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Everything posted by bolverk
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Guys, we're going to have to put a pause on the trade wars, deportations, threats on neighbors, playing golf, etc., for a short while later today. Krasnov has a board meeting to attend. Trump will attend today's Kennedy Center board meeting as its new chair
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From the DPS website: https://www.dps.texas.gov/section/driver-license/apply-texas-driver-license Step 1. Gather the Required Documentation: Proof of U.S. Citizenship or Lawful Presence (if not a U.S. Citizen) Proof of Texas Residency Proof of Identity Social Security Number Evidence of current Texas Vehicle Registration for each vehicle you own. Visit Texas Vehicle Registration website for more information. Proof of vehicle registration applies to new residents who are surrendering an out-of-state driver license only. Proof of Insurance for each vehicle you own or a statement affirming you do not own a vehicle. Impact Texas Driver (ITD) certificate, if you will be taking a driving test for the issuance of your driver license. The certificate must be dates within 90 days for your driving skills test. A six-hour adult Driver Education course, if you are 18 through 24 years of age and applying for your first Texas driver license. This requirement is waived for new residents 18 or older who are surrendering a valid, unexpired driver license from another state. (No driver education requirements for ages 25 and older)
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You don't have to be a citizen to get a driver's license, or at least you used not to have to. Now, I'm unclear.
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Quite the conundrum, ain't it? It's almost as if they want to prevent a lot of Texas citizens from voting by a) creating an elaborately Byzantine process and b) intimidating the shit out of our darker-hued neighbors.
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Kinda telling that it proposes to move TPWD's historic sites to the General Land Office instead of the Texas Historic Commission.
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35 Nations Back Peacekeeping Mission in Ukraine British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced plans to deploy a peacekeeping contingent of approximately 10,000 troops to Ukraine, according to The Times. Senior government sources confirmed that Starmer had secured the support of a significantly larger coalition than the three countries that initially proposed sending ground forces. About 35 countries have agreed to provide weapons and support for the peacekeeping operation in Ukraine. The proposed contingent is expected to be primarily composed of British and French troops. A government source stated that preparations are already in an advanced stage but declined to disclose specifics due to the risk of sensitive information leaking to Russia. Military officials estimate that the total force could exceed 10,000 troops, with about 35 countries pledging to provide weapons, logistics, and intelligence support for the mission, referred to as a “stretching force.” The force is intended to serve as a deterrent against future Russian aggression in the event of a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Following a conference call with 29 world leaders, Starmer confirmed that a meeting of military commanders will be held in London this week as the peacekeeping plans enter the “operational phase.” At a press conference, Prime Minister Starmer called for “immediate global action,” emphasizing the need for peace efforts and additional sanctions against Russia. He reported that during a recent conversation between French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, new commitments were made on peacekeeping initiatives and sanctions enforcement against Russia. Rejecting Putin’s “yes, but” approach to the ceasefire proposed by Kyiv, Starmer stressed that the Russian leader would have to sit down at the negotiating table “sooner or later.” “Sooner or later, Putin will have to come to the table. So this is the moment. Let the guns fall silent, let the barbaric attacks on Ukraine once and for all stop, and agree to a ceasefire now,” he stated. In late February, reports indicated that Britain was prepared to send both ground and air components to Ukraine as part of its expanded military commitment.
