Posted by belter 2 days ago
> The US labour watchdog froze two cases against Apple days after Donald Trump nominated an attorney who represents the tech group to be the agency’s top legal official.
> Trump last week nominated Crystal Carey, a partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius, to be the NLRB’s general counsel. She is listed in the agency’s records as an attorney acting in Apple’s defence in both cases against the Silicon Valley tech group.
the level of just complete capture of the regulatory state by random rich companies is amazing, even beyond trump's first time bullshit like "Appoint the CEO of Exxon to be Secretary of State"
Steve Mnuchin (especially) and Rex Tillerson were two of the best appointments last time around. These guys have no redeeming value. And they're far more brazen about the corruption, too.
Ugh, knowing you have a clearly malicious actor as top dog of the country -_- it can’t get more frustrating. Except for the fact that a big part of the country supports it as well.
I do wonder if they even believe in him wholeheartedly or just put on an act cause they’re in too deep and don’t want to give the people who said they were making the wrong choice the “satisfaction” of admitting they were right.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
“Group” can be used when talking about a large organisation as a whole, rather than a smaller component or subsidiary.
So the FT is explicitly drawing attention to the argument that the people were fired because of something they did (attempting to unionise) and that that decision was made or sanctioned by Apple at the top level (not some regional CEO or middle manager).
I like this language quirk a lot. It almost feels subversive, pointing out through grammar that group entities are just people, responsible for their choices like everyone else.
Edit: once your regime has achieved a certain level of internal cohesiveness and stability, you can begin the next step, which is to turn lower-level state actors against the population. You can do this partly by ordering them to perpetrate violence and outrage. This has a numerous benefits: first, it makes the state actors themselves afraid of the population, partly because they fear accountability, which makes them more inclined to violence and more protective of the regime; second, it stokes anger against them, which validates all the fears I listed under the first point; third, it distracts from the less shocking crimes of the regime (mere theft as opposed to bodily harm or murder -- but eventually that too!); fourth, as the regime gradually ratchets up the violence, the population becomes increasingly fearful and willing to collaborate and thus decreasingly capable of organizing and resisting.
Edit 2: I've noticed in my two or three decades of intellectual and political awareness that the right frequently seems to benefit from this kind of compounding effect and stacked benefit. No matter what happens, good or bad, it seems to redound to their benefit. I can't think of any cases where I've felt that the left enjoyed similar structural or inherent political advantages.
No America goes even lower...
The US has historically held the rule of law as an important idea. Social security has largely eliminated deep elderly poverty.
What you're describing is the first step, where the wealthy attempt to install a ruler friendly to their interests, someone they think they can control and reason with. Joke's on them -- and on everybody else, too, unfortunately.
Edit: this led me to realize that the advanced age of Fake Tan President is a saving grace. He simply won't live long enough to implement the kind of system Putin has been able to solidify over the past twenty or thirty years. And I'm not aware of anybody in the GOP who can replace him in the cult of personality that a stable dictatorship generally requires.
The examples are all just so disgustingly blatant now, like Eric Adams in NYC, or the founder of Nikola paying millions in bribes (err, sorry, "campaign donations") to get a pardon.
Our republic may survive the current administration (not sure, probably give it less than a 50% chance these days), but the facade of our righteousness is gone forever. Trump won the election fair and square, and both the electoral college and the popular vote. People knew exactly what they were getting, and they wanted this.
once the world was willing to forgive, but twice is a pattern that can't be ignored
the 97% of the rest of the world now needs to de-risk itself from the US and its businesses
longer term, the self-inflicted loss of economic, military and cultural domination will hopefully result in the US electorate realising that "US exceptionalism" was only ever a set of lucky circumstances, which are unlikely to be repeated
at which point the forced humility should result in a return to long-term stability
the worse outcome is the US attempts to hang onto its dying empire with warfare, and it appears we're seeing the groundwork being laid for this already (canada, greenland, panama, ...)
