> Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said (...) "This has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online."
Interesting use of language... seems like the mask is coming off everywhere now, not just where I live (Hungary).
I've been intentionally skipping on a lot of our local political reporting, so I was really quite surprised to see recently how lowbrow the language used by politicians, specifically those in power, has gotten these days. Especially how flagrant they are about it too.
This is a very meta, and to many I'm sure trivial, thing to take issue with, yes, but if those in authority are this unashamedly drunk on power, and look down on those they rule over so openly, I'd really question how fit they are to represent people's collective best interest.
A lot of people love this. They want to wield power to hurt people they don’t like. Watching others they perceive as being on “their side” do it serves as a substitute.
Nonsense. People want a better society, but they have been forced to accept that can never happrn, so they settle with finding others to blame and seeking petty revenge. After all, these are literally human beings we're talking about; not animals as you imply. You are no better, my friend.
Not everyone wants a better society, nor agrees on what a better society even looks like. It's a common mistake to believe your adversary is just like you, but terribly confused.
that's what we get as global citizens for not fighting populist fascists seriously enough :( (until they get too bad, at which point it gets gnarly anyways)
It's a great thing they are not backing down. Given how many institutions have complied in advance, we need as many exemplars of better behaviour as possible.
Economically this makes sense. Those companies that sign are relegated to essentially just republishing press releases, so there's little value in employing someone just to do that.
Can they sue, and if they do are they likely to win? My laymans gut feeling is they will lose because the constitution says nothing about the government being required to provide press access to facilities. However, if they allow access to one organization but not another seems there could be an argument that they're policing speech? Would be great to hear a more informed take.
Smarter, they just dont cover the propaganda from inside, they dig the truth from those inside.
The media has been too lazy for too long printing press release from the government. This government has nothing to say but propaganda - I don’t even bother reading the government quotes any more. They are content free and self aggrandizing at a level of absurdity that would put North Korea to shame.
There have been governments hostile to journalists in the past, and those are the governments with the most to lose when journalists dig into their work. I look forward to the investigative journalism of the next three years.
Why would they be unable to develop sources on the inside? I don't think the pentagon press briefing area is where they would develop their sources regardless of being allowed in or not.
404 Media is extremely biased. They definitely dig, but it often seems like they do so in order simply to find only that dirt which will fuel the `liberal outrage` that people will pay for.
Especially when technology is concerned, they very rarely seem to have much nuance in their reporting.
It seems less about access and more about agreeing to the principle that publishing anything unapproved, or even asking anyone for more information than is not approved, is a national security risk and press privileges will be revoked if they do that. It's an attempt by the government to control what the press publishes through coercion, aka chilling.
> the constitution says nothing about the government being required to provide press access to facilities
As with anything regarding the first amendment it's very fuzzy, which the administration is taking advantage of here.
They got in hot water earlier this year because they explicitly denied the AP access to some White House event because of AP's editorial refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. That sort of singling out is definitely prohibited when it comes to restricting press access.
Now they're learning a bit, and they're treating everyone the same (everyone has to sign the same thing). They're heating the frog more slowly.
> However, if they allow access to one organization but not another seems there could be an argument that they're policing speech?
I think they would be allowing access to organizations that accept the procedures. Maybe you don't agree with the procedures, but it's no different than "I agree to the terms" required on pretty much every product you use.
If the terms on the product say your access might be revoked because you asked questions about their parent company, that’s illegal and should be contested.
That said, this is entirely different – citizens have the right to know what is happening within all branches of the government, and not only via official press releases. Some level of transparency is a critical requirement for a functioning democracy (I understand the US might be a little past that point).
Where does it say that "your access might be revoked because you asked questions"? They're journalists, that's what they do.
There's nowhere that says that a government has to give access to the grounds of a building. Did you feel as strongly when Biden gave no press conferences between November 2023 to July 2024? It's just silly to put your flag into the ground on this particular issue.
It's an assault on the truth and on the citizens. They clearly thought they could just buy the press. This even shows.. they were mostly correct in their assessment.