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Elon Musk: Nazi traitor piece of shit [Confirmed]
bolverk replied to MaybeACoordinator's topic in Daily Texan
Tesla is done in Germany: 94% say they won’t buy a Tesla car A survey of over 100,000 Germans revealed that 94% won’t buy a Tesla vehicle. It doesn’t bode well for the automaker, whose sales had already been falling off a cliff in the important European market. In 2024, Tesla saw a 41% reduction in sales in Germany compared to 2023 despite EV sales surging 27% during the year. This has already raised red flags about Tesla’s future in Germany, but it is nothing compared to Tesla’s performance so far in 2025. Tesla’s sales were down 70% in the first two months of 2025, and again, that’s compared to its already poor performance in 2024. There are many factors at play, including increased EV competition and the Model Y changeover, but in recent months, industry experts have attributed Tesla’s decline in the country to Germans being upset with Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s meddling in local elections and promoting the far-right AfD party. Musk is currently under probe in Europe for his political meddling, and his reputation has crashed in Germany after a couple of Seig Heil salutes at Trump’s inauguration and several questionable posts promoting fascist and Nazi ideologies, like this one yesterday: This does not help Tesla’s prospects in Europe, particularly Germany. Only 20% of voters sided with AfD, and Tesla shouldn’t necessarily count on them being potential customers. AfD has been staunchly against Tesla and even ran ads like this: Now, a new survey of 100,000 Germans by T-Online about Tesla showed that only 3% of respondents would consider buying a Tesla vehicle: It’s a rejection that couldn’t be clearer: More than 94 percent of t-online readers say they won’t buy a Tesla again. Only three percent said they would still consider a car from the former electric pioneer. Around 100,000 readers voted—a record turnout. The message is clear: Germans are turning their backs on Tesla. Those are impressive results, and they explain Tesla’s current sales in Germany. Some Tesla shareholders hope that the new version of the Model Y will help reverse the trend, but those poll results don’t look good. Furthermore, Tesla’s Model 3 sales are also crashing in Germany, which suggests that Model Y is not the only problem. Electrek’s Take Those results are wild. We are back to like 2015 Tesla when no one knew or cared about the company. Now, everyone knows about it, but no one wants to touch it. Fortunately, it is coming at a time when there are plenty of other EV options, and it looks like the EV transition is going to continue in Germany, just without Tesla. With these results, I’m starting to think that Tesla is going to have to scale back in Germany. -
America's Foreign Policy & Other Shit Going On Around the World thread
bolverk replied to bolverk's topic in Cloak Room
Nuuk's population is not quite 20,000. What share of the town's population do y'all think this is? https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1jd8r59/antitrump_demonstration_in_nuuk_greenland/?sort=old -
2021 - Is inflation finally back in the conversation?
bolverk replied to Reagan1k's topic in Business and Markets
Smells like a recipe for stagflation. Tariffs on lumber and appliances set stage for higher costs on new homes and remodeling projects Shopping for a new home? Ready to renovate your kitchen or install a new deck? You’ll be paying more to do so. The Trump administration’s tariffs on imported goods from Canada, Mexico and China — some already in place, others set to take effect in a few weeks — are already driving up the cost of building materials used in new residential construction and home remodeling projects. The tariffs are projected to raise the costs that go into building a single-family home in the U.S. by $7,500 to $10,000, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Such costs are typically passed along to the homebuyer in the form of higher prices, which could hurt demand at a time when the U.S. housing market remains in a slump and many builders are having to offer buyers costly incentives to drum up sales. We Buy Houses in San Francisco, which purchases foreclosed homes and then typically renovates and sells them, is increasing prices on its refurbished properties between 7% and 12%. That’s even after saving $52,000 in costs by stockpiling 62% more Canadian lumber than usual. “The uncertainty of how long these tariffs will continue has been the most challenging aspect of our planning,” said CEO Mamta Saini. Bad timing for builders The timing of the tariffs couldn’t be worse for homebuilders and the home remodeling industry, as this is typically the busiest time of year for home sales. The prospect of a trade war has roiled the stock market and stoked worries about the economy, which could lead many would-be homebuyers to remain on the sidelines. “Rising costs due to tariffs on imports will leave builders with few options,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. “They can choose to pass higher costs along to consumers, which will mean higher home prices, or try to use less of these materials, which will mean smaller homes.” Prices for building materials, including lumber, have been rising, even though the White House has delayed its tariffs rollout on some products. Lumber futures jumped to $658.71 per thousand board feet on March 4, reaching their highest level in more than two years. The increase is already inflating costs for construction projects. Dana Schnipper, a partner at building materials supplier JC Ryan in Farmingdale, New York, sourced wooden doors and frames for an apartment complex in Nassau County from a company in Canada that cost less than the American equivalent. Half the job has already been supplied. But once the tariff goes into effect it will be applied to the remaining $75,000, adding $19,000 to the at-cost total. Once JC Ryan applies its mark up, that means the customer will owe $30,000 