Aspen

small and opinionated

[emilie @emiliepfrank]

do you think melania will hire erika kirk's pyrotechnics guy

[Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11]

It’s going unnoticed because so much other news is happening, but the war drums are beating again in D.C. The warmongers worry this is their last chance to get the white whale they’ve been chasing for thirty years, an all-out regime change war against Iran.

A new Middle East war would be a catastrophic mistake. Our military stockpiles are depleted from three years of backing Ukraine. Our effort to reshore manufacturing has only just begun and will take years to bear fruit. War would worsen our already immense deficit and national debt. Iran is larger than Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan combined. A war would not be easy and could easily become a calamity.

Thanks to President Trump’s restraint during his first term, America has a golden opportunity to pull away from Middle East quagmires for good. We shouldn’t throw that opportunity away so that sone D.C. has-beens can feel tough by sending young Americans to die yet again.

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

Trump is seeking to pay for his new $1.5 trillion military budget by cutting the following:

$510 million - Grants for farmers and agricultural research
$82 million - Loans for rural small businesses (Fully eliminated)
$61 million - Support for farmers and food markets (Fully eliminated)
$240 million - School meals and food education for children abroad (Fully eliminated)
$659 million - Community building grants
$47 million - Support for minority-owned businesses (Fully eliminated)
$449 million - Economic development grants for communities
$1.6 billion - Weather forecasting, fisheries, and coastal protection (NOAA)
$993 million - Scientific research and technology standards
$150 million - Support for American exports and trade
$2.2 billion - Broadband and internet access programs
$8.5 billion - Funding for public schools
$1.5 billion - Vocational training and adult education (Fully eliminated)
$2.7 billion - College access and higher education support
$15.2 billion - Roads, bridges, and infrastructure projects
$1.1 billion - Home energy efficiency and clean energy programs (Fully eliminated)
$1.1 billion - Scientific research funding
$386 million - Environmental cleanup programs
$150 million - Cutting-edge clean energy research
$4 billion - Help paying home heating and cooling bills for low-income families (Fully eliminated)
$768 million - Refugee resettlement assistance
$819 million - Care and shelter for migrant children
$775 million - Local anti-poverty programs (Fully eliminated)
$5 billion - Public health programs, mental health services, and disease prevention
$5 billion - Medical research (NIH)
$129 million - Healthcare quality and safety research
$356 million - Emergency preparedness and disaster response
$1.3 billion - FEMA community disaster preparedness grants
$707 million - Cybersecurity protection for critical infrastructure
$52 million - Airport and transportation security
$40 million - Protection against chemical and biological weapons threats
$53 million - Funding for homeland security operations
$3.3 billion - Community development block grants for local neighborhoods (Fully eliminated)
$1.3 billion - Affordable housing construction grants (Fully eliminated)
$393 million - Programs to reduce homelessness
$529 million - Housing assistance for people living with HIV/AIDS (Fully eliminated)
$489 million - Housing and services for Native American communities
$50 million - Grants to help communities build more housing (Fully eliminated)
$60 million - Enforcement of fair housing and anti-discrimination laws
$58 million - Homebuyer and renter counseling services (Fully eliminated)
$45 million - Renewable energy development programs (Fully eliminated)
$1.7 billion - Grants for local law enforcement and public safety
$20 million - Civil rights mediation and legal access programs (Fully eliminated)
$1.6 billion - Job training for at-risk youth (Fully eliminated)
$395 million - Jobs program for low-income seniors (Fully eliminated)
$234 million - Worker safety and labor protection programs
$101 million - Enforcement of equal pay and workplace anti-discrimination laws
$46 million - Programs to combat child labor and forced labor abroad
$2 billion - International humanitarian aid
$1.2 billion - Food aid for hungry families abroad (Fully eliminated)
$4.3 billion - Global health and disease prevention programs
$2.7 billion - Funding for the United Nations and international partnerships
$642 million - International economic and treasury programs
$315 million - Democracy and anti-corruption programs abroad
$486 million - Grants for public transit projects
$4.2 billion - Electric vehicle charging infrastructure
$372 million - Airline service for rural and small communities
$145 million - Grants for sustainable and equitable infrastructure
$204 million - Loans and investment for underserved communities
$1.4 billion - IRS taxpayer services and enforcement
$100 million - Air pollution monitoring and reduction programs (Fully eliminated)
$1 billion - EPA grants to states for environmental protection
$2.5 billion - Clean drinking water and wastewater infrastructure funds
$90 million - Grants to reduce diesel pollution (Fully eliminated)
$3.4 billion - NASA space and earth science research
$297 million - NASA technology innovation programs
$1.1 billion - International Space Station operations
$143 million - STEM education programs
$309 million - Small business development and entrepreneurship programs
$170 million - Small Business Administration operations
$158 million - Loans for small businesses

[Richard @ricwe123]

Imagine starting a major war with Iran over their nuclear program when this is on the official White House website.
😂😂😂

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Ring paid somewhere between $8 and $10 million for a 30-second Super Bowl spot to tell 120 million viewers that their cameras now scan neighborhoods using AI.