It honestly feels like they're trying to speedrun autocracy, but it's not clear to me the game plan here. Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever, possibly even the next term. They've just weakened oversight and standards of decency that surely they will be crying about later. To be honest it's exhausting just listening to the adults supposedly running the strongest country in the world like a Twitter trolling session.
- they have the voter rolls
- they are normalizing using the military domestically
- they will "secure" the polling places against "voter fraud" and take the ballots to be "counted securely"
This needs to be called out now, because the courts are slow to react and won't have time to do anything once it's happening.
They're trying to wreck as much of the current governmental set us as they can do it'll almost impossible or very difficult to rebuild it. It's almost scorched earth, they think they're killing the "deep state"
I think the "deep state" crusade assumes a sort of good faith that it's obviously lacking in this administration, judging their intent from their behavior and outcomes paints a much scarier picture.
I remember a Cyberpunk setting where basically a corp bought the voting machines in a country, and suddenly all presidents of said country were top level executives of that corp. Which is why I smiled a little when 'Liberty vote' was announced.
> it's not clear to me the game plan here. Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever
I mean, they are in office right now, even though they already quite egregiously violated most laws in existence. It seems completely obvious to me there will be some kind of takeover for the next elections. Some new rules will be set in place that favor the current government.
And the current US track record seems to prove that it'll work. There will be outraged news articles and comments on the internet, some protests, but ultimately it'll pass.
Dominion voting machines, the company falsely accused of rigging the election that also lead to the court case that got Tucker fired from Fox, were just acquired by a (R). This was to keep the elections Fair and Balanced.
I don't understand why Americans require machines to count. Dumping the ballots into a room and having dozens of people counting them while under the watch of all sorts of interested parties scales perfectly well.
For president you have a piece of paper with two boxes on. You don't even have ranked voting.
Mark an X next to one and put it in a ballot box. Works fine everywhere else.
> I don't understand why Americans require machines to count.
There's actually nothing wrong with machine counting, I believe it was found to be more accurate also overall less prone to fatigue and mistakes. [0]
The real strange thing in the US is the electoral college system for Presidential elections, surely 1 person 1 vote nationwide would make sense. Afterall the President is supposed to represent everyone equally.
A popular vote was seriously considered while drafting the Constitution for these United STATES. The founders didn’t seem to think it was a contradiction. They went with the current solution because it’s hard to count a slave as 3/5ths of a person with a national popular vote.
So I think it's reasonable to say that, to paraphrase the earlier comment, putting an X in a box on a piece of paper is how it's done in most of the world.
It's true that the ballots aren't always counted by hand.
Very few countries do national elections electronically (the ones most subject to interference) electronically.
Sure with paper systems you might be able to swing upto say 1% of the vote without being detected (probably more like 0.1%), anything more will involve too many people for a conspiracy to remain.
With electronic you can swing 20% without blinking.
> With electronic you can swing 20% without blinking.
You're going to have to give some citations for that because all electronic votes are usually backed by a paper ballot.. I've not heard of 20%~ swing and getting away with it.
>Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever, possibly even the next term.
Trump pardoned all of the Jan 6th putchists.
Trump ordered full military honor for Ashley Babbitt.
Trump put openly said after meeting Putin that more than ever, he believes the 2020 elections were rigged.
Trump appointed an election denier as the secretary for "Election Integrity".
Trump appointed pure servile hacks as heads of FBI, CIA and Justice (I mean, Kash write a book with Trump as a king).
Trump ordered 800 military brass to come to Quantico to be lectured about the "Enemy from within", turn American cities into military training grounds and that anyone that disappoints him will lose everything.
I mean, how many more clues do you need, to admit the next election will be cancelled as soon as they lose? He literally said what he was going to do. And there has been no pushback, neither from the military nor parliamentarians.
> I mean, how many more clues do you need, to admit the next election will be cancelled as soon as they lose? He literally said what he was going to do. And there has been no pushback, neither from the military nor parliamentarians.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be done if it was possible, but I am working off the current status quoa that exists now. And I wouldn't be so sure about a lack of military pushback if something like cancelling national elections was called.