more than originally planned, Schnipper said. He also expects the tariffs will give American manufacturers cover to raise prices on steel components. “These prices will never come down,” Schnipper said. “Whatever is going to happen, these things will be sticky and hopefully we’re good enough as a small business, that we can absorb some of that. We can’t certainly absorb all of it, so I don’t know. It’s going to be an interesting couple of months.” Sidestepping the tariffs by using an alternative to imported building materials isn’t always an option. Bar Zakheim, owner of Better Place Design & Build, a contracting business in San Diego that specializes in building accessible dwelling units, or ADUs, said Canada remains the best source for lumber. By sticking with imported lumber, Zakheim had to raise his prices about 15% compared with a year ago. He also has 8% fewer jobs lined up compared with last year. “I’m not about to go out of business, but it’s looking to be a slow, expensive year for us,” he said. Tariffs rollercoaster On March 6, the Trump administration announced a one-month delay on its 25% tariffs on certain imports from Mexico and Canada, including softwood lumber. Tariffs of 20% on imports from China are already in effect. A 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports — 50% on those from Canada — kicked in on March 12. Tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods slated to go into effect next month will raise the cost of imported construction materials by more than $3 billion, according to the NAHB. Those price hikes would be in addition to a 14.5% tariff on Canadian lumber previously imposed by the U.S., ratcheting up tariffs on Canadian lumber to 39.5%. On Air Force One, President Donald Trump said he was pushing forward with his plans for tariffs on April 2 despite recent disruption in the stock market and nervousness about the economic impact. “April 2 is a liberating day for our country,” he said. “We’re getting back some of the wealth that very, very foolish presidents gave away because they had no clue what they were doing.” Building materials costs overall are already up 34% since December 2020, according to the NAHB. Builders depend on raw materials, appliances and many other components produced abroad. About 7.3% of all products used in single-family home and apartment building construction are imported. Of those, nearly a quarter come from Canada and Mexico, according to the NAHB. Both nations also account for 70% of the imports of two key home construction materials: lumber and gypsum. Canadian lumber is used in everything from framing to cabinetry and furniture. Mexican gypsum is used to make drywall. Beyond raw materials, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners and an array of other home components are manufactured in Mexico and China, which is also a key source of steel and aluminum. The tariffs will mean higher prices for home improvement shoppers, said Dent Johnson, president of True Value Hardware, which operates more than 4,000 independently owned hardware stores. “The reality is that many products on the shelves of your local hardware store will eventually be affected,” he said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press. Chilling effect Confusion over the timing and scope of the tariffs, and their impact on the economy, could have a bigger chilling effect on the new-home market than higher prices. “If consumers can’t plan, if builders can’t plan, it gets very difficult to know how to price product because you don’t know what price you need to move it,” said Carl Reichardt, a homebuilding analyst at BTIG. “If people are worried about their jobs, worried about the future, it’s very difficult to make the decision to buy a new home, whatever the price.” The uncertainty created by the Trump administration’s tariffs policy will probably result in increased volatility for home sales and new home construction this year, said Robert Dietz, the NAHB’s chief economist. Still, because it can take several months for a home to be built, the larger impact of from building materials costs are going to happen “down the road,” Dietz said. The impact tariffs are having on consumers is already evident at Slutsky Lumber in Ellenville, N.Y. “There are not as many people getting ready for spring like they usually are,” said co-owner Jonathan Falcon. “It seems like people are just cutting back on spending.” Falcon also worries that smaller businesses like his will have a tough time absorbing the impact of the tariffs. “This is just like another thing that’s going to be harder for small lumber yards to handle than the big guys and just sort of keep driving businesses like us to not make it,” he said. -
America's Foreign Policy & Other Shit Going On Around the World thread
bolverk replied to bolverk's topic in Cloak Room
Follow up on someone's previous post about the new Canadian PM purposefully snubbing the US for obvious reasons. I'm sure we've all noticed the almost total silence of this board's cowardly "conservative" contigent the last month or so -- even in DT. New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks alliances in Europe as he deals with Trump MONTREAL (AP) — New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to Paris and London on Monday to seek alliances as he deals with U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks on Canada’s sovereignty and economy. Carney is purposely making his first foreign trip to the capital cities of the two countries that shaped Canada’s early existence. At his swearing-in ceremony on Friday, Carney noted the country was built on the bedrock of three peoples, French, English and Indigenous, and said Canada is fundamentally different from America and will “never, ever, in any way shape or form, be part of the United States.” A senior government government official briefed reporters on the plane before picking up Carney in Montreal and said the purpose of the trip is to double down on partnerships on with Canada’s two founding countries. The official said Canada is