…screw you [DOT 12/4/26]

this is winning...

…I don’t know if there is a thing that isn’t a mutal-bribery deal that jd, the son-in-law & witkoff could ever deliver

…but…iran seems to have been un-inclined to accept the terms jd referred to as the “best & final” offer…AKA stop-making-us-look-like-we-fucked-this-up-hard

…so…maybe…setting off the most expensive bunch of explosions a military can boast isn’t the cheat code they insisted it was…& the winning wasn’t all they made it out to be?

…quite why they thought they could dictate a surrender on iran’s part while they still apparently can’t rein bibi in even though he’s “on their side” is a head-scratcher…but…when you fire all your competent people for saying what you want to do is insane/illegal/fundamentally-fucking-dumb/*against*-your-interests…& then attempt to display a full-on break from reality in terms of how any of this works

Is Trump proposing that the US operates the Strait of Hormuz?

…in order to…what?

…so

…if you send people who your picking of screams “faithless bullshit merchants looking for a payoff” & then demand to be made out to have not fucked up on a historic scale or you’ll have a strop & fuck off…not sure you really call that a negotiation…&…if your secretary of state/NSA guy?/USAID guy?/whatever-the-other-jobs-he’s-nominally-doing…so nobody does them…think he’s the archivist of saying “you can keep that if you want” about the stuff that orange’s favorite canon claimed in defiance of the letter & spirit of the applicable statutes is somehow not property of the state & totally souvenirs for a preening popinjay…is paying so much attention that while that’s going on he’s

…well…I guess it sends a message…but…not sure it’s the one they were trying for?

…uh huh…do they know what it looked like to declare for team orban, do we think?

…how did this guy ever get to look like he knows the first thing about business?

…it’s like a tragic misunderstanding of the “friends like these…” thing

…maybe you start with “keep your friends close but your enemies closer” & then pull a reverse stokholm syndrome thing out your ass…I dunno…but it’s full-on tragic amounts of fucking embarrassing?

…birds of a feather…yadda yadda…carrion feeders convention…par for the course…all that stuff

…if you think they can’t demonstrate a worse understanding than that…where have you been the last few years?

…see…when you try to lift something from someone who made a point you don’t understand but not admit it wasn’t your thought…& think *that’s* clever

…well…you look like a fucking moron, don’tcha?

…I know everyone loves the menken quote about never going broke underestimating the american public & all

…but

…exceedingly few of the ones I’ve met are anywhere near this level of outrageously fucking shit-for-brains

So, Iran is sending a 70 person delegation of diplomats, nuclear enrichment specialists, legal and military experts, and other serious people to the talks. We’re sending a politico poseur with no negotiating experience, witless, and guy with his hand always out?

Sounds like a recipe for failure.

…they’re retired now…have been for a while now…but…that’s someone who used to be a US ambassador…when those weren’t shills for a criminal cabal trying to extort the globe to pay the infinite tab their ego demands as tribute

…it’s like the most bullshit version of “keep the faith” you ever saw

…only…you know…godless?

…at least until they can invent one that won’t call them on the sinning

Now that’s what they call a deus ex machina.

…not an april fool’s bit

Mixing a technology that has driven people to psychosis and even suicide, with a business that sells people what appears to be direct access to the divine…what could go wrong?

I would like to have eternal life, please.

I’m sorry Dave, but I’m afraid I can’t do that.

…pocket deity-flavored sycophancy…you can see how there’d be a market for it…but like the song said oh, so long ago…peace sells…but who’s buying?

…if you can’t cite bone spurs with no x-rays no more…not saying the irony might go critical-mass on our ass…but…you’re flirting with…something…&…it don’t look like a good thing to be flirting with…fuck’s sake…hegseth still thinks rules of engagement are woke bullshit & not anywhere up to half the reason this hadn’t gone these places before now…if you set yourself up like russia with better big-boy-toys & then squander those at a truly unsustainable rate to advance your interests…backwards…while making it clearer than clear you would prefer if as many as possible of the people you don’t think are people in a sense that counts…die…so you’re pleased as punch about how you gutted USAID along with the residual goodwill your team used to get for being pro-people-getting-to-live…& you clearly either can’t or don’t want to stop your butt-buddy bibi from sodomising your chances of being taken seriously as an authority that can grant…anything…especially anything iran *wants*

…why *wouldn’t* that place tell you to go fuck yourself?