It won't be cancelling national elections. It will be "suspending" a few local ones, enough to tilt the balance, and then using any excuse - e.g. "antifa", but any protest is enough - to escalate, to justify, progressively, a military clampdown.
>I wouldn't be so sure about a lack of military pushback
Again, Ashley Babbitt received full military honors for trying to overrun security at the Capitol to attack congressmen and women to overturn the election. That's what happened. Nobody has said anywhere in the military "it's wrong".
The "status quo" is that the president, immune from any prosecution, is saying openly he is ready to use soldiers to shoot at American citizens when he gives the order, and anyone who disobeys will be fired.
Elections are essential for legitimacy these days. There’s something like three countries on the planet that don’t have elections. North Korea has elections.
Inconvenience and intimidation will be used to discourage voters in opposition areas. Reasons will be found to discard ballots. Results will be challenged, reasons found to delay certification of unfavorable results until it’s too late.
Imagine 2020, except done by smarter people who have had four years to think about how they’ll do it. And who have had four years to see that there are zero consequences for them even if they don’t succeed.
> Wasn't OANN started by AT&T as a way to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term?
"AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue," while "ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant" [1].
That said, there is no evidence this was done "to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term.” Simpler: they chased Fox, Newsmax et al's dollars.
This is the type of dialogue we can continue to expect from people whose understanding of government and military operations comes from oorah films and delusions of grandeur.
Hegseth also reposted a question from a follower who asked, “Is this because they can’t roam the Pentagon freely? Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?”
Hegseth answered, “yes.” Reporters say neither of those assertions is true.
> Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reacted by posting the Times’ statement on X and adding a hand-waving emoji.
> Hegseth also reposted a question from a follower who asked, “Is this because they can’t roam the Pentagon freely? Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?”
> Hegseth answered, “yes.”
I know this is old man yelling at the clouds these days but good lord if we could have government officials that aren't terminally online...
All I want from politicians, and by this I mean literally all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me. That's really not that hard, I'm not that smart, this isn't an unrealistic bar for politicians to cross.
I can say with some confidence that an alcoholic Fox News talk show host is not smarter than me.
> all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me
I don't care if they are smarter than me. I need them to be smart enough to know they are not that smart. I don't expect politicians to be smart. I expect them to be good listeners and be the voice for the people.
> I don't expect politicians to be smart. I expect them to be good listeners and be the voice for the people.
I want both. I want them to be smart -- not necessarily domain expert smart, but reasonably smart with making life changing decisions for everyone. And base those decisions on recommendations made by domain experts.
I live in non english european country. One of our problems is that huge number of our politicians (including foreign affairs ministry etc.) can't speak english. Education is not bad here. You have to have pretty high level english to pass any university. I mean many bars wont give you a job without passing english interview.
But if you want to do international politics its fine because politicians don't have any formal requirements.
So next time you see EU parlament footage where people have speeches in their native language… it's not out of national pride or respect. It's simply because many of them couldn't do it otherwise.
I live in India. Nearly all parties appoint literal thugs as ministers. Let alone English literacy and fluency, they are not even competent in their own language. Here we have a minister of Kannada & Culture, whose first language is Kannada, struggling to write a common word in Kannada: https://x.com/tulunadregion/status/1886675464221286414
> I mean many bars wont give you a job without passing english interview.
We have a very similar situation in India. But ministers (and their supporters) now take perverse pride in not being good at English. They use our brief British rule as a scapegoat for half the things that are wrong with India. The other half is blamed on Mughal rule.
>I can say with some confidence that an alcoholic Fox News talk show host is not smarter than me.
Well he was valedictorian at his high school and graduated from Princeton University. I wonder if the Pete Hegseth from Princeton is the same Pete Hegseth today. I don't know, maybe he got messed up somehow during one of his three tours overseas serving in the military.
Without knowing the criteria (as best I know, it's not just based on academic excellence but other things like sports[0] and extracurriculars), it's not much of a claim.
[0] Hegseth was a leading basketball and football player for Princeton.
In the US, the valedictorian of a high school is typically the person with highest academic grade point average. I've never heard of it considering sports participation, although Wikipedia does suggest that sometimes extra-curriculars are now being considered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valedictorian. But given his age and absent outside information, I think the fair assumption is that he won because he had the best grades in his courses.