a “good friend of the United States but we all know what is going on.” “The Trump factor is the reason for the trip. The Trump factor towers over everything else Carney must deal with,” said Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. Carney, a former central banker who turned 60 on Sunday, will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Monday and later travel to London to sit down with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in an effort to diversify trade and perhaps coordinate a response to Trump’s tariffs. He will also meet with King Charles III, the head of state in Canada. The trip to England is a bit a homecoming, as Carney is a former governor of the Bank of England, the first noncitizen to be named to the role in the bank’s 300-plus-year history. Carney then travels to the edge of Canada’s Arctic to “reaffirm Canada’s Arctic security and sovereignty” before returning to Ottawa where he’s expected to call an election within days. Carney has said he’s ready to meet with Trump if he shows respect for Canadian sovereignty. He said he doesn’t plan to visit Washington at the moment but hopes to have a phone call with the president soon. Sweeping tariffs of 25% and Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state have infuriated Canadians, and many are avoiding buying American goods when they can. Carney’s government is reviewing the purchase of U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets in light of Trump’s trade war. The governing Liberal Party had appeared poised for a historic election defeat this year until Trump declared economic war and repeatedly has said Canada should become the 51st state. Now the party and its new leader could come out on top. Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history and international relations at the University of Toronto, said Carney is wise not to visit Trump. “There’s no point in going to Washington,” Bothwell said. “As (former Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau’s treatment shows, all that results in is a crude attempt by Trump to humiliate his guests.” Bothwell said that Trump demands respect, “but it’s often a one-way street, asking others to set aside their self-respect to bend to his will.” Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said it is absolutely essential that Canada diversify trade amidst the ongoing trade war with the United States. More than 75% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. Béland said Arctic sovereignty is also a key issue for Canada. “President Trump’s aggressive talk about both Canada and Greenland and the apparent rapprochement between Russia, a strong Arctic power, and the United States under Trump have increased anxieties about our control over this remote yet highly strategic region,” Béland said. -
Papers, please. Surly thread of deportation cruelty dominance
bolverk replied to Captainant's topic in Daily Texan
I'd been planning to travel abroad this summer. Not now. -
Papers, please. Surly thread of deportation cruelty dominance
bolverk replied to Captainant's topic in Daily Texan
Held in solitary confinement for nine days. German Tourists Detained for Weeks, Then Deported From U.S. Amid President Trump’s border crackdown, German news media have closely followed the treatment of two tourists who say they tried to enter the United States legally. Chained, detained for weeks and eventually deported, two German tourists trying to enter the United States were recently tangled in a system responding to President Trump’s push to sharply restrict entry and deport people en masse. The cases of Jessica Brösche, held for 46 days, and Lucas Sielaff, held for 16, and accounts of their rough handling by immigration officers, have grabbed headlines in Germany as a sign of what being caught on the wrong side of the White House’s immigration policy could mean for European travelers. Tourists from most European countries, including Germany, generally enjoy visa-free travel to the United States for up to 90 days. But Mr. Sielaff and Ms. Brösche were stopped, separately, at the San Ysidro border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, told that they were being denied entry and sent to a crowded detention center, according to their own accounts and those of their friends. Mr. Sielaff said he was denied a translator and had trouble understanding what was happening to him. Ms. Brösche’s friends said she was kept in solitary confinement for nine days. By their accounts, both were flown back to Germany without a clear understanding of why they were detained in the first place. “Sometimes I just wake up because I have nightmares of this situation and what happened,” Mr. Sielaff, 25, said in an interview. “And I just try to go for walks and calm down.” The family of a tourist from Britain, Becky Burke, 28, says she has been held for more than two weeks in Washington State, similarly caught up in the system but unsure why. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, did not respond on Thursday to requests for comment on their cases. Cont'd: https://archive.is/MDDcs -
Papers, please. Surly thread of deportation cruelty dominance
bolverk replied to Captainant's topic in Daily Texan
