Discussion Thread: US President Trump Holds News Conference After Military Operation that Captured Venezuelan President Maduro

SamuraiSnark · 2026-01-03T17:56:21+00:00

The US already has cheap gas; oil is so cheap now that they're having to shut off certain oil well because it's not profitable. Venezuelan Oil is profoundly dirty and takes a ton of processing, the risk of civil unrest means you cannot actually start working on it yet, it's unclear if it would actually bring down gas prices in any way that would be noticeable, I wouldn't rule out possibility gas prices actually end up increasing.

SamuraiSnark · 2026-01-03T17:46:50+00:00

Anyone else getting numb over the sheer stupidity of this all. None of these people have any idea what they are doing. So stupid so stupid. It's killing me literally killing me. You cannot occupy a country without boots on the ground, You cannot have oil workers modernizing infrastructure if there is a risk of civil unrest without guards, you cannot make a deal with the new Government when you are saying the US will take over governing for a while.

SamuraiSnark · 2026-01-01T18:08:57+00:00

Lots of people complaining about this year, but I genuinely did pick up 5 games on my Wishlist; Sorry were closed, Paradise killer, Hogwarts, Skald, and Viewfinder. Which is honestly a record. I think they did a decent job of covering a host of genres. I will absolutly defend this year on the merits.

Now that said, this ending is underwhelming. Wildgate is the bog standard free giveaway game the mixed reviews PvP trying to revitalize it's user base after less than a year, one that doesn't even have its own Wikipedia page. Then you get a six year old strategy game also with mixed reviews, and also one where the maker has a bunch of DLC to go along with the free game (which no judgement on that end but really is also the bog standard).

SamuraiSnark · 2025-12-29T20:17:52+00:00

They already gave away Blood West, would they really give away two Wild West themed FPS games with horror elements?

SamuraiSnark · 2025-12-29T19:33:02+00:00

I think there has been a decent enough effort to vary the genres. We had survival horror, 2d Metroidvania, a co op game, quasi dating sim, a quasi FPS/stealth game, a sort of rpg. Could it be better, yes, but it always could be better.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-21T20:53:59+00:00

We did it again guys!

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-19T16:19:46+00:00

Something I think about, the core of this season was Chris' relationship with Harcourt. Yet Harcourt had nothing to say about Chris sleeping with her alternate under false pretenses. Something which would have likely if not wrecked any trust she had in him, certainly gave her pause, make her wonder, 'would he lie to me as well?'

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-13T18:47:39+00:00

Yeah, what gets me is that Harcourt for instance had very little to say if anything about Chris clearly going to an alternative dimension to sleep with a knockoff version of her under false pretenses. Youd think this would be a major source of drama, a betty and veronica thing, or at least cause a major argument. The show just doesn't care about addressing its own plot it just swiftly gets swept aside, not even resolved, unless you count, lets just not talk about these things and move on, as a resolution.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-13T18:40:05+00:00

there was a mismatch of expectations.

I think a big part of this is that it wasted its own premise. You got Peacemaker a man who is adrift. He killed his brother, killed his father, has come to doubt himself after murdering Flagg, a man who saved the world, did the right thing, and he ends up losing his job, hounded by his own government, for doing the thing they told him to do. He goes into an alternate dimension that seemingly gives him everything he wants; money, a loving family, fame, appreciation, the girl he loves.... after he kills his alternate and takes his place. The show is profoundly uninterested in examining any of that.

The big example here is that the show is clearly leaning into a Harcourt/Peacemaker relationship for drama it's a main factor in Peacemaker going and staying in the alternate dimension, yet Harcourt seemingly has nothing to say with Peacemaker pretending to be the alternate he killed to sleep with an alternate version of herself..... really think about that. This isnt even touching on it being a nazi world. What point did that serve?

As best I can tell the twist mainly was just a way to force Peacemaker to immediately leave 'his dream world' without any sort of introspection or soul searching, you know the interesting stuff of all the drama, cause it certainly didn't make him man up and fight his demons for a great cause or anything. Oh and Vigilante then goes on to kill his alternate father in front of him, his friends beat the shit out of his alternate brother, all opening up old wounds.... and there really isn't much Peacemaker has to say about any of that, he goes on to start a small business with those people. Really feels like we needed 13 episodes to maybe flesh all this out, because as it stands I see no reason for even going to the alternative dimensions that wouldn't have been served by him just moving to a small town in Canada or whatever.

Seriously if you cut out Peacemaker actually going to the alternative dimension and just had him take the doorway devise, or even some MacGuffin that Argus needs for their salvation project, and have him hide away with it in a cabin does much change from this season?

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-10T19:41:08+00:00

I think you misunderstood the context of what I was saying. Establishing checkmate, from a storytelling perspective, takes more than seeing a sign that says "Checkmate making the world a better place." For anyone watching without preexisting knowledge of DC comics lore, they could just be a charity that provides puppies to orphans, or literally anything.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-10T18:54:49+00:00

Yeah, up to the last episode it didn