> All I want from politicians, and by this I mean literally all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me
... why? Ted Cruz is almost certainly smarter than almost all of us, and I do not want Ted Cruz to be a politician. Boris Johnson is exceptionally gifted, and Never Again. Rishi Sunak's as sharp a guy as you're likely to meet, but as the Economist noted, rarely met a bad idea he didn't warm to. You're giving a weird halo effect to intelligence.
> was aided by his "toughness", such as, you know, striking Iran
Striking Iran didn't end hostilities in Gaza, Trump leaning on Egypt, Turkey and Qatar did [1]. (The Iran strikes might have worked because Hegseth was sidelined [2].)
Hegseth is a wuss who couldn't cut it in the military. He's in place because he's loyal, probably compromised, and plays masculinity well on TV.
The last ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was in January of this year, before he took office, but yes, he's a special boy for actually doing his job.
This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but American press outlets could stand to be a little less close to the Pentagon. They were given this access for a reason that was useful to the DoD / war department, which is something the Trump administration seems not to understand.
The quantity and intensity of stupidity exhibited in the linked tweet thread is truly exasperating. They want freedom of speech for themselves and a neutered press.
I feel like the GOP will eventually just have their own news media wing that will have exclusives to all their pressers. (And no, it won't be Fox News). They'll call it something similar to TruthSocial / Pravda. It's from the old Soviet playbook.
Pravda is a generic name for newspapers, like "Times" is in Anglophone workd.
Ketamine abuser even tried to buy pravda.com, but you all was spared coz its used by Ukraian Pravda. Which is (was) not very aligned with the establishent to say the least.
> The new policy says that Defense Department information “must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if unclassified.”
Seriously? The compulsion towards obsequiousness is incredible. Some members of our public will twist themselves into knots just to obey, even when they are not asked. (I genuinely wonder if the current bout of obsessive political obedience is a fetish.)
To be fair modern media companies (virtually every single one of them) has long been a weapon in someone’s hands.
Only idiot these days really goes to bbc or whatever your acronym of choice for “the truth”.
They all push some sort of agenda down our throats and already lick ass to some authority or sponsor. What difference does it make if they got just +1 little constraint.
> Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said (...) "This has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online."
Interesting use of language... seems like the mask is coming off everywhere now, not just where I live (Hungary).
I've been intentionally skipping on a lot of our local political reporting, so I was really quite surprised to see recently how lowbrow the language used by politicians, specifically those in power, has gotten these days. Especially how flagrant they are about it too.
This is a very meta, and to many I'm sure trivial, thing to take issue with, yes, but if those in authority are this unashamedly drunk on power, and look down on those they rule over so openly, I'd really question how fit they are to represent people's collective best interest.
A lot of people love this. They want to wield power to hurt people they don’t like. Watching others they perceive as being on “their side” do it serves as a substitute.
Nonsense. People want a better society, but they have been forced to accept that can never happrn, so they settle with finding others to blame and seeking petty revenge. After all, these are literally human beings we're talking about; not animals as you imply. You are no better, my friend.
Not everyone wants a better society, nor agrees on what a better society even looks like. It's a common mistake to believe your adversary is just like you, but terribly confused.
[dead]
that's what we get as global citizens for not fighting populist fascists seriously enough :( (until they get too bad, at which point it gets gnarly anyways)
[dead]
It's a great thing they are not backing down. Given how many institutions have complied in advance, we need as many exemplars of better behaviour as possible.
Economically this makes sense. Those companies that sign are relegated to essentially just republishing press releases, so there's little value in employing someone just to do that.
Can they sue, and if they do are they likely to win? My laymans gut feeling is they will lose because the constitution says nothing about the government being required to provide press access to facilities. However, if they allow access to one organization but not another seems there could be an argument that they're policing speech? Would be great to hear a more informed take.
Smarter, they just dont cover the propaganda from inside, they dig the truth from those inside.
The media has been too lazy for too long printing press release from the government. This government has nothing to say but propaganda - I don’t even bother reading the government quotes any more. They are content free and self aggrandizing at a level of absurdity that would put North Korea to shame.