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/us/brown-university-rasha-alawieh-professor-deported.html A kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University’s medical school has been deported from the United States, even though she had a valid visa and a court order temporarily blocking her expulsion, according to her lawyer and court papers. Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, is a Lebanese citizen who had traveled to her home country last month to visit relatives. She was detained on Thursday when she returned from that trip to the United States, according to a court complaint filed by her cousin Yara Chehab. Judge Leo T. Sorokin of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts ordered the government on Friday evening to provide the court with 48 hours’ notice before deporting Dr. Alawieh. But she was put on a flight to Paris, presumably on her way to Lebanon. In a second order filed Sunday morning, the judge said there was reason to believe U.S. Customs and Border Protection had willfully disobeyed his previous order to give the court notice before expelling the doctor. He said he had followed “common practice in this district as it has been for years,” and ordered the federal agency to respond to what he called “serious allegations.” Customs and Border Protection did not respond on Sunday to questions from The New York Times about why Dr. Alawieh had been detained and deported. Lebanon is not included on a draft list of nations from which the Trump administration is considering banning entry to the United States. A hearing in Dr. Alawieh’s case is scheduled for Monday. Court documents related to the case were provided to The New York Times by Clare Saunders, a member of the legal team representing Ms. Chehab, who filed petitions to prevent her cousin’s deportation, and then to request that her cousin be allowed to return to the United States. Ms. Chehab’s petitions name several members of the Trump administration as defendants, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Peter Flores. Thomas Brown, a lawyer representing Dr. Alawieh and her employer, Brown Medicine, said that while the doctor was in Lebanon, the U.S. Consulate issued her an H-1B visa, which allows highly skilled foreign citizens to live and work in the United States. Brown Medicine, a nonprofit medical practice, had sponsored her application for the visa. According to Ms. Chehab’s complaint, when Dr. Alawieh landed at Boston Logan International Airport on Thursday, she was detained by Customs and Border Protection officers and held at the airport for 36 hours, for reasons that are unclear. Ms. Saunders, the lawyer, said in an affidavit that she went to the airport Friday and notified Customs and Border Protection officials there — before the flight to Paris was scheduled to depart — that there was a court order barring the doctor’s expulsion. She said that the officers took no action and gave her no information until after the plane had taken off. Dr. Alawieh graduated from the American University of Beirut in 2015. Three years later, she came to the United States, where she held medical fellowships at the Ohio State University and the University of Washington, and then worked as a resident at Yale. Before the new visa was issued, she held a J-1 visa, a type commonly used by foreign students. There is a shortage of American doctors working in Dr. Alawieh’s area of specialty, transplant nephrology. Foreign-born physicians play an important role in the field, according to experts. Fear over immigration status could “harm the pipeline even more,” said Dr. George Bayliss, who works in the Brown Medicine kidney transplant program with Dr. Alawieh. Her patients included individuals awaiting transplants and those dealing with the complex conditions that can occur after a transplant, Dr. Bayliss said. He called Dr. Alawieh “a very talented, very thoughtful physician.” “We are all outraged,” he added, “and none of us know why this happened.” In a Sunday letter to members of the university community, Brown’s administration advised foreign students, ahead of spring break, to “consider postponing or delaying personal travel outside the United States until more information is available from the U.S. Department of State.”- 566 replies
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Krasnov's election has Netanyahu also feeling his authoritarian oats. Netanyahu’s Move to Fire Shin Bet Chief Reflects Wider Push for Control The effort is part of a dispute between Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance and its opponents about the nature and future of the Israeli state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sudden attempt to remove the head of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency is the latest salvo in a two-year campaign by the Israeli government to exert more control over different branches of the state. Mr. Netanyahu’s plan to hold a cabinet vote on the future of Ronen Bar, the head of the agency known as the Shin Bet, was announced less than a month after his government announced a similar intention to dismiss Gali Baharav-Miara, the Israeli attorney general. It also came amid a renewed push in Parliament by Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition to give politicians greater control over the selection of Supreme Court justices. These moves mark a return to Mr. Netanyahu’s failed efforts in 2023 to reduce the power of state watchdogs that had acted as a check on his government’s power, including the Supreme Court and the attorney general. That program — often described as a judicial overhaul — proved deeply divisive, setting off months of mass protests and widening rifts in Israeli society. The campaign was suspended only after the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 revived a sense of national unity. Now, amid a shaky cease-fire in Gaza, the easing of tension appears to have ended. “The removal of the head of the Shin Bet should not be seen in isolation,” said Amichai Cohen, a law professor and fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group. “It’s part of the general trend of taking on these independent agencies and increasing the power of the executive.” “The judicial overhaul is back,” Professor Cohen added. The immediate context to the attempt to fire Mr. Bar was a personal dispute between the security chief and the prime minister. For months, Mr. Bar had angered Mr. Netanyahu by investigating officials in the prime minister’s office over claims that they had leaked secret documents. Mr. Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing. The final straw for Mr. Netanyahu, analysts said, was most likely a rare public intervention last week from Mr. Bar’s predecessor, Nadav Argaman. In a television interview, Mr. Argaman said he might reveal further accusations of wrongdoing by the prime minister if he believed that Mr. Netanyahu was about to break the law. Such comments from a close ally of Mr. Bar were “too much” for Mr. Netanyahu, said Nadav Shtrauchler, a former adviser to the prime minister. “He saw it as a direct threat,” Mr. Shtrauchler said. “In his eyes, he didn’t have a choice.” But the broader context, analysts said, is a much wider dispute between Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance and its opponents about the nature and future of the Israeli state. Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition is formed from parties that variously represent ultrareligious Jews seeking to preserve their privileges; and settler activists aiming to deepen Israel’s control over the West Bank and further curb Palestinian rights. For years, these groups have resented the independence of watchdogs like the judiciary, the attorney general and the security services, which have variously moved to limit some privileges for the ultra-Orthodox; block certain moves by the settler movement; and prosecute Mr. Netanyahu for corruption. He is standing trial on charges that he denies. The government and its supporters say that reining in the judiciary and other gatekeepers like the Shin Bet actually enhances democracy by making lawmakers freer to enact what voters elected them to do. The Shin Bet has “poked their noses into matters of governance, control, values, social cohesion and, of course, democracy,” Eithan Orkibi wrote in column on Monday for Israel Hayom, a right-wing daily newspaper. After Mr. Bar’s dismissal, Mr. Orkibi continued, the Shin Bet will “slowly be returned to their natural professional territory.” But the opposition says such moves would damage democracy by removing a key check on government overreach, allowing Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition — the most conservative and nationalist in Israel’s history — to create a less pluralist and more authoritarian society. “With a submissive coalition of yes men, Netanyahu is on his way to dismantling all of Israel’s gatekeepers,” Barak Seri wrote in a column for Maariv, a center-right daily. “To dismantling everything that is protecting Israel as we have known it since its establishment.”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/us/politics/trump-ukraine-invasion-accountability.html The Justice Department has informed European officials that the United States is withdrawing from a multinational group created to investigate leaders responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, including President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, according to a letter sent to members of the organization on Monday. The decision to withdraw from the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, which the Biden administration joined in 2023, is the latest indication of the Trump administration’s move away from President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s commitment to holding Mr. Putin personally accountable for crimes committed against Ukrainians. The group was created to hold the leadership of Russia, along with its allies in Belarus, North Korea and Iran, accountable for a category of crimes — defined as aggression under international law and treaties that violates another country’s sovereignty and is not initiated in self-defense. “The U.S. authorities have informed me that they will conclude their involvement in the ICPA” by the end of March, Michael Schmid, president of the group’s parent organization, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, better known as Eurojust, wrote in an internal letter obtained by The New York Times. The group remains “fully committed” to holding to account “those responsible for core international crimes” in Ukraine, he added. The United States was the only country outside Europe to send a senior prosecutor to The Hague to work with investigators from Ukraine, the Baltic States, Poland, Romania and the International Criminal Court. A department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday night. The Trump administration is also reducing work done by the department’s War Crimes Accountability Team, created in 2022 by the attorney general at the time, Merrick B. Garland, and staffed by experienced prosecutors. It was intended to coordinate Justice Department efforts to hold Russians accountable who are responsible for atrocities committed in the aftermath of the full invasion three years ago. “There is no hiding place for war criminals,” Mr. Garland said in announcing the organization of the unit. The department, he added, “will pursue every avenue of accountability for those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.” During the Biden administration, the team, known as WarCAT, focused on an important supporting role: providing Ukraine’s overburdened prosecutors and law enforcement with logistical help, training and direct assistance in bringing charges of war crimes committed by Russians to Ukraine’s courts. The team did bring one significant case. In December 2023, U.S. prosecutors used a war crimes statute for the first time since it was enacted nearly three decades ago to charge four Russian soldiers in absentia with torturing an American who was living in the Kherson region of Ukraine. In recent comments, President Trump has moved closer to Mr. Putin while clashing with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky — going so far as to falsely suggest that Ukraine played a role in provoking Russia’s brutal and illegal military incursion. “You should have never started it,” Mr. Trump said in February, referring to Ukraine’s leaders. “You could have made a deal.” He followed up in a post on social media, calling Mr. Zelensky a “Dictator without Elections” and saying he had “done a terrible job” in office. The Trump administration gave no reason for withdrawing from the investigative group other than the same explanation for other personnel and policy moves: the need to redeploy resources, according to the people familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the moves publicly.
