FBomb

Reality advocate. Lover of spicy margaritas and objective facts. I just need enough to tide me over until I need more.

[The Halfway Post @HalfwayPost]

BREAKING: A new poll found that 86% of Americans want all of the world’s particle accelerators to be turned off and then turned back on at the same time just to see if it puts us into a new alternate timeline that isn't insane.

[Agustín Antonetti @agusantonetti]

Por primera vez en la historia se juntaron Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, OpenAI y otrás 100 compañías más del sector para publicar una carta pidiendo a los gobiernos que se preparen para recibir ciberataques con los nuevos modelos de inteligencia artificial.

Fuerte.

[Missellie @Missellie19]

Canada’s trade war anthem

[David J. Bier @David_J_Bier]

Setting aside the fact that Trump was convicted of fraud, here are all the people who committed fraud and were pardoned by Trump:
Rod R. Blagojevich (Wire fraud under color of official right (8 counts)), Brian KelseyBrian Kelsey (Conspiracy to defraud the United States), Devon Archer (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; securities fraud), Trevor Milton (Securities fraud; wire fraud (2 counts)), Jason Galanis (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud (2 counts); securities fraud; investment adviser fraud), Ozy Media, Inc. (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; conspiracy to commit wire fraud), Carlos Roy Watson (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; conspiracy to commit wire fraud), Michele Fiore (Conspiracy to commit wire fraud; wire fraud (6 counts)), Scott Howard Jenkins (Honest services mail fraud; honest services wire fraud (3 counts)), Julie Chrisley (Conspiracy to commit bank fraud; bank fraud (5 counts); wire fraud), Todd Chrisley (Conspiracy to commit bank fraud; bank fraud (5 counts)), Lawrence S. Duran (Conspiracy to commit health care fraud; health care fraud (11 counts)), Michael Gerard Grimm (Aiding/assisting preparation of false and fraudulent tax returns), Marian I Morgan (Conspiracy to defraud the United States; wire fraud (7 counts); transfer of funds taken by fraud (5 counts)), John G. Rowland (Conspiracy to defraud the United States), Charles Overton Scott (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; securities fraud), George Anthony Devolder Santos (Wire fraud — the Party Program Scheme), Glen Casada (Conspiracy to defraud the United States; honest services wire fraud (4 counts); use of fictitious name to carry out a fraud), Cade Cothren (Conspiracy to defraud the United States; honest services wire fraud (6 counts)), Robert Henry Harshbarger, Jr. (Health care fraud), Joseph Lewis (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; securities fraud (2 counts)), David Gentile (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; conspiracy to commit wire fraud; securities fraud; wire fraud (2 counts)), Enrique Roberto Cuellar (Honest services wire fraud; honest services wire fraud conspiracy), Imelda Rios Cuellar (Honest services wire fraud; honest services wire fraud conspiracy), Jacob Deutsch (Conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud), Adriana Isabel Camberos (Conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud; wire fraud (7 counts)), Andres Enrique Camberos (Conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud; wire fraud (7 counts)), Julio M. Herrera Velutini (Honest services wire fraud (2 counts)), David Levy (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; securities fraud), Hollie Ann Nadel (Conspiracy to commit money laundering and bank fraud), Mark T. Rossini (Honest services wire fraud), Wanda Vazquez Garced (Honest services wire fraud), Terren Scott Peizer (Securities fraud; insider trading (2 counts)), Timothy S. Smith (Conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service), Stephen E. Buyer (Securities fraud (4 counts)), Joshua L. Davis (Conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the Clean Air Act), Matthew Sidney Geouge (Conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the Clean Air Act; tax evasion), Adam R. Kidan (Conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud; wire fraud), Danny Preston Conrad (Embezzling by postal employee), Jack Charles Harvard (False statement to a federally insured bank, and aiding and abetting), Jeremy Young Hutchinson (Conspiracy to commit bribery; aiding and abetting filing of false income tax return; conspiracy; criminal forfeiture)

[Fuel @fuelkek]

Ray Dalio just said the quiet part out loud.

"If you devalue the money, it makes everything appear to be going up."

The stock market boom is a lie…

What we're really witnessing is the death of the Dollar, not the growth of the economy.

99% of people have absolutely no idea.