There have been governments hostile to journalists in the past, and those are the governments with the most to lose when journalists dig into their work. I look forward to the investigative journalism of the next three years.
If they are unable to investigate by developing sources on the inside, how are they gonna do anything other than publish press releases?
Why would they be unable to develop sources on the inside? I don't think the pentagon press briefing area is where they would develop their sources regardless of being allowed in or not.
> I look forward to the investigative journalism of the next three years.
So, who is owning the media publishing the investigative journalism? Will they risk shaking the grass, considering the powers that be?
404 Media is a great place to start.
404 Media is extremely biased. They definitely dig, but it often seems like they do so in order simply to find only that dirt which will fuel the `liberal outrage` that people will pay for.
Especially when technology is concerned, they very rarely seem to have much nuance in their reporting.
paywalled
Do you expect people to do investigative journalism for free?
What’s wrong with that?
If anything it may be an improvement over ad driven models.
The qualify of reporting …
It seems less about access and more about agreeing to the principle that publishing anything unapproved, or even asking anyone for more information than is not approved, is a national security risk and press privileges will be revoked if they do that. It's an attempt by the government to control what the press publishes through coercion, aka chilling.
> the constitution says nothing about the government being required to provide press access to facilities
As with anything regarding the first amendment it's very fuzzy, which the administration is taking advantage of here.
They got in hot water earlier this year because they explicitly denied the AP access to some White House event because of AP's editorial refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. That sort of singling out is definitely prohibited when it comes to restricting press access.
Now they're learning a bit, and they're treating everyone the same (everyone has to sign the same thing). They're heating the frog more slowly.
> However, if they allow access to one organization but not another seems there could be an argument that they're policing speech?
I think they would be allowing access to organizations that accept the procedures. Maybe you don't agree with the procedures, but it's no different than "I agree to the terms" required on pretty much every product you use.
If the terms on the product say your access might be revoked because you asked questions about their parent company, that’s illegal and should be contested.
That said, this is entirely different – citizens have the right to know what is happening within all branches of the government, and not only via official press releases. Some level of transparency is a critical requirement for a functioning democracy (I understand the US might be a little past that point).
Where does it say that "your access might be revoked because you asked questions"? They're journalists, that's what they do.
There's nowhere that says that a government has to give access to the grounds of a building. Did you feel as strongly when Biden gave no press conferences between November 2023 to July 2024? It's just silly to put your flag into the ground on this particular issue.
Either everyone as the right or no one does. If they can't exclude media orgs, then I get to go too.
Didn't expect to see Newsman on that list
They believe the pendulum will swing the other way, which is honestly surprising.
[dead]
All out assault on the press.
It's an assault on the truth and on the citizens. They clearly thought they could just buy the press. This even shows.. they were mostly correct in their assessment.
Large sections of the press actively supported this, at the behest of their owners: https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5168416/washington-post...
(I keep joking that other countries have state controlled media, but in the West we have media-controlled states)
It honestly feels like they're trying to speedrun autocracy, but it's not clear to me the game plan here. Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever, possibly even the next term. They've just weakened oversight and standards of decency that surely they will be crying about later. To be honest it's exhausting just listening to the adults supposedly running the strongest country in the world like a Twitter trolling session.
They are planning to militarize the election.
- they have the voter rolls - they are normalizing using the military domestically - they will "secure" the polling places against "voter fraud" and take the ballots to be "counted securely"
This needs to be called out now, because the courts are slow to react and won't have time to do anything once it's happening.
They're trying to wreck as much of the current governmental set us as they can do it'll almost impossible or very difficult to rebuild it. It's almost scorched earth, they think they're killing the "deep state"
I think the "deep state" crusade assumes a sort of good faith that it's obviously lacking in this administration, judging their intent from their behavior and outcomes paints a much scarier picture.
You only need “good faith” from voters and supporters, the people in power know exactly what they are doing.
I remember a Cyberpunk setting where basically a corp bought the voting machines in a country, and suddenly all presidents of said country were top level executives of that corp. Which is why I smiled a little when 'Liberty vote' was announced.