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Elon Musk: Nazi traitor piece of shit [Confirmed]
bolverk replied to MaybeACoordinator's topic in Daily Texan
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/business/social-security-doge-ssa.html When Eleanor H., 66, called the Social Security Administration last month seeking details about her retirement benefits, she didn’t expect to comfort the representative who answered. The woman started sobbing. “I asked her what was wrong, and she said she and her co-workers were informed by email to accept a taxable $20,000 payout or risk termination,” said Eleanor, who lives in New Jersey (she asked to use only her first name out of privacy concerns). The rep still answered all of Eleanor’s questions. “Through her tears she said, ‘What am I going to do?’” The Social Security Administration, which sends retirement, survivor and disability payments to 73 million people each month, has long been called the “third rail” of politics — largely untouchable given its widespread popularity and role as one of the country’s remaining safety nets. But in recent weeks, the Trump administration, led by Elon Musk’s crew of cost cutters at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has taken its chain saw to the agency’s operations. The agency has announced plans to cut up to 12 percent of its work force, at a time its staffing is at a 50-year low. It has also offered early retirement and other incentives, including payments up to $25,000, to the entire staff. Many current and former Social Security officials fear the cuts could create gaping holes in the agency’s infrastructure, destabilizing the program, which keeps millions of people out of poverty and large percentages of retirees rely on for the bulk of their income. The actions have caused Social Security employees and former commissioners and executives of both parties to sound alarm bells, saying it would be difficult to repair the damage, which could threaten access to benefits. “Everything they have done so far is breaking the agency’s ability to serve the public,” said Martin O’Malley, the most recent former Social Security commissioner under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. He said he feared that Mr. Musk’s team had taken most of the actions necessary to create a total system collapse, whether in skyrocketing wait times for customer service, system interruptions or a timely payment of benefits. Rest of article: https://archive.is/QLOGq Some quotes: Michael Astrue, a former agency commissioner appointed by President George W. Bush, said it appeared that Mr. Musk has imported the strategy he used when he bought Twitter, “where you go into some place established, level it and then figure you’re going to improvise your way out,” he said, speaking at a briefing on Thursday held by the National Academy of Social Insurance. “It’s extremely destructive.” Jason Fichtner, who held several positions at the agency, including deputy commissioner and chief economist, put it even more bluntly at the briefing. “It’s more like a drunk operating a wrecking ball,” he said. ***** Tiffany Flick, the agency’s former acting chief of staff with 30 years of service at Social Security, recently recounted the events around that episode, which also led to her retirement. She expressed deep concerns about the safety of the confidential data and the program overall, according to her sworn testimony on March 6 in a federal lawsuit. The data, she said, has already been misinterpreted and used to spread misinformation. ***** Mr. Musk has said that he wants to cut waste, fraud and abuse at the agency, but he and President Trump have continued to repeat false claims that millions of dead people are collecting benefits. In fact, the Social Security Office of the Inspector General, which is charged with uncovering fraud and inefficiencies, published a report in 2023 that explains why these people don’t have recorded deaths, but also do not collect checks. “Both Musk and Trump are grossly mischaracterizing the death data,” said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and a former agency adviser. (Mr. Trump also fired the acting inspector general.) -
Elon Musk: Nazi traitor piece of shit [Confirmed]
bolverk replied to MaybeACoordinator's topic in Daily Texan
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/us/politics/federal-job-cuts-nuclear-bomb-engineers-scientists.html They handled the secure transport of nuclear materials — dangerous, demanding work that requires rigorous training. Four of them took the Trump administration’s offer of a buyout and left the National Nuclear Security Administration. A half-dozen staff members left a unit in the agency that builds reactors for nuclear submarines. And a biochemist and engineer who had recently joined the agency as head of the team that enforces safety and environmental standards at a Texas plant that assembles nuclear warheads was fired. In the past six weeks, the agency, just one relatively small outpost in a federal work force that President Trump and his top adviser Elon Musk aim to drastically pare down, has lost a huge cadre of scientists, engineers, safety experts, project officers, accountants and lawyers — all in the midst of its most ambitious endeavors in a generation. The nuclear agency, chronically understaffed but critically important, is the busiest it has been since the Cold War. It not only manages the nation’s 3,748 nuclear bombs and warheads, it is modernizing that arsenal — a $20-billion-a-year effort that will arm a new fleet of nuclear submarines, bomber jets and land-based missiles. Since the last year of the first Trump administration, the agency has been desperately trying to build up its staff to handle the added workload. Though it was still hundreds of employees short of what it had said it needed, it had edged up to about 2,000 workers by January. Now, with the Trump administration’s buyouts and firings, the agency’s trajectory has gone from one of painstaking growth to retraction. More than 130 employees took the government’s offer of a payout to resign, according to internal agency documents obtained by The New York Times that have not previously been reported. Those departures, together with those of about 27 workers who were caught up in a mass firing and not rehired, wiped out most of the recent staffing gains. Engaged in top-secret work, tucked away in the Energy