Trump and Bukele are ideologically alike. Bukele wants more funding for his prison, which the US is providing. The prison is basically a black-site with journalists given very limited and controlled access. For all I know, it could be a deathcamp; they do use forced labor, so it is at least a slave camp. Also, they never release anyone from there, which further raises the suspicion of it being a death camp.

He could be insane and doing it for graft. He obviously sees himself like a mobster and tries to operate like one. My theory is he wants to individually negotiate tariffs to solicit bribes from businesses and foreign countries. It’s not exactly 4d chess. He just knows he has the power to pressure the richest and most powerful people on the planet, so he’s going to use that power to enrich himself and family. I don’t think he actually understands much about tariffs or much of anything though.

Also, the evidence of insider trading and market manipulation is pretty convincing to me. I don’t think that was the original intention, but Trump, or those around him saw the opportunity and took it.

Years ago, I used to just ignore letters. Nothing happened for years. Moved and switched ISPs (smaller, regional), then was banned by that ISP after a few months, lol. Copyright holders can sue you, so it’s just an odds thing.

I just use a VPN now. Used Tribler before I set up my Arr stack, because Tribler didn’t work well with it. Tribler is faster than i2p if you use 1 hop, but theoretically, the Movie Picture Association could run an exit node and still sue you, if you only use 1 hop. (Actually, it’d probably be a legal gray area for them to run an exit node because they would be facilitating piracy).

If you’re talking about organized resistance, the police can be greatly outnumbered. Mostly unarmed people took over a precinct during BLM protests.

If talking about defending yourself in your home, I’d rather die quickly at home than at a prison that tortures people. Hell, I’d rather die than spend 20+ years in a regular US prison.

Yeah, I have much more time in FreeCAD than PhotoShop. I don’t think it’s either intuitive or efficient, lol. But, I was surprised that I was able to both create model to both 3D printing, and create paths for my plywood router. In my experience KiCAD is near peer, because Altium also sucks.

Yeah, for all I know, GIMP is as intuitive and efficient as Photoshop. I.e. they’re both as un-intuitive to me, and I’m not efficient in either (I probably haven’t use PS in a decade). But, I guess being intuitive is a good “hook” in regards to market share. I am a software engineer, and do prefer (neo)vim, but I guess I started out on NetBeans. I kind of see that as a level-up in regards to efficiency; not sure if that exists in other industries.

Stitching Nike’s.

Not saying GIMP’s UI is great (I only use it occasionally), but efficient UI isn’t necessarily an “intuitive” UI. I.E. an intuitive UI may not be efficient for a professional that takes the time to learn it and works with the UI ~40 hours/week.

I think most of these protests were properly permitted (I know my local one was). Protestors in residential areas would likely get arrested for stuff like disturbing the peace, even if they stayed on public property such as roads. They’d probably try to charge the organizers for something too, which is probably why they aren’t being organized. But, I agree there should be protests at these people’s homes regardless.

Not sure if serious. Recession is almost certain, and the only fiscal “stimulus” that’s likely to come is tax cuts. Will probably turn into a depression. But even the Great Depression had a huge amount of fiscal stimulus and progressive reforms to help get out of it. Not to mention, the crashing of the economy appears to be purposeful:

There’s probably multiple motivations. He serves a motley-crew of white christian nationalists, oligarchs (many with very fascist ideologies themselves), and himself. I think he’s kinda acting like a power-broker/deal-maker for many different people (similar to his buddy Epstein). The numbers don’t make sense because they don’t really matter if the goals are to 1) cause the world to lose faith in the US 2) can be used to negotiate things like de-dollarization 3) can be used to solicit bribes from politicians and businesses. If they really want to bring manufacturing back to the US, the dollar must be unseated as the world’s reserve currency, and there must be very bad stagflation so that we get enough inflation and depressed wages so people are desperate enough to work for roughly the same real wages as Chinese factory workers. If the US is less dependent on other nations for things like manufacturing, the US can do things like invade countries, set up slave and death camps, etc, with less consequence. And the chosen oligarchs get to rule over their own fiefdoms of oppressed workers.

