pulsewidth @ pulsewidth @lemmy.world

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6 mo. ago

That's not irony, irony is something unexpected - those two behaviors are exactly consistent and congruent with one-another.

I think aiming to sanction the US is the wrong plan, treat it like it is what it is - a country run by an autocrat, and go after the oligarchs. Same approach as taken with Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc.

In terms of effectiveness. Frankly we're (globally) only getting rid of Trump and his cronies if the American public rise up against him and oust him through whatever means that may take. Protests and extended strikes for starters - and the people will be more likely to band together with Trump than against him if the whole world starts Tariffing and sanctioning the USA like a rogue state.

On the other hand, sanction and freeze Trump & Co. assetts all over the (western) world and when he retaliates to protect his own interests its a lot harder to sell to his constituents.

How you would even legally go about that is another question though, he would have to be breaking financial international laws and the countries involved in the personal sanctions would have to be ready and willing for blowback.

Its all fantasy at this stage until he starts blatantly breaking international laws that allow his assets to be seized. Likewise with the idea of US sanctions - look at how much Israel has done and they're not sanctioned, and it took a great deal of blatant acts of war before Russia and North Korea were sanctioned also.

This news post from OP is from news.com.au, and they're the ones who labeled it 'surprising news'.

So, your comment is deeply illogical to me.

Phone searches: not new. People being rejected at the border because of posts critical of the incoming president, yes, that is very much a new thing.

Would love to see some stories of people rejected at the border for criticism of Biden or Obama if you can find any.

This might be normal opsec for a foreign agent, but absolutely ridiculous to expect average people or some French doctor to adhere to.

The reality is this issue would never have happened just three months ago, and the reason it's happening now is fascism.

It hasn't been a democracy since it had the 'electoral college' and unequal representation. So, forever..

But within the context of the previous status quo - I'd say it stopped being a democracy exactly when Trump was allowed to be a candidate for the presidency after the Jan 6 coup attempt, and parallel attempts to invent votes and pressure states to lie about their vote counts. Which was blatantly unconstitutional and illegal. More than enough evidence to bar him from being a candidate, and yet the senate allowed it to proceed - that was the end.

With Windows 11 you don't have to pay for the OS because you are the product through profiling and advertising, like Facebook and Google.

That sounds way, way worse to me that the old Win7 & Win10 model where you'd pay your ~$30 oem license (or $60 retail) once and be done forever without being heavily tracked and monitored.

Yes if I recall correctly he tried to delete it by cludging a poorly formatted Linux 'rm -rf' that would format his local system, if it was a command that made sense at all.

Implying not only does he not know much about computers, but also that he is infected with the 'virus' himself.

I'm sure going into the FTC, swiping their security fob and having it deny them entry would be a huge boon for their cause. If they're asked to leave by security and they don't they can be legally arrested for trespassing.

The same afternoon she was dismissed, Slaughter is out with an official statement and on the phone to multiple press agencies to get the story out immediately. Sure sounds like someone taking action to me. No doubt she will take them to court (likely the other guy will join her) but that doesn't happen overnight, this was literally yesterday - best lawyer in the world would struggle to have an actionable case ready yet.

You'll note that none of the above can be done if you're still under arrest for trespass..

Its not like they can just keep showing up to work and the security keyfobs will keep working and the paycheck will keep coming.

That shit wouldn't work at a Taco Bell I don't see how you guys think it would work for a Federal Trade Commission officer.

Hey at least they have the moral high ground - they'll have a good view watching the country sink into fascism from up there

The article says that Customs and Border Patrol agents "found “sympathetic photos and videos” of prominent Hezbollah figures in the deleted items folder of her cellphone."

That statement is vague enough in itself (could be memes from a group chat, could be something someone shared in a whatsapp chat that she had no interest in - we don't know). What we do know is that having pictures sympathetic to Hezbollah figures on your phone is not illegal, and it doesn't automatically equate to 'being supportive of terrorists'. I have photos of Trump in my phone from group chats and from web cache of viewed articles, and I hate the treasonous c*nt.

No mention of gang involvement or anything illegal whatsoever from the female doctor deported in the article you're commenting on - so you're just spouting nonsense.

Crazy they make you pay for the cloud saves feature which is provided by Ludusavi - which is free OSS.

Yep, article is well meaning but dumb.

Idealism is great, but politics requires pragmatism. Which is why people like AOC and Bernie (who are well left of Kamala politically) still told voters to vote for Kamala in the election - she was the only way to avoid Trump, she was the pragmatic choice.

But apparently we'll be discussing why it's a dumb idea to be a protest voter in a very close election for the next four years non-stop.

I'm Australia's regard, what the bully is doing is hurting himself more that his victim.

If the bully punches himself in the face I'm not gonna punch myself in the face to prevent him being emboldened.

As an aside, I don't know why people think that a market capitalism solution is what will stop Trump. The whole world won't just stop buying US-made products in unison and the NASDAQ drops precipitously and Trump announces "oh dear, i will stop doing a fascism and be a good boy from now on". This is a fantasy that does not map to the real world.

Look at how tarrifs have affected Putin or Kim Jong Il: barely at all. Yes, their people suffer, but the leaders make new trade deals with different counties so their personal wealth in largely unaffected. Meanwhile they have big propaganda wins as it feeds right into their party narrative that the 'rest of the world is against us', 'the elites are conspiring at the WTO'. And those countries have been heavily targeted by tariff schemes for decades, how long you guys want Trump? Historically the only way authoritarian regimes are brought down is via internal conflict or war.

Why do most people here seem to agree that Trump's tarrifs are stupid and brash, yet Australia's leadership deeming retaliatory tarrifs would be the same is 'gutless and weak'?

This is just smart leadership on Australia's part. We are a trade surplus partner with USA - meaning we import more from the US than we export, and importantly the targets of the tarriffs are only a small fraction of our exports to the US.

So, to create knee-jerk retaliatory tarrifs on the US for the sake of assisting a very small sliver of our exports would be truly shooting ourselves in the foot.

Have a look at our iron ore export leading markets and look for the USA to see how much we need them: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1149300/australia-leading-iron-ore-export-destinations/

Now add up ALL iron, steel aluminium, and 'ores' from this list of all Aus -> US exports: https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/exports/united-states

Sum total: ~$550mil of our $14.7billion exports to the US in 2024 were aluminium or steel or their ores. So a 25% tarrif on 3.7% of our exports? To a country we have a trade surplus with?

Its not worth us tariffing them, would hurt us far more than we gain, and our top economists agree - saying "retaliatory tarrifs would be an act of self-sabotage" https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/treasury-came-armed-with-a-warning-politicians-dragged-them-mud/104995418

Most plastic melts at between 200°C and 320°C. So... Uh. Let's fire up those ovens, baby.

I suggest we start with Dupont and 3M executives to field test the removal process - since they're cool with testing their products on us.

Additional suggestions encouraged. Coke-Amatil? Tyre manufacturers?

There's a whole ocean between 'a single (biased) source claims Signal have stopped responding to requests for cybercrime assistance' and 'Signal is a pro-Kremlin app'.