I think most will not have the will once they steel the cost. I know this forum loves to prognosticate but the right thing is what one must do to survive.
if you're a government it's quite easy to "encourage" it to occur
example: "US cloud provider revenue levy", starting at 0%, increasing 1% each month until 40%
the aim being to add a large risk premium to all purchases of US cloud services, encouraging companies to switch to domestic suppliers
the EU is already publicly talking about retaliating in this manner
I think the rest of the world is just dealing with the reality that the US is now an unreliable partner and cannot be trusted. In the face of that, yes, I agree that most of them won't dump the US immediately with big fanfare, but they will start to decouple in the background where it matters - making trade deals that exclude the US, building real incentives for the intelligentsia to stay away from the US (though the US is already doing a fairly decent job of that themselves), taking more responsibility for their own defense, etc.
I mean, look what happened to Vietnam and Israel. They capitulated in the face of the tariff threat and removed their tariffs on US imports, and they still got hit with some of the highest (or, it Vietnam's case, the highest) tariff rates. Europe has already realized (and this is a good thing and a long time coming IMO) that they need to rebuild their defense capacity because they can't depend on the US.
So no, I don't believe it will happen immediately, but I also believe that over the longer term (5-10-15 years) that decoupling from the US is inevitable solely because not doing that will be more difficult for other countries.
> "Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions," he said.
> His decision to drop the case permanently, Judge Ho said, ensured that the administration could not use the indictment as "leverage" over Adams or the city of New York.
I live in NYC, and I have triple-checked to make sure that I will be able to vote in the primary to try and avoid him getting the democrat nomination, and this is the first time in my life that I've genuinely considered voting Republican if he does manage to get the nomination.
The Fed chairman is going to make a speech in 10 min, and the US President is currently live on his social platform accusing him of playing Politics. You will then achieve the same level of governance as Türkiye.
They have an agenda that is based on errors, ignorance, and being manipulated by parties that are adversaries to America and democracy. Soon this will be irrecoverable within this generation, at least.
People have the mistaken belief that things are bad right now. They can get drastically worse.
[1] "...The relevant legislation holds that a member of the Federal Reserve board may be “removed for cause by the president”. But in this context, courts have interpreted “for cause” to refer to misconduct or impropriety. The president cannot remove the members of the board purely for policy or political reasons.
However, Trump could attempt to demote Powell from chair to an ordinary member of the Federal Reserve, and put another candidate in charge. Here, there is less of a legal precedent. Previous presidents have always assumed they did not have the power to do this..."
[1] https://theconversation.com/trump-has-threatened-to-fire-the...
Trump will try to replace Powell extra-constitutionally and at this point, I suspect he may succeed. It will be close to the lights going out at that point.
My read is the election was a rejection of globalist neoliberal capitalism and Trump was the closest choice to that. If the democrats had run someone who was even willing to lie about making changes for regular people they would have won easily.
This is a long time in the making. Florida is Ground Zero, and if you care to look back in time to the late 1990s, there is much to find.
Epstein was cooking. Offshore Playboys were living large and public lives and making plans for the future.
St. Petersburg, FL in particular holds so many secrets.
A psychological device of "blutkit" (blood cement). For example; young Nazi SS officers were recruited via a ritual attrocity like participation in a massacre. After that "we're all in this together" sealed loyalty through a mix of guilt and fear.
The race is on for the Trump administration to elicit the most unforgivable and insane actions in order to sinter those participants into a "death pact".
EDIT: spotted recently posted [0] (Also of course C.R Browning's Ordinary Men [1]) both underline the point that you don't need to recruit intrinsically corrupted people - you can make them,
"Trump won't be present today for the dignified transfer of four U.S. soldiers at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.Instead, he'll be attending a LIV Golf dinner reception in Florida. The White House and the Defense Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on which administration officials might be in attendance.
The soldiers died during a training exercise in Lithuania. They were honored during a dignified departure ceremony from Lithuania, with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda and other dignitaries paying tribute.