…it’s…like when you blow up a hospital because there’s a tunnel under it that you can’t?

…sigh

…those of us that can remember things for more than a matter of hours…don’t belong in their world

…even when some kind-hearted citizens went to such efforts to help out the dickless wonders

…if at first you don’t succeed

…give up & go home…it’s the JD school of negotiation, see?

…not trying to equate dildos with munitions…or alemeda with the strait of hormuz…just…can’t help but wonder if any of the people supposedly interested in dissuading people from a course of action they don’t want them to take have even once thought about not doing shit that begs for said course of action to get leaned in on hard AF?

…eh…maybe both of them are cool with russia invading places so long as it hates gay people & jews…that…isn’t exactly into “identity of indiscernibles” territory…you know…if you have firing neurons left?

…you know…fish that rise this easy…are not considered the smart shoal…just…sayin’

This is also a fake image. The details of the capsule are entirely wrong

This image circulating is fake. The front porch was much larger than that and held several Navy recovery personnel as well. Real images can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/albums/72177720332961365/

…anyway…not trying to knock the work farrow did on the newyorker thing about how altman might be a fuckup

…but

…that lady wrote a whole book that came out before that “long read”…&…well

…depends what you think was the revealing part, I guess?

…but…gilding the pathological lily is like the entire USP of the modern definition of making something “great”

…they…might not actually have any other moves they know how to make?

…the concept of “face-saving” is not “always have a 2nd one in your back pocket”

…anyway…don’t start stocking up on bathtubs for gin just yet

Good thing the US has such high quality high school science education, so everyone knows how moonshine can end up producing methanol which can cause blindness and death. High concentrations of heavy metals and pesticides also possible risks.

US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional reut.rs/4czY1hk
— Reuters (@reuters.com) 2026-04-11T01:50:19Z

…we can do better…I mean…copper isn’t locked up the wrong side of hormuz?

…but then

…when you’re a stranger to joined up thinking

…you maybe don’t see the writing on the wall?

yeah pretty much since sulfuric acids main use is fertilizer

…imagine that?

…you know…when they aren’t trying to fend off a fucking invasion while getting ratfucked by a US “administration” that would prefer russia gets what it wants & NATO quits waving & gets to fucking drowning like a bag of unwanted kittens even RFKjr can’t claim they want on the menu…otherwise the whole “planting season” thing would maybe have come up *before* they blew their own shit out of those waters

…go on…tell me again how the US doesn’t even need anything that ships through hormuz & it’s everyone else’s problem how they fucked that up & can’t fix it

…& not that the people running the shitshow are displaying the very stuff of which the things standing in for their brains are composed of?

…maybe that won’t turn out to be a problem if they never actually turn the fucking things on?

…gotta say…doesn’t actually seem like it’s better business than it is science, tbh?

…if you don’t want to throw ed your spare change because that isn’t actually spare…& 3,000 words is an off-putting scale for an intro…there’s a thread for them as bluesky…with some nuggets in

…&…that’s without anyone blowing up any datacenters out there where the straits are going dire…or…breaking ground on quite a few of the ones the whole unprecedented-build-out-of-this-is-the-future is…uhhh…founded on…absent which a lot of the cash-swapping announced…doesn’t move anything…except the insane needle that still shows an unaccountable number of people on the “get on board or you’re doomed” hype train

…entertainment…well they always were saying there’s no business like show business…so…maybe the plan is to make all business “show” business…provided they get a monopoly on the “tell” part?

…so…you could count those as stealth-users that don’t know they’re adding to your user-count when you brag about how many of those you have?

The other thing to bear in mind here is that the promise to pardon his whole administration, specifically at this point over two and a half years before the next election, is like a big flashing neon sign saying “I AM DIRECTING THEM ALL TO COMMIT CRIMES.”

Pardoning specific people Biden’s political enemies had threatened to destroy with frivolous prosecutions is not the same as pardoning your whole administration en masse.
— Lindsay Beyerstein (@beyerstein.bsky.social) 2026-04-10T19:58:19.611Z

“By testing the boundaries of the pardon power, Biden cracked the door open and we can’t now complain about Donald Trump walking through it, even if he blows it wide open.” THE HELL WE CAN’T! gift article
Exclusive | Trump Promises Mass Pardons to Staff Before Leaving Office
In a recent meeting, the president said he would pardon those within 200 feet of the Oval Office, according to people familiar with the remarks. [WSJ]

Like this is something I’ve been wondering about for a long time, the potential of using Trump v US + pardons to extend the immunity umbrella to the whole administration, and yeah, looks like they’re just gonna go ahead and do that.

