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President Orban
I'll concede to being grimly amused by Donald Trump again, and that's probably a mistake.
It's easy to chuckle at his theatrics. At times, he's undeniably funny, and as such I won't apologize for laughing.
But as Steven Levitsky -- of How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority fame -- warned this week, complacency's dangerous. "[Trump's] return to office has been met with striking indifference [as] politicians, pundits, media figures and business leaders who viewed Trump as a threat to de
I had my first ‘living under totalitarianism’ nightmare last night. I was taken in for questioning by civilian militia because I was a registered D. They proceeded to make threats and give me strange exams and opaque puzzles to solve. Every time I got the answer wrong I had to repeat another salvo of inscrutable tests. I was kept in the cage with a half dozen other people over and over. One woman got the answer too wrong, and they took her below the cage and wrapped a chain around her neck and hung her. This went on for another few rounds and I woke up with heart throbbing as I awoke while desperately trying to divine the answer to a puzzle… It’s going to be long rest-of-my-life…
Is there anything to the allegations of corruption? Eg. This is something that’s really hard to figure out from the outside. Musk is making big claims of corruption and his minions are posting what look like screenshots from some kind of analysis where you end up with eg. the payments to Politico or Reuters or Clinton. Meanwhile, the other side is saying there is no corruption and the Politico thing eg. was subscriptions. But of course, corrupt deals wouldn’t come labeled “bribes”, so the question would be how much per subscription and were they all needed. There is absolutely no reason to believe the Jewish space lasers crowd would tell the truth about anything. On the other hand a D senator was just sentenced for corruption and there is the whole Hunter Biden thing and so on, so it’s not like the Democrats get a pass either. And the news depends on which side you get it from, do you read Newsweek or NYT or whatever. Basically you get to pick a story by picking a news outlet over the past 2 weeks. Not easy if you’re trying to understand both sides.
It seems like to know if the allegations of corruption are true or not really requires you to understand more about America than I do. So is the USAID = slush fund stuff a right wind fever dream or is there anything to it?
Johan: I’m a lawyer who specializes in Whistleblower cases. Relying on quick takes of basic data, even targeted exception reports does not provide solid evidence of corruption. To make a case you need to move beyond raw circumstantial data. And, though human perspective is often helpful in understanding the data, we constantly speak to whistleblowers, typically insiders, who are convinced of nefarious deeds only to discover there’s no there, there. Bottom Line: Whatever we are being told about DOGE exploits is, at this juncture, pure unfounded speculation, to be charitable.
Thanks for taking the time to share your expertise!
These are also many of the same people who alleged widespread voter fraud.
Helpful to keep in mind the small distinction between isolated cases (which can always be turned – or even ginned – up), and “widespread.”. In true cases of the latter, seems to me you’d only need a handful of investigators and a good flashlight. Just wait until Trump starts talking about “a little thing called qui tam” as if he just invented it
First, Make America Hungary.
Then, Make America Hungry Again.
So many things to make America. Except proud