Trump isn't attending dignified transfer of soldiers who died in Lithuania, continued The 3rd Infantry Division identified the soldiers as Sgt. Jose Duenez Jr., 25, of Joliet, Illinois; Sgt. Edvin F. Franco, 25, of Glendale, California; Pfc. Dante D. Taitano, 21, of Dededo, Guam; and Staff Sgt. Troy S. Knutson-Collins, 28, of Battle Creek, Michigan."
Anyone that expects this will only last four years hasn't been paying attention on history books.
Those positions are diametrically opposed.
The 3rd Amendment exists for a reason. The police of colonial times _were_ the Redcoats. They _were_ soldiers working for the king. Modern police serve the same function and have basically the same powers. They are not peace officers - they are soldiers, and I hope one day the people living in this country wake up and say "no more".
Keeping it impersonal (and only understanding/analyzing "how" the elections were won/lost), I think that "Trump didn't win". Instead "Democrats lost", took a risky bet and to quote the meme "the risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math". [0]
[0]: https://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/963/073/e2...
EDIT: I think it was Bill Burr that said on his (latest) SNL monologue "you would think that after the assassination attempt they would just give it to him" (because yes, that was a critical security failure, and so badly designed (the "security" of the event") that one could easily be tricked into thinking that it was purposeful)(a proper Hanlon's razor)
I expected a repeat of his first term. Which honestly was quite uneventful. This is not.
This doesn't even count the global pandemic.
Setting all that aside, everything he's done is something he campaigned on.
I wasn’t looking forward to his inauguration, but I did expect him to not care about the rest of the world for another 4 years.
I still can't believe we had an "alternative facts" moment and that somehow that pales compared to the rest.
He didn't have "his" people in place to help him the first time because much of the establishment at the time was still Romney/Bush/McCain/McConnell types and they kept a firm hand on the reigns of power and often undercut his ability to do things because they felt like he was an aberration.
This time around, there is no "primary opposition" (intraparty conflict) in any meaningful way. He wants, they do, it is truly Trump's party.
They were quite candid with their intent. Aside from him casually/flippantly brushing off Project 2025 during his campaign (when it was clear that his campaign was deeply connected to it), it was tremendously obvious to anybody paying attention that things would be much different during round two, and in a more aggressive manner.
You had your head in the sand. If you voted for him, this is your fault. Damn you.
Downvotes be damned.
What's the point of phrasing this as though you're off to the gallows for your beliefs? It's an internet forum.
I understand. It's hard to be constructive when it was so blatantly clear a second term was going to be a disaster of epic proportions and here we are.
He spent the majority of his term being blocked from doing completely problematic stuff by his staff who he increasingly fired or resigned.
He finally got the end of his term with many more yes-men and started doing things like impounding funds for Ukraine.
The first thing he does at the start of term 2 is more impoundment. Like sure, Day 1 Year 1 Trump doesn't bleed into Day 1 year 5 but Day 364 Year 4 bleeds into Day 1 Year 5 pretty well.
This was among the greatest threats to democratic self governance in well over a century.
I'd say that Trump 2.0 is more eventful than Trump 1.0, but I absolutely would not call Trump 1.0 uneventful.
Even when the candidate speaks of people not having to vote again in the future, if they just vote for him this last time?
I mean, I'm not even in the US and probably missed a lot of stuff that happened during the election. But no one around here is surprised about what's happening now, surely most of the US population was that aware too?
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:42jq5uvg6p2shi5gqifor22e/po...
Barely mentions the stock market crash.
So all those that didn't vote, obviously didn't hate what Trump proposed enough to vote against him.
I could put on a mask and stay at home for COVID, but I can't do much about shunning our allies, disrupting the world economy, disappearing people, electing a cabinet of highly unqualifed individuals, putting the SCOTUS in pocket, etc. I can advocate, stay informed, support my community, etc., but this feels on another level than the first term and that's what I meant by my comment.
Now, they've taken that cue and just turned the dial to an 11. There's currently very little resistance, and in the places where there is, they've just flat out ignored it. Of course the snowball is going to pick up speed
I don't personally buy into this framing, but it sure seems like millions of people do since points at results
I figure the people who want the US to withdraw from the global stage have been working on Trump ever since 1987 when he paid for that full page pro-tariff ad in the New York Times. Power hungry maniacs are a dime a dozen, but ones that are also hell bent on committing economic suicide are a scarce resource and need to be nurtured with care if you want them to actually do it.