[FBomb @fowls12]

👏

[Variety @Variety]

Meta will enforce a two-hour daily limit on Instagram and Facebook for children as part of a record $17.1B settlement with 29 states over social media addiction claims:

• The “Productive Pauses” for children include mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling

• “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.

• Limited school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the school year

• Robust age assurance measures to more effectively verify the age of young users

• Safer, age-appropriate content controls, including stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders, and content related to suicide and self-harm

• Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls

• Limits on social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts, that have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens

• Both the implementation and effectiveness of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states

https://t.co/ZKTxeuIV8p

[David Stockman @DA_Stockman]

Nailed it!

Bottom line on Trumpy: "Scratch beneath the surface and there's no hidden brilliance, no master strategist, no misunderstood genius. Just an impulsive, self-absorbed figure stumbling from one failure to the next, desperately trying to drown incompetence in a torrent of bluster and spectacle."

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

Here is a thought experiment that several analysts keep returning to: if a president actually wanted to dismantle American superpower status, what would he be doing differently from what Trump is doing right now?

Consider the record. He has feuded with NATO and cast doubt on the alliance guarantee that anchored Western security for 70 years. He has slapped tariffs on the EU and individual European allies, and this week launched a 50 percent trade war against Canada, America's closest partner.

He has pressured South Korea and Japan over troop costs while courting their adversaries.

Gulf states, battered by the Iran war, now question the American security umbrella so openly that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan just signed their own mutual defence pact.

Sanctions and Hormuz chaos are pushing oil trade toward the yuan, eroding the dollar's reserve role while national debt passes 40 trillion. And through it all, he speaks warmly of Putin and Kim Jong Un while insulting the billion people living under allied flags.

Superpower status rests on three pillars: alliances, the dollar, and credibility. All three are being sawed at simultaneously.

So what explains it?

Option A: sheer ignorance, a government that simply does not understand how the world works.

Option B: revenge, a man settling scores with an establishment he believes wronged him.

Option C: outside pressure, someone else's interests being served.

None of these options is comforting. And the pattern remains the same whichever one you pick.

[Old Canada Series @oldcanadaseries]

US president, Ronald Reagan, and Canadian Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, in 1988. Later that year, Reagan said: “Our peaceful trading partners are not our enemies; they are our allies. We should beware of the demagogs who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends—weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world—all while cynically waving the American flag."

[ThePatrioticBlonde™🇺🇸 @ImBreckWorsham]

Reporter: “What are your plans for the Housing Bill, Mr. President?”

Trump: “I don’t know. It’s just so unimportant. It’s a yawn. Everything is just a big yawn”

[John Hardy @hardyjohn]

@Scaramucci This is what happens when you fire all the experienced generals and allow a pisshead to run DoD. Logistics are what the armed forces do, not just 'warfighting' a word that no one who has ever done it would ever use. Trump has weakened the US and has ushered in China's century.

[The Intellectualist @highbrow_nobrow]

Marco Rubio: "For years to come, there are many people on the right...that are going to be having to explain and justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump because this is not going to end well.” (2016)

[Ben Jacobs @Bencjacobs]

A heckler was removed from Trump’s rally just now. The back of his shirt said “kill your local pedophile.”

[More Perfect Union @MorePerfectUS]

Walmart just received a $2.9 billion tariff refund, massively boosting the company's profits.

Regular people paid the costs of tariffs by and large across America.

But now corporations are getting huge checks from the government, while working people get nothing.

[Joey Politano 🏳️‍🌈 @JosephPolitano]

every 6 months the Trump administration realizes lowering tariffs will lower prices, applies this insight to one specific good, and then proceeds to never introspect beyond that. It’s honestly beautiful in its stupidity.

[Evan DeSimone @Smorgasboredom]

It is not remotely surprising to me that a plurality of Americans believed stopping six trans kids from playing sports was worth blueberries that make you dead, but i’m not sure how to rebuild a functional society with such people.

[FBomb @fowls12]

@atrupar lol lol

[Richard @ricwe123]

That moment when Donald Trump was warning about the dangers of the US reaching $24 trillion in debt:

"That's the point of no return. That's when we become a country that's unsalvageable"

Today, US national debt has reached $40 trillion.

[Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom]

.@seanhannity, surely you’re covering this tonight, right?

[FBomb @fowls12]

Who had killer blueberries on their list?

[unusual_whales @unusual_whales]

Blueberry recall upgraded to FDA's highest risk level, 'reasonable probability of death,' per the DailyMail