> it's not clear to me the game plan here. Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever
I mean, they are in office right now, even though they already quite egregiously violated most laws in existence. It seems completely obvious to me there will be some kind of takeover for the next elections. Some new rules will be set in place that favor the current government.
And the current US track record seems to prove that it'll work. There will be outraged news articles and comments on the internet, some protests, but ultimately it'll pass.
There’s quite some fresh gerrymandering going on, and because folks already “tolerate” this, it’s just incremental heat in the pot.
Dominion voting machines, the company falsely accused of rigging the election that also lead to the court case that got Tucker fired from Fox, were just acquired by a (R). This was to keep the elections Fair and Balanced.
"Fair and balanced" in the same way some animals are more equal than others? I could see that. Was this ever debunked by the way? https://michaeldsellers.substack.com/p/new-starlink-election...
I don't understand why Americans require machines to count. Dumping the ballots into a room and having dozens of people counting them while under the watch of all sorts of interested parties scales perfectly well.
For president you have a piece of paper with two boxes on. You don't even have ranked voting.
Mark an X next to one and put it in a ballot box. Works fine everywhere else.
Because American ballots are massive?
They vote for everything including the president and local school district board members and everything in between at the same time.
> I don't understand why Americans require machines to count.
There's actually nothing wrong with machine counting, I believe it was found to be more accurate also overall less prone to fatigue and mistakes. [0]
The real strange thing in the US is the electoral college system for Presidential elections, surely 1 person 1 vote nationwide would make sense. Afterall the President is supposed to represent everyone equally.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2022/10/11/1128197774/research-finds-han...
It's because we are the United STATES of America.
That's silly, most modern democracies are organized federally and don't have this issue.
Most modern democracies -- that's correct. Only the USA is organized this way.
One might consider that later democracies learned from some of our mistakes.
A popular vote was seriously considered while drafting the Constitution for these United STATES. The founders didn’t seem to think it was a contradiction. They went with the current solution because it’s hard to count a slave as 3/5ths of a person with a national popular vote.
That's not how it works everywhere else
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_by_country suggests that centralized electronic counting is somewhat common, electronic voting machines in polling places are uncommon.
So I think it's reasonable to say that, to paraphrase the earlier comment, putting an X in a box on a piece of paper is how it's done in most of the world.
It's true that the ballots aren't always counted by hand.
Very few countries do national elections electronically (the ones most subject to interference) electronically.
Sure with paper systems you might be able to swing upto say 1% of the vote without being detected (probably more like 0.1%), anything more will involve too many people for a conspiracy to remain.
With electronic you can swing 20% without blinking.
Scaling is bad when it comes to voting.
> With electronic you can swing 20% without blinking.
You're going to have to give some citations for that because all electronic votes are usually backed by a paper ballot.. I've not heard of 20%~ swing and getting away with it.
>Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever, possibly even the next term.
Trump pardoned all of the Jan 6th putchists.
Trump ordered full military honor for Ashley Babbitt.
Trump put openly said after meeting Putin that more than ever, he believes the 2020 elections were rigged.
Trump appointed an election denier as the secretary for "Election Integrity".
Trump appointed pure servile hacks as heads of FBI, CIA and Justice (I mean, Kash write a book with Trump as a king).
Trump ordered 800 military brass to come to Quantico to be lectured about the "Enemy from within", turn American cities into military training grounds and that anyone that disappoints him will lose everything.
I mean, how many more clues do you need, to admit the next election will be cancelled as soon as they lose? He literally said what he was going to do. And there has been no pushback, neither from the military nor parliamentarians.
> I mean, how many more clues do you need, to admit the next election will be cancelled as soon as they lose? He literally said what he was going to do. And there has been no pushback, neither from the military nor parliamentarians.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be done if it was possible, but I am working off the current status quoa that exists now. And I wouldn't be so sure about a lack of military pushback if something like cancelling national elections was called.
It won't be cancelling national elections. It will be "suspending" a few local ones, enough to tilt the balance, and then using any excuse - e.g. "antifa", but any protest is enough - to escalate, to justify, progressively, a military clampdown.