It's what I'd do if the US was bullying me around. It's a well tested play (refined during the US interventions in South America in the 70's and 80's).
I didn't know this. So New York Times had no issue publishing lies for money. Everything is rotten these days
A headline from the times during that same year: TRUMP GIVES A VAGUE HINT OF CANDIDACY (https://archive.is/xF2pW)
As much as I dislike advertising in general, and specifically the opinions in that ad, I think that whether the New York Times was willing to publish it is not the important detail here.
This was at a time when the US and China were working together to keep the USSR in check while at the same time the US was sending weapons to Taiwan so that they could be used to keep China in check. So imagine being China in 1991. The USSR has just fallen, so they're no longer a threat, but US-sold weapons are still being pointed at you from Taiwan. You'd want the US to leave you alone and stop arming your enemies. And here's this candidate who wants the US to step off the world stage and focus instead on what it can build alone at home.
It seems pretty likely that they'd be in favor of getting Trump elected. Whether they ultimately did is an open question, but if so then it's not shame on the New York Times, but shame on us for not better protecting ourselves against foreign interference.
During Trump 1, there were some adults in the room -- congress seemed to be less complacent, the cabinet appointees had more independent (and more pragmatic) judgement, and the scale of purges across the government felt like nothing compared to what's currently going on.
There's none of that now. Congress is complacent and arguably complicit in an ongoing constitutional crisis, the admin is just breaking a number of laws without even putting in the work to have plausible deniability, and with every passing day the corruption's growing to levels that many of us who've been born and raised in the modern economic west just haven't seen in a few generations.
If there are anyone on the (currently) winning side in this Congress who aren't a bunch of greedy, self-serving boot lickers they better step up soon. I can't imagine someone like John McCain would remain silent in this environment. Best case scenario: history will forget most of these assholes; if not, it will not be kind.
Collins, McConnell, and Murkowski have been voting against the administration for more traditional Republican policy, sometimes.[3]
Nine Republican Reps blocked H.Res 282[4] because it would have killed bipartisan H.Res 164[5] and that caused the House Republican leaders to cancel votes for the whole week.
It's not all lockstep boot licking. Just mostly.
[1] https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202550
[2] https://xcancel.com/RepThomasMassie/status/18995193281369747...
[3] https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1...
[4] https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202587
[5] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-resolutio...
After he won I started reading more about who these people were and what they were planning to do and sold all my stocks after the inauguration, there was no way it was going to be a normal presidency, even compared to the last one.
No; the problem with Trump is the specific types of laws he broke. He broke laws around honesty, fair dealing, obstruction of justice, and, of course, the integrity of elections and our democratic process. He is, very plainly, opposed to democracy and the rule of law, preferring to replace it with cronyism and nepotism.
That's why he's bad for the country, not simply "because he's a convicted criminal."
True, but we're talking about expectations here.
I'm sorry, I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here.
Are you saying it's normal or acceptable to have your expectations be that a "convicted criminal" is automatically a bad person?
If so, then particularly given the large and very-well-documented racial biases in arrest, prosecution, and conviction for crimes here in the US, perhaps you should consider adjusting those expectations?
If not, then please actually say what you mean clearly.
I believe what the parent comment is trying to say is: someone who committed crimes in the past has evinced a lack of respect for the law, and is therefore more likely to commit crimes in the future than someone with a history of law-abiding.
"Bad person" is a value judgement, which is besides the point.
> Seriously, what does one really expect from an unethical convicted criminal?
and your subsequent comment on that.
Case in point:
https://sandersinstitute.org/event/bernie-sanders-arrest-at-...
Convicted of resisting arrest.
But there's only one POTUS. There are multiple people out there who could do a decent job of being POTUS. Many of them are not convicted felons. We wouldn't lose much if we filtered out the entire convicted-felon category from this particular job.
