[–] 14 points 1 day ago

Still absolutely determined to "do his job" - and effectively cut off any true accountability, meaningful change, and undermine momentum. These people don't understand that (a) the fundamental rules have changed, and (b) both the people and the planet are running out of time.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago

    Illegally stealing water from aquifers, illegally discharging waste, increase pollution, hasten climate change, raising the temperature in the surrounding countryside by several degrees, corrupting local and state politics, not paying taxes, literally stealing every piece of knowledge, art and literature ever made by the entirety of mankind, all so that they can get rid of jobs, hallucinate answers and enable technofascist billionaires.

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  • [–] 55 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    The lack of punishment is ridiculous.

    The ability to be elected to office even with felony convictions is a safeguard. If you were barred from office if you had a felony, then this government would just keep charging everyone it hated with felonies, hoping either for a conviction, the person to go bankrupt and give up, or create enough smoke that the potential constituents don't vote for them.

    I mean, you know Ken Paxton would've had Talarico and O'Rourke up on charges, and enough Texans are Fox addicts that they'd have either eventually gotten a conviction for something or at least discouraged people from voting from them. And you know Trump would be relentlessly going after AOC, Omar, Sanders, Mamdani, etc.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    So, like, here I am, on my phone, playing games and browsing the internet. Sometimes my connection is a little slow, but that's just the nature of things because sometimes it just takes a tiny bit longer to get a response and sometimes my phone just runs a little slow.

    What I don't know is that my phone is infected with malware. And that malware lets other people access whatever internet I have access to; and that whatever those other people are doing looks like it's coming from my IP address and my device. I am the unwitting exit node for an unscrupulous VPN service (or driving similar).

    Someone working in the White House has an infected phone and doesn't know it. They are at the White House most days, work late afternoon to around midnight.

    If the person in charge of the botnet knew the phone of a White House worked was compromised, they could use that access to appear as a legitimate user and bypass security protocols, have accounts and passwords compromised, and have their data scraped and stolen.

    I would assume most normal people working in the White House have their phones regularly checked for malware, or use special phones for government work. However, higher ups in the Trump White House have routinely violated and ignored security protocols; they could abuse their power to use their own personal phones and to ignore security checks.

    Given that the times the node was used are so consistent, I think it's unlikely that there are two infected phones involved.

    Given that this happened on most days in October, it's unlikely to be Trump or anyone who regularly travels with him, because he spends a lot of time not at the White House. There was no exit node activity on two Thursdays, one Friday and one Monday; activity was recorded every other day in October. Meaning this isn't someone who comes into the office M-F with weekends off; days off seem to be somewhat rare for this person, and don't occur on normal weekends. I have no idea who the person is, but security should probably make more of an effort to re-secure all phones permitted on the premises.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 days ago

    Nevada and Virginia voted in favor of allowing abortions within state lines. Missouri voted against repealing a constitutional amendment supporting abortion access that was introduced via a ballot initiative in 2024. Idaho was the sole exception on Tuesday as voters sided against a citizen-initiated statute that would have enshrined abortion access as a statutory right.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 days ago

    The victory marks a major political shift for the three-member Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the state's massive oil and gas industry, overseeing everything from pipeline safety to natural gas rates. [...] Despite his victory, Republicans will retain a 2-1 majority on the commission, meaning Rosenthal will face limits on his ability to implement his priorities without support from his Republican colleagues.

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    This place is usually crammed with patients, with lots of confusing background noise - it's an extremely tiring experience. My experience isn't helped by the fact that I'm not a morning person and usually get one of their last appointments for the day.

    This time I got stuck with an appointment at 8.15am. That's half an hour before then officially open, but I thought that maybe they used the time to dilate everyone's eyes. And I figured that at least this time I'd be out of the office fairly quickly, instead of having my appointment take a couple hours while they go through the queue.

    So I get in this morning, 8.10am on the dot. They say their internet is down and everything is a bit slower as a result. I'm like, that's fine -- and after all, I got one of the first appointments of the day, so I can't be delayed that much, right?

    Nope. It's now 9.15, a full hour after my "early" appointment, and I still haven't been called back - though lots of other people have been called back already.

    The nice thing is that the waiting room is less chaotic and noisy than usual; the annoying thing is that I have no idea when I'll be called back to do the eye dilation thing, much less when I'll see the actual doctor.

    Update: brought in for eye dilation at 9.30, saw the doctor at 9.45 (the bare minimum time for the drops to work). Since I've torn both retinas in the past, they usually spend like ten minutes telling me to look in all sorts of directions; this time it was like "look up. look down. you're fine, bye". Finally left around 10am.

    The waiting room was absolutely crammed with people when I left. As I passed some of the folks in standing room only, I mentioned that my appointment was for 8.15, which was met with a collective groan for the wait they were going to have.

    I'm glad I had an early appointment, I'm glad I got my eyes checked, I'm ecstatic that they're fine, and I'm delighted to be home in my nice dark bedroom for the rest of the day.

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