Department, the agency typically stays below the public radar. But it has emerged as a headline example of how the Trump administration’s cuts, touted as a cure-all for supposed government extravagance and corruption, are threatening the muscle and bone of operations that involve national security or other missions at the very heart of the federal government’s responsibilities. Free link for rest of article detailing specifics and how it hurts: https://archive.is/htd1I A couple of quotes: The [Energy] department has said that most of the fired employees handled administrative and clerical tasks that were not critical to the agency’s operation. But an analysis of the internal documents by The Times, coupled with interviews with 18 current and former agency officials, shows that is not true for the bulk of people who took the buyout. Many who left held a top-secret security clearance, called Q, that gave them access to information about how nuclear weapons are designed, produced and used, officials said. The offer allowed them to go on administrative leave with pay through September, then resign. ***** “This whole process of trying to downsize the government is being handled in the sloppiest, most irresponsible kind of way that one could imagine,” Mr. [Senator Angus] King said. -
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Archived version of article: https://archive.is/iMLUJ Archived version of memo cited in article: https://archive.is/JHYOU
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Full article from link: Elon Musk Shared, Then Removed a Post Absolving Dictators for Genocide The post falsely claimed that Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong were not responsible for the murders of millions of people, but rather public sector workers were. Early on Friday, Elon Musk shared a post written by an X user about the actions of three 20th century dictators — then quickly deleted it after it sparked a backlash. The post falsely claimed that Joseph Stalin, the communist leader of the Soviet Union until 1953; Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party in Germany; and Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, didn’t cause the deaths of millions of people under their watch. Instead, the post said, their public sector workers did. Mr. Musk shared the post without any other comment. He removed it soon after users on X criticized the post, saying it was antisemitic and dismissive of genocide. Historians have widely chronicled that millions of people died under Stalin, that millions of Jews were massacred under Hitler during the Holocaust, and that millions of Chinese were displaced or killed during Mao’s cultural revolution. It was the latest post by Mr. Musk to devolve into controversy. In 2023, Mr. Musk endorsed an antisemitic post on X as “the actual truth” of what Jewish people were doing, prompting advertisers to flee. And after an assassination attempt on Mr. Trump last year, Mr. Musk wrote — then deleted — a post suggesting it was odd that nobody had tried to kill former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. or former Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Musk has long appeared to favor strongmen and has promoted right wing modern-day leaders. He has repeatedly used X to support politicians like Javier Milei of Argentina, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Narendra Modi of India, leaders in countries where he also has business interests. Most recently, he threw his support behind the hard-right Alternative for Germany party, hosting an online town hall for its candidate for chancellor. “It is deeply disturbing and irresponsible for someone with a large public platform to elevate the kind of rhetoric that serves to undermine the seriousness of these issues,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement about Mr. Musk’s sharing of the post. Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Musk frequently uses X as a megaphone to share everything from juvenile memes to major U.S. policy proposals, blasting his opinions to his more than 219 million followers. But his viewpoints are drawing more scrutiny since he has become a close adviser to President Trump helping overhaul government spending. Mr. Musk has transformed X, removing many rules around hate speech and disinformation and allowing thousands of accounts banned by the company’s prior leadership for problematic posts to return to the platform — including Mr. Trump’s. Around 2:30 a.m. on Friday, Mr. Musk shared the post written by an X user that said, “Stalin, Hitler and Mao didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did.” Mr. Musk in recent weeks has battled with public sector workers in Washington as part of his work with his cost-cutting initiative, known as the Department of Government Efficiency. He has accused federal workers of trying to conceal fraud and encouraged them to quit their jobs. The post sparked backlash from federal employee unions, among others. “America’s public service workers — our nurses, teachers, firefighters, librarians — chose making our communities safe, healthy and strong over getting rich. They are not, as the world’s richest man implies, genocidal murderers,” Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in a statement. Mr. Musk on Friday shared several comments on X defending himself from accusations of antisemitism and claiming his critics were the ones aligned with Nazism. Mr. Musk also recently came under fire for a making a gesture that resembled the Roman salute, which is also known as the “Fascist salute” and was later adopted by the Nazis. “Look at what they did to President @realDonaldTrump,” Mr. Musk wrote in one post. “He was loved by democrats until he ran for president. Now they call him Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, etc and try to kill him,” referring to another dictator, the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
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Watchu got against the ding dong daddies, huh?
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2024 population estimates were released by the Census Bureau last week. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/13/texas-urban-population-census-2024/ https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/population-estimates-counties-metro-micro.html
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