He gets the police to arrest this opposition candidate, let's say for marijuana possession with the intent to sell (a felony), and with procedural chicanery ensures that the court trying the case is run by a Trump-appointed judge.
The opposition candidate is convicted of this charge.
Under your suggestion, they would then become ineligible to be elected.
It gets even worse if the corrupt President has a compliant Congress (which it seemed like he did for a little while, but that's less sure now). If he can ram through a new law making "criticizing the sitting President" a felony, then basically anyone who would oppose him and his regime would clearly be guilty.
In general, the sitting government decides what is a crime and what is not. If you make a law that says that those convicted of crimes cannot run for public office—either "any public office" or "only this specific public office"—then the sitting government, if it is seeking to act in its own interests rather than those of the people, has a perverse incentive to preferentially criminalize things that those who disagree with them are more likely to do, and to encourage (or coerce) bias in policing and trials to ensure conviction.
"In-groups who are protected by the law, but not bound by it, alongside out-groups who are bound by the law, but not protected by it."
He may have been convicted, but he faced no consequences. He was not bound by the law, so not only did his convictions and investigations not deter him, the lack of consequences emboldened him.
This rationale doesn't apply to any other person in a similar state in Florida, it was just for Trump.
Less so a commentary on his list of problems.
Convicted criminal + blatant lies = disregard for society, disregard for people, disregard for rules/norms/laws. It all adds up to who he is and what he values and represents.
NOBODY should be surprised at this administration's disregard for society. You should be actually surprised if he does anything good/lawful.
That you think we should not be "cancelling" anti-vaxxers and your implication of we should listen to anti-vaxxers (because they "dare to think differently", as if this is about their dyed hair color or something) says a lot about you. And that you use "canceling" in quotes because you can't point to a real thing "liberals" did.
> As a result they kicked off from public discourse huge groups of electorate, polarizing society.
OHHHHH, the liberals are the one who polarized society? Not Trump from the start saying these people are my enemies? Your right-wing bias is showing
> There were topics that you just could not discussed, twitter (pre Musk) was looking to it, same Facebook or Youtube (still, good luck having a monetized film with the forbidden word like Gaza Strip), similarly mainstream media.
And there are now topics that can't be discussed on Twitter (post-Musk) like the word "cisgender". And Facebook and Youtube had TONS of anti-vax misinformation, anti-abortion groups, and general right-wing algorithmic boosting. That maybe "some" topics aren't allowed then but a ton of others still are is you trying to pick one spoon out of a pile of knives and saying its full of spoons.
What other topics could not be discussed? The value of white supremacy? How homosexuality is a choice? That the Jews run the world? Be specific please.
Does it make it ok because you try to equivocate?
Is it so hard to just say "corruption is bad all the time and we should not tolerate it from anyone" - it is not a controversial position at all.
This whataboutism is also ridiculous. Even if we assume Hunter did the worst of what MAGA says, Trump is personally orders of magnitude worse. He did a crypto rug pull the first few days of being POTUS again ffs. And people complain that Hunter traded on his name to get a cushy board spot?
Trump is actively working to get rid of the law against foreign bribery!
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-loosen-enforcement-us...
What are you going to bring up next, Hilary's emails?
There I fixed it.
Guess which pole is winning. Again. Predictably.
If you listen to his strongest supporters and those in his administration, they speak openly of it: the President is Right because the president is a Winner. Losers don't get to define what is Right. The President "won" not just the election, but "as a businessman" and an entertainer. So he is Right. Elon is Right because Elon is richest. America is Right because America is Most Powerful. Everyone else is a leech, a cuck, a sub, a beta, whatever. You either get on side, or you're a loser. And wrong.
It's pointless to argue with these people on abstract principles. American liberals are so caught off guard by this because they've been assured their whole life that constitutions and courts are the foundation of stability and that those guard rails protect society.
They don't. They're pieces of paper.
I mean, is this wrong? This is the literal reason we have elections, so the losers can’t tell us what to do.
Clearly Christian theology and other strains of thought think otherwise... that there's an ethical/moral "rightness" which can be judged independent of what the powerful say.