Not that theory matters anymore but in theory couldn’t Trump extend the umbrella of his own immunity to the whole administration and issue an executive order declaring that anybody carrying out an order from him is pardoned for any potential charges arising from it?

Basically like, a crime committed with the understanding that you would be receiving a pardon for it after the fact, that’s got to make a pardon invalid, right? Like probably not in a legal/constitutional sense, but come the fuck on, this can’t work this way.

I do believe that is quite literally a conspiracy.

Very much so except the pardon is the definition of official duties as president so by Trump v US he’s immune and also it can’t be used as evidence in another trial about anything and also the pardon applies to the other participants in the conspiracy. Neat trick, that.

…also…someone really needs to explain the principle of reductio ad absurdam to these ghoulish fucking jokers (not talking about the person that posted the below, in case that isn’t abundantly clear to anyone)

I’m not like a lawyer but I’m fairly certain that if he walked into the senate with all of his secret service dudes and ordered them to shoot every D senator right then he could just pardon them all cause DC is Federal right so no state law he couldn’t pardon?

…fuck it

…this is due up

…I’ll try to find something more suitable for sundays to tack on the end here

…but

…how did martin sheen say it when he was going by bartlett?

…rest up

…I guess

…the markets open monday?

bryanlsplinter says:

12/4/26 at 09:01

So, as we noted yesterday, Hillbilly fucked it up. Well done, Hillbilly!

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- ManchuCandidate says:
  
  12/4/26 at 11:10
  
  Who knew? I never hung out with the poly sci kids or the wannabe diplomats in school. I know what it’s like being a dipshit goober hick with metaphoric cowshit stuck between his toes (because I was one) and can spot one. He strikes me as someone whose view on life experience is more about acquiring status than actual skills/knowledge (like Trump.)
  
  Good job JD, you dumb fuck.
  
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  - brightersideoflife says:
    
    12/4/26 at 11:36
    
    The thing is, and the thing really is –
    He was the best option in this dipshit administration.
    You know the other assclowns in the cabinet looked around the room and were like *slaps knees* “welp, let’s send JD.”
    
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bryanlsplinter says:

12/4/26 at 09:03

We’re going to look back at the Great Depression as the Good Ol’ Days.

Me, a leftist: people yearn for the Earthly Paradise of the Reagan Years

— Vituperative Erb (@vituperativeerb.bsky.social) 2026-04-12T04:04:40.930Z

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- SplinterRIP says:
  
  12/4/26 at 09:22
  
  …see now…that kind of thing is why there’s a whole sub-post so I didn’t put another post in the comments before there were any of those
  
  …following some threads on bluesky through the transitive reply branches loops more loops than a möbius strip…you kinda have to hold on to your hat & just take the ride & hope you don’t sink without a trace before you see what you can see…sea…see?
  
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  - SplinterRIP says:
    
    12/4/26 at 09:42
    
    …also…nearly tacked this onto the brain drain off the back of the tax talking part…but there’s a line in there about how statistically most “wealthy” families lose the modifier in less than 4 generations…which…the stats do appear to support
    
    …so…on the upside…the orange spawn odds on lose it all…which…is a nice thought…&…if you feel like it lacks supporting evidence as a theory…you know how people were poking fun at eric adams for now being a citizen of albania?
    
    when Nate Silver predicted that Eric Adams would be a future presidential contender, he meant of Albania
    
    — jeremy kaplowitz (@jeremykaplowitz.com) 2026-04-10T18:43:13.960Z
    
    …well…guess who’s trying to buy a beach in what is supposedly going to become the albanian riviera?
    
    Sold to the Trump family: one of the last undeveloped islands in the Mediterranean buff.ly/jzAEzan"Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have spent more than $1bn on an Albanian island that will be a luxury resort"Does Daddy know you're planning to compete with the Gaza 'Riviera', Ivanka?
    