The math is wild. Ring has roughly 20 million devices in American homes. Search Party is enabled by default. The opt-out rate on default settings in consumer tech is historically around 5%. So approximately 19 million cameras are now running AI pattern matching on anything that moves past your front door. Today the target is dogs. The same infrastructure already handles “Familiar Faces,” which builds biometric profiles of every person your camera sees, whether they know about it or not.

Ring settled with the FTC for $5.8 million after employees had unrestricted access to customers’ bedroom and bathroom footage for years. They’re now partnered with Flock Safety, which routes footage to local law enforcement. ICE has accessed Flock data through local police departments acting as intermediaries. Senator Markey’s investigation found Ring’s privacy protections only apply to device owners. If you’re a neighbor, a delivery driver, a passerby, you have no rights and no recourse.

This tells you everything about Amazon’s actual product. The customer paid for the camera. The customer pays the electricity. The customer pays the $3.99/month subscription. And Amazon gets a surveillance grid that would cost tens of billions to build from scratch, with an AI layer activated by default, and a law enforcement pipeline already connected.

They wrapped all of that in a lost puppy commercial because that’s the only version of this story anyone would willingly opt into.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

Having armed, masked federal agents roam the streets and threaten American citizens that they're being put into a "database" and are being deemed a "domestic terrorist" for the crime of videotaping them should disgust everyone.

[Eric Nathan @BarstoolNate]

It doesn’t make you a lib to be disgusted to see a man get murdered for practicing his first and second amendment rights. Blindly defending ICE because Trump and his administration tells you to makes you the opposite of a patriot and is as anti-American as it gets.

[ᒪᗩᑎE @lanechanged]

We look so stupid to the rest of the world rt now. If it wasn't for all the shootings, they'd prob think we have no schools here.

[Cuckturd @CattardSlim]

An independent autopsy shows it was the 3rd shot that killed Renee Good.

Non-lethal shot through her forearm.
Non-lethal shot through her breast.
Lethal 3rd shot through the temple.

Agent Ross assassinated her 👇

[Aravind @aravind]

I can predict once the Russia-Ukraine peace deal is done, Trump will go after Venezuela hard with sanctions and try take out Maduro. If everything fails, a false flag and direct bombing-invasion will happen. Why will the US do it? The answer is below for you. Gn.

[Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 @infolibnews]

*Bombs Venezuela*

[conner @winterweather]

wow i can’t believe a republican president did what the last 3 republican presidents did and launched us into a recession and a useless war for oil.

[Johnny AGI @JohnnyAGI]

I just torched my Bill Clinton hat.

Yep, after seeing him in the Epstein files I'm done.

Got rid of my Bill Clinton Bible, Bill Clinton Playing Cards, Crypto, and NFT's.

Tossed out my Bill Clinton mock Credit Card, Commemorative Coin, and $400 golden sneakers.

And if my Bill Clinton Freedom Phone ever arrives, I am NOT using it.

[Krystal Ball @krystalball]

MAGA is out here shrieking about Zohran being a jihadist Islamist about to impose sharia law while Trump warmly welcomes a former Al Qaeda leader designated terrorist to the White House.

[MLS Is Back (Derogatory) @DanzW0rld]

Dudes will get on here and be like "poor kids don't deserve to have a cookie" and think they're the good guys

[Drebae @Drebae_]

Believe it or not, I actually WANT my taxes to fund SNAP & Medicaid, not golf trips for millionaires & military tanks for war

[Ruben Gallego @RubenGallego]

Imagine this: You’ve been feeling sick for weeks, but you decide not to go to the doctor because you just lost your health insurance because Republicans refused to extend the ACA tax credits.

Then the pain gets worse. You end up in the ER, where you find out you have cancer. To stay alive, you go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt for surgery and chemotherapy.

Now because of Trump’s new rule, that debt tanks your credit report. You’re denied housing and loans — just for getting sick.

That’s not a nightmare. That’s Trump’s America.

[Nate Tice @Nate_Tice]

mesmerized

[Mina Kimes @minakimes]

3-0 since Humpy won