To be clear, I'm not arguing for that position. I just am pointing out in part why the Democrats and liberals are so pathetically unable to confront this situation. They thought they were part of a gentleman's club, and they could all take turns ruling according to a set of rules.
Honest conservative and progressive policy can also both value and seek to expand justice.
To me the present-day "left" liberal is not just profound hypocrisy but also a refusal to confront the reality of class conflict in capitalist society. The kind of liberal you're talking about will do "everything" to rectify injustice against every identifiable group except the largest group in society, the working class whose labour feeds the whole machine.
There was a slogan in the 20s and 30s when the socialist movement was confronted by (and lost to) the rise of the authoritarian right. "Socialism or barbarism" [and no, peanut gallery, the "left" in North America is not "socialism"]. Guess which part you're getting now.
I just learned that he apparently want to impose a new economic order on the world where every country basically becomes subservient to the US, but first they need crazy tariffs to make them all beg for access to the US market. I don't think it will work, and instead the global economy will move on without the US.
https://www.npr.org/2016/02/15/466848438/why-president-how-t...
The president as a title was meant as a diminutive relative to the Congress. The capitol building is at the precise center of Washington DC - literally and for a reason. The Supreme Court is across the street and for many years was inside the capitol.
The White House is in the middle of no where with a direct line of sight to Thomas Jefferson looking into the presidents bedroom. These are not accidents. Next time you’re there read what is written on the walls surrounding Jefferson and the architectural decisions made make a lot of sense and should be a warning to anyone sleeping in that bedroom.
Congress ceded power over time to the executive proactively as presidents subsequent to Washington emulated his integrity.
They have the ability to remove all of the power of the president, whose role, officially, is to merely preside. All you say? Crazy. But they’re the only body that can pass amendments to the constitution.
So, we don’t need to wait for the next presidential election if we don’t choose to. It’s up to we the people to choose.
It has been always unclear to me how Roman Empire turned into that multitude of feudal states and microstates. And i lived through USSR collapse, and that dissolution of great central power is still hard to get a mental hold on - you live in one paradigm and somehow you find yourself living in completely different one, whatever was truth and crime yesterday, today became crime and truth, and i'm having kind of deja vu these days here :)
This sounds like some kind of right-wing conspiracy theory attributing everything to George Soros for some reason.
The US dollar is the reserve currency of the world. America has been calling the shots for the entire post-WWII period. The American Empire extends across the globe collecting natural resources and cheap labour. US citizens have been reaping the benefits of this neo-imperialism. What MAGA people are advocating is basically US isolationism where the US surrenders all it's soft-power influence and becomes a sort of hermit oligarchy.
I wonder if we soon hear EU (or some of them) wanting to join/associate with BRICS. The BRICS has been futilely trying to get rid of dollar, and Trump seems to have just done them a solid here.
If China, however it is hard for CCP, just tone down internal oppression a couple notches and, that is an easy part for China, guarantees to Europe non-invasion by Russia, the EU may turn East wholesale. Add to that China's hold on Africa and Iran.
Speaking about Trump's declared goal of weakening China - you don't weaken your opponent by isolating yourself from your allies and turning them into allies of your opponent, quite an opposite.
We shouldnt expect companies to be Moral. We shouldn't expect the government to be Just. The sooner we realize how politics actually work, the smarter we can make personal decisions that comply with realities.
There is no reason to waste time and effort. The only people who can topple Apple are going to be major players, not the multitude.
The powerful are incentivized to use that power for their own benefit. Those without power do not even get to have a light shone on their poor treatment.
Separating an expected outcome from the factual evidence and artifacts of a situation is arguably why the justice system exists at all.
Politics isn't Byrne's The Secret, you can't materialize good leadership by ignoring every issue and praying to a higher power.
Indeed. We must be vigilant to acquire and maintain our freedoms and good governance. People suffered and some died to build the parts worth saving now. Apathy isn't going to fix anything.
I've got some tough news for you: Apple isn't anywhere near the main problem here.