He tariffed countries with no people and trade deficits of thousands of dollars, and tariffed Ukraine.

We live in a capitalist society (unfortunately). Rich people hoard their capital during recessions, which means fewer job openings. I graduated HS during the 2008 recession, and it took me 6 months of applying everywhere I could to get a temp job in a factory paying minimum wage (and no benefits or any job security at all, of course). It was literally hard to get a job at McDonald’s or Wendy’s. IIRC, it took nearly both of Obama’s two terms for the job market to recover to what it was. So yeah, you may be able to find a job after a lot of hunting, but everyone’s so desperate they’ll accept anything. The way things are going with deregulation and all that, I wouldn’t be surprised if company-towns make a comeback (which, incidentally, is kind of like the corporate city-states people like Peter Thiel, who worked with Musk and groomed JD Vance, openly talk about).

I think a lot of them are ideological psychos. Saw an interview with Forbes magazine founder, and he’s giddy about these tariffs because he thinks they’ll enable tax cuts. I don’t think he cares if his shares tank or whatever, as long as he doesn’t have money “taken away” from him to help the poors.

Meh, I think it’s fine and good for countries to specialize and be dependent on each other. Keeps the peace through mutually assured economic destruction. Global upticks in isolationism preceded the World Wars. Also, it just makes sense, because different countries have different resources, and their populations are differently skilled.

He wants to use tariffs (which act like a flat-tax) to lower income tax on the rich. There’s speculation he’s also doing something like the “Mar-a-Lago Accord,” which involves devaluing the dollar (causing inflation). If wages don’t rise with the inflation (which they don’t want), US labor will be more competitive, so people can work in factory jobs with pay analogous to current Chinese factory workers.

I could not renew online (not sure why it wouldn’t let me). You need an appointment in my state now. Before this change, it was an all-day affair. I.e. get there before it opens, stand in an extremely long line that wraps around 3 sides of the building, and stand in line for most the day (in the extreme heat, in the summer).

And, I guess it still took most the day even with an appointment too.

It disenfranchises many voters. I know several people who don’t have valid IDs. I was almost unable to to vote last November because my ID expired, and all my local DMVs were booked for many months. Had to set an appointment 3 months in the future at a DMV 50 miles away from me to get an ID just before the election.

Yeah, almost seems like it. I am convinced they are at least doing something like the “Mar-a-Lago Accord” to devalue the dollar, unseat the USD as the global reserve currency, inflate debt away, and make wages low enough and people desperate enough so more manufacturing is viable in the US again.

Not sure if you’re trolling or not. They’re very obviously following Russia’s playbook of consolidating power, dismantling the state and handing it to oligarchs, and “flooding the zone” with bullshit so people believe what they want. They probably won’t outright claim they’re the King and there will be no elections, but they’ll probably rig the elections, at least in red states, so the Republican party has control of the federal government in perpetuity; similar to how Russia has “elections.” Any media that doesn’t toe the line will get labelled as “fake news,” and probably have “legal” and financial actions taken against them. I mean, a few days ago, and executive order was signed that, among other things, requires voters to show a birth certificate or passport which will disenfranchise many, many voters. So, no, we won’t explicitly have a king, but we will have a totalitarian one-party rule with oligarchs at the top, and an extensive propaganda machine to keep people confused and misdirected. I don’t expect voters like the one’s that wore the “better Russian than Democrat,” to organize in a large militia and fight homeland security, the national guard, or whatever other military the government would deploy on US soil (they’re “considering” invoking the Insurrection Act at this very moment). I suspect most Republicans would just be fine with their team being in power, no matter what the cost; and having propaganda legitimizing their beliefs just makes it easier for them. Republican voters surely won’t rise up to fight for a Democrat that “lost” an election.