    — Roy Grubb (@roygrubb.bsky.social) 2025-06-24T06:23:37.291Z
    
    …that’s…what…9 months old…the audio take from the BBC I think is more recent
    
    ivanka kush albania resort how is it not the story on every american networkwww.bbc.com/audio/play/p…
    
    — (@slawdogs.bsky.social) 2026-04-09T15:55:59.701Z
    
    …also…they won’t say what the terms they offered were…but jd said they dusted on account of no promises forthcoming in a “we don’t want a nuke” vein…but…they had jared tag along…&…remember when?
    
    I watched the video. That’s definitely what he said!
    
    — Shannon 🦇💩🤪 GOOD TROUBLE 💙💙💙 (@shannonmaebreen.bsky.social) 2026-04-11T12:55:25.012Z
    
    …so…he’s got 5 kids…at a 90% chance of their generation losing all fred’s wealth & not reaching the sort of escape velocity required to get all landed in the gentry sense
    
    https://whoownsengland.org/2017/05/08/the-dukes-their-tax-breaks-an-8million-annual-subsidy/
    
    …one of ’em only goes half-broke…presumably barron…I mean…if they spelled better he could have had nominative determinism on his side…even if a baron is barely a poor man’s duke?
    
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    - ManchuCandidate says:
      
      12/4/26 at 10:59
      
      No wonder Nate’s a shitty gambler.
      I would have taken that bet.
      
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    - brightersideoflife says:
      
      12/4/26 at 11:30
      
      What’s Tiffani been up to? I always thought she had the best chances of not being a complete fuckup only because clearly Ivanka was the favorite daughter.
      
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- brightersideoflife says:
  
  12/4/26 at 11:53
  
  It’s also a vicious cycle for the teens.
  
  Teens don’t have much money (excluding the rich families).
  Phones are remarkably affordable compared to 20 years ago.
  Phones are also a “required” item for many families. Even my coworkers with preteen and teen children, someone mentioned punishing their teen by taking their phone away and most of the parents immediately said they couldn’t do that because they need the phones to be able to reach their teens/know where they (their phones at least?) are.
  Teens have access to a shit ton of media on phones that has no barrier to entry because the consumer is the product being sold on these apps.
  Teens also see how bad it is out there and have little hope for the future. This is an entirely valid adn reasonable conclusion for them.
  
  My childhood and teen years? The internet was new enough that it screamed at us. I had to go by magazines to see rich people doing rich people things. I didn’t see people my age doing those things. Sure we’d go to the mall and see what fashions looked like, but something had to get picked up by the other morons at my high school to be a thing I felt like I needed. For example, there was one year where a specific blue cloth purse from 579 had everyone obsessed.
  
  We also were easier to lie to. Because unless we had older siblings or cousins telling us how shitty it was out there in the job market, etc, we didn’t know. We didn’t have access to the mix of people showing off wealth (fake usually) and the people talking about how bad reality actually is.
  
  Of course the teens are not happy. The teens aren’t stupid.
  
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ManchuCandidate says:

12/4/26 at 10:27

Trump and GOPers would have been better off doing nothing since 2017.

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SplinterRIP says:

12/4/26 at 11:10

…the link might not be all that helpful

Top Comment (11/4/26)

…but it ought to show up where podcasts do as a BBC thing…one of the ones with marianna spring…has an interview with the people churning out those iranian “war slop” lego videos?

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brightersideoflife says:

12/4/26 at 11:31

I have a distinctly French solution for the tech bros.

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- ManchuCandidate says:
  
  12/4/26 at 11:36
  
  I’d take up knitting just for that.
  
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Loveshaq says:

12/4/26 at 11:43

Now it all makes perfect sense!

To simplify Trump's & Hegseth's 5D chess war strategy
byu/Kazimierzowska inAntiTrumpAlliance

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- ManchuCandidate says:
  
  12/4/26 at 11:51
  
  That’s the strategery/wizdumb/lojik of a moron child looking to find a way out of potty training.
  
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Loveshaq says:

12/4/26 at 11:45

It doesn’t matter what sex you are. If you want to be part of the Trump inner circle, you need to commit sexual assault!

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- ManchuCandidate says:
  
  12/4/26 at 11:49
  
  She has a thing Guy Fireri (slightly) look alikes?
  
  To be honest, I’d be running away in fear as well.
  
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  - brightersideoflife says:
    
    12/4/26 at 11:55
    
    Ok but also? Running away from her in fear is just a solid response for any sentient being.
    
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