willing to invest the time and energy into whatever it is that they’re going to post online at least in large part because they crave the attention they hope it will bring, and specifically, they want to be lauded for their talent and skill.

And that often runs up against the fact that an awful lot of the responses they’re going to get are going to come from self-absorbed and entitled assholes bitching because they don’t like whatever it is that they’re getting for free, and think they have to be accommodated.

And very often, the response from the creator, unsurprisingly really, is to effectively (or even literally) say, “Fine then - fuck you all. I’m done.”

And 'round and 'round it goes, and has from the start, and likely will never stop. It’s just an unfortunate but pretty much inevitable clash between a personality type that’s likely to create and share something online for free and a personality type that’s likely to comment on something somebody else created and shared with them for free.

Given the opportunity, no, he’s not going to prosecute his foes. He’s going to have them killed.

But until he can count on getting away with that, he’ll have to, and will, settle for just prosecuting them.

Exactly what he’s doing is pushing for them to protect the scumbags he intends to appoint from the scrutiny that’s sure to expose just how scummy they are.