>I wouldn't be so sure about a lack of military pushback
Again, Ashley Babbitt received full military honors for trying to overrun security at the Capitol to attack congressmen and women to overturn the election. That's what happened. Nobody has said anywhere in the military "it's wrong".
The "status quo" is that the president, immune from any prosecution, is saying openly he is ready to use soldiers to shoot at American citizens when he gives the order, and anyone who disobeys will be fired.
Elections are essential for legitimacy these days. There’s something like three countries on the planet that don’t have elections. North Korea has elections.
Inconvenience and intimidation will be used to discourage voters in opposition areas. Reasons will be found to discard ballots. Results will be challenged, reasons found to delay certification of unfavorable results until it’s too late.
Imagine 2020, except done by smarter people who have had four years to think about how they’ll do it. And who have had four years to see that there are zero consequences for them even if they don’t succeed.
Just came across this today too, seems related
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/10/14/politics/voting-rights-act-s...
And the gerrymandering, and changing the census, etc., etc.
The real question who signed it?
OANN.
OANN might as well be a high school newspaper at this point.
Hey I was on the staff of my high school newspaper and we took our journalism very seriously.
Wasn't OANN started by AT&T as a way to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term?
As an FCC regulated company AT&T is obligated to not discriminate in signing contracts. So AT&T (or the erstwhile DirecTV) cannot refuse OANN.
It wasn’t started by AT&T.
> Wasn't OANN started by AT&T as a way to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term?
"AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue," while "ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant" [1].
That said, there is no evidence this was done "to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term.” Simpler: they chased Fox, Newsmax et al's dollars.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-onea...
https://archive.is/1PEdK
> Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?
Sounds like a real question from a real person.
Nobody has unrestricted access right now so not sure what they're saying.
This is the type of dialogue we can continue to expect from people whose understanding of government and military operations comes from oorah films and delusions of grandeur.
From TFA:
Hegseth also reposted a question from a follower who asked, “Is this because they can’t roam the Pentagon freely? Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?”
Hegseth answered, “yes.” Reporters say neither of those assertions is true.
> Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reacted by posting the Times’ statement on X and adding a hand-waving emoji.
> Hegseth also reposted a question from a follower who asked, “Is this because they can’t roam the Pentagon freely? Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?”
> Hegseth answered, “yes.”
I know this is old man yelling at the clouds these days but good lord if we could have government officials that aren't terminally online...
All I want from politicians, and by this I mean literally all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me. That's really not that hard, I'm not that smart, this isn't an unrealistic bar for politicians to cross.
I can say with some confidence that an alcoholic Fox News talk show host is not smarter than me.
> all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me
I don't care if they are smarter than me. I need them to be smart enough to know they are not that smart. I don't expect politicians to be smart. I expect them to be good listeners and be the voice for the people.
> I don't expect politicians to be smart. I expect them to be good listeners and be the voice for the people.
I want both. I want them to be smart -- not necessarily domain expert smart, but reasonably smart with making life changing decisions for everyone. And base those decisions on recommendations made by domain experts.
I live in non english european country. One of our problems is that huge number of our politicians (including foreign affairs ministry etc.) can't speak english. Education is not bad here. You have to have pretty high level english to pass any university. I mean many bars wont give you a job without passing english interview.
But if you want to do international politics its fine because politicians don't have any formal requirements.
So next time you see EU parlament footage where people have speeches in their native language… it's not out of national pride or respect. It's simply because many of them couldn't do it otherwise.
I live in India. Nearly all parties appoint literal thugs as ministers. Let alone English literacy and fluency, they are not even competent in their own language. Here we have a minister of Kannada & Culture, whose first language is Kannada, struggling to write a common word in Kannada: https://x.com/tulunadregion/status/1886675464221286414
> I mean many bars wont give you a job without passing english interview.
We have a very similar situation in India. But ministers (and their supporters) now take perverse pride in not being good at English. They use our brief British rule as a scapegoat for half the things that are wrong with India. The other half is blamed on Mughal rule.
The unfortunate reality is that the smartest people avoid politics.
