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Are we now in full blown fascist totalitarianism?

unapologetic said:
Rump's idea of a trade ballence is STUPID.
Trade doesn't need to be ballenced.
Doesn't need to be ballenced with each country. They are not stealing if it isn't.
That is like demanding that Walmart needs to buy as much from you, as you buy from walmart.
What are ya gonna do? demand a rebate or coupons for the difference? Raise the sales tax?? Compete with them? Stop buying? Build/grow everything at home?

Rump is a slumloard. He invests in buildings and land, then sits back and collects RENT.
He doesn't know anything about trade. No buying and selling experance. His grift sales are all one-time pump & dump. Nothing sustainable.
His trade 'deals' with other countrys will turn out to be the same. And they can see it.
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Not to mention that he has renegotiated deals that were exactly what they were before under other administrations. And taken credit for it.

If only there were some decent humans beings with brains in his administration that could just start writing policies that have existed and done good —but re-branding it with Trump’s name.
 
bilby said:
unapologetic said:
Some locations of our local supermarket chain have a filtered water despenser, in front. (bring your own jug) I don't know what they charge.
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Such things are generally a way to milk the nutters who claim that fluoride in the water is bad for us (Did you ever see a commie drink a glass of water?).
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Don't have to be nutters.

We have an RO system. Not about fluoride quackery, but simply because it tastes better. What comes out of the tap is just at the EPA limit. And it sure makes cleanup easier if you're going to boil off some even if you're not drinking it. (Say, a steam pan.)
 
Loren Pechtel said:
And they're useless against soluble stuff, those filters are designed to stop pathogens.
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Zackly. With hollow fiber filters, the freeze danger is cracking the case containing the actual fibers. Ceramic types are vulnerable to freeze wrecking the actual filter. Draining the fiber filters most of the way takes care of them. I keep mine SOMEWHERE in our way-too-large walk-in pantry, along with a million other things that don’t really belong there …
 
J.D. Vance changed his mind. First Trump's immigration policies were going to help Medicaid and rural hospitals. But then he changed his mind: Depriving millions of health care and closing rural hospitals was a trivial issue; an easy price to pay for the hundreds of billions ICE needs.
 
It’s all going to be worth it when the brown people are gone and we have UFC events in the Rose Garden with Joe Rogan and Alex Jones as announcers. We will be truly prosperous and great. Maybe by then RFK will come up with anti-vaccines to reverse all the harm done to us that have received all the vaccines. The anti-vaccine will be the ultimate red pill.
 
The problem with democracy is that it's not all that great. Anyone with eyes can see the deep flaws it has.

As Churchill remarked: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time".

There are always a minority of ways in which dictatorship (by a dictator we happen to agree with on one issue or another) seems superior to democracy, at least for many people.

And democracy is particularly bad for powerful and/or wealthy people, so it's not hard to get financial backing, and influential support, for its weakening or removal.

There's a feeling in democratic nations, and particularly the USA, that the benefits of democracy are so obvious, and so overwhelming, that it can defend itself. That people will always choose democracy, if only that choice is available.

This feeling leads to disastrous "regime change" interventions in dictatorships, where the people inexplicably fail to embrace democracy and rule of law, and instead fall into feudalistic violence and nopotism.

It also leads to democracies stumbling into authoritarianism and populism. As we saw in Weimar Germany in the 1930s, and are seeing again in the US today.

Democracy is not the obviously best form of government. It may well be the best, but that is not obvious at all, particularly to the mass of people who just want to live out their own lives, with minimal interference from government of any kind.

People really don't want to care about government. But the default form of government, if no concerted effort is maintained to improve things, is dictatorial. Most people like being told what to do. Some prefer to be obeyed. Few want anything to do with compromise or rule by concensus.

And American democracy is particularly flawed (never buy version one of anything), in that it was built by people who had never seen a nation without a king. So they built a nation with an elected king. The US President has far too much power for a well formed democracy. Even the UK (and other commonwealth countries such as Australia and Canada) give too much power to their executive (Prime Minister), though at least in principle that person is beholden to cabinet, if not to parliament as a whole, in most aspects of their power.