Lately they also seem to avoid science, to some degree. So, what occupation do they choose, in these days?
finance and tech or wherever the money is best
>I can say with some confidence that an alcoholic Fox News talk show host is not smarter than me.
Well he was valedictorian at his high school and graduated from Princeton University. I wonder if the Pete Hegseth from Princeton is the same Pete Hegseth today. I don't know, maybe he got messed up somehow during one of his three tours overseas serving in the military.
> Well he was valedictorian at his high school
Without knowing the criteria (as best I know, it's not just based on academic excellence but other things like sports[0] and extracurriculars), it's not much of a claim.
[0] Hegseth was a leading basketball and football player for Princeton.
In the US, the valedictorian of a high school is typically the person with highest academic grade point average. I've never heard of it considering sports participation, although Wikipedia does suggest that sometimes extra-curriculars are now being considered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valedictorian. But given his age and absent outside information, I think the fair assumption is that he won because he had the best grades in his courses.
Years of alcoholism does damage to your entire body.
He was actually just the weekend guy too. Just imagine, we could have had the weekday guy who said homeless people should be executed the other day.
> All I want from politicians, and by this I mean literally all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me
... why? Ted Cruz is almost certainly smarter than almost all of us, and I do not want Ted Cruz to be a politician. Boris Johnson is exceptionally gifted, and Never Again. Rishi Sunak's as sharp a guy as you're likely to meet, but as the Economist noted, rarely met a bad idea he didn't warm to. You're giving a weird halo effect to intelligence.
Terminally online journos and terminally online voters got them there.
It's remarkable how toxic that kind of social interaction turned out to be.
How absolutely cowardly the "Department of War" seems to be.
You know the weakness of man from a mile away by the verbosity and volume of his "toughness."
[flagged]
And that historic peace deal in decades would be?
The last ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was in 2021.
It was in January this year and was broken by Israel in March.
I'm sure the next one will be in 2027.
> was aided by his "toughness", such as, you know, striking Iran
Striking Iran didn't end hostilities in Gaza, Trump leaning on Egypt, Turkey and Qatar did [1]. (The Iran strikes might have worked because Hegseth was sidelined [2].)
Hegseth is a wuss who couldn't cut it in the military. He's in place because he's loyal, probably compromised, and plays masculinity well on TV.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/a-coordinated-squeeze-...
[2] https://newrepublic.com/post/197005/trump-iran-plans-hegseth...
A very kind of camp, drag masculinity.
The last ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was in January of this year, before he took office, but yes, he's a special boy for actually doing his job.
This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but American press outlets could stand to be a little less close to the Pentagon. They were given this access for a reason that was useful to the DoD / war department, which is something the Trump administration seems not to understand.
Good.
[dead]
The quantity and intensity of stupidity exhibited in the linked tweet thread is truly exasperating. They want freedom of speech for themselves and a neutered press.
I feel like the GOP will eventually just have their own news media wing that will have exclusives to all their pressers. (And no, it won't be Fox News). They'll call it something similar to TruthSocial / Pravda. It's from the old Soviet playbook.
Pravda is a generic name for newspapers, like "Times" is in Anglophone workd.
Ketamine abuser even tried to buy pravda.com, but you all was spared coz its used by Ukraian Pravda. Which is (was) not very aligned with the establishent to say the least.
I had understood that Newsmax was part of that hypothetical system. Interesting they’re even taking a stand here.
Reporters can't wander around the Pentagon asking government employees questions.
That's the rule, right?
No.
From https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/new-policy-access-...
> The new policy says that Defense Department information “must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if unclassified.”
> "That's the rule, right?"
Seriously? The compulsion towards obsequiousness is incredible. Some members of our public will twist themselves into knots just to obey, even when they are not asked. (I genuinely wonder if the current bout of obsessive political obedience is a fetish.)
To be fair modern media companies (virtually every single one of them) has long been a weapon in someone’s hands.
Only idiot these days really goes to bbc or whatever your acronym of choice for “the truth”.
They all push some sort of agenda down our throats and already lick ass to some authority or sponsor. What difference does it make if they got just +1 little constraint.