The ideal democratic system doesn't elect a leader, because it doesn't have a leader. Nobody should be in a position to make decisions without agreement from anyone else. Being in power should be a thankless chore, with zero opportunity to do anything historic or heroic.

If your system admits the possibility of heroes, it also admits the possibility of villains.
 
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FBI continues to use "lie Detector" test to weed out people who may not be loyal to Kash Patel

The F.B.I. Is Using Polygraphs to Test Officials’ Loyalty​

Some senior officials who have taken the test have been asked whether they said anything negative about the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, in a highly unusual use of the tool.

Since Kash Patel took office as the director of the F.B.I., the bureau has significantly stepped up the use of the lie-detector test, at times subjecting personnel to a question as specific as whether they have cast aspersions on Mr. Patel himself.

In interviews and polygraph tests, the F.B.I. has asked senior employees whether they have said anything negative about Mr. Patel, according to two people with knowledge of the questions and others familiar with similar accounts.

...

“An F.B.I. employee’s loyalty is to the Constitution, not to the director or deputy director,” said James Davidson, a former agent who spent 23 years in the bureau. “It says everything about Patel’s weak constitution that this is even on his radar.”
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crazyfingers said:
FBI continues to use "lie Detector" test to weed out people who may not be loyal to Kash Patel
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Polygraphs are exactly as scientific and as effective at detecting lies as tarot cards and ouija boards.

They work if their targets believe that they do, but only because of that belief.

It continues to amaze me that actual law enforcement agencies persist in their use.
 
bilby said:
It continues to amaze me that actual law enforcement agencies persist in their use.
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I'm not sure that they do.
But pretending to probably impresses the folks who still think that old TV police dramas were important. Which I believe is what is going on here.

There's a sucker born every minute.
Tom
 
TomC said:
bilby said:
It continues to amaze me that actual law enforcement agencies persist in their use.
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I'm not sure that they do.
But pretending to probably impresses the folks who still think that old TV police dramas were important. Which I believe is what is going on here.

There's a sucker born every minute.
Tom
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Oh, they likely do. Why not? As long as they still work. People do what people always do in front of a perceived authority, they give out too much information. Throw in a polygraph (even if they think it is of questionable integrity) and they start to sing like a canary.
People are nervous. They are going to be nervous whether they have something to hide or not. It is a coin toss whether any particular individual passes or not.

I can't believe anyone in the FBI would not know how to screw with a polygraph. There are control questions and relevant questions. A person preps by recalling one of the most frightening moments in their life and one of the happiest. They then reference the frightening one for control questions and the happy one for relevant ones. It's not like they have to run the scenario through their mind prior to answering, just reference it by saying happy memory or frightening one to themself and it will evoke the emotion for the answer. Whether the answer itself is truthful or not does not matter, one's emotional state of mind at the time will drive the polygraph.

Ref: This American Life, Mr. Lie Detector
 
unapologetic said:
Miami Republicans illeagly Canceled An Election
floridianpress.com

Attorneys File Lawsuit After Miami Cancels November's Mayoral Election

Attorneys from Lawson Huck Gonzalez PLLC on Monday filed a lawsuit with the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial District Circuit on behalf of Miami Mayoral c
floridianpress.com floridianpress.com

Trump threatens to take over NYC if Mamdani is elected mayor
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What Trump said:

"If a communist gets elected to run New York, it can never be the same, but we have tremendous power at the White House to run places we have to. … New York City will run properly. We’re going to bring New York back,” Trump said."

“You have a lot of crooked things going on in New York. We’re going to straighten out New York, and maybe we’ll have to straighten it out from Washington. ... We’re going to do something for New York. I can’t tell you what yet, but we’re going to make New York great again.”

https://www.syracuse.com/politics/2025/07/trump-suggests-federal-government-could-run-new-york-city-if-mamdani-becomes-mayor.htmlamdani-becomes-mayor.html?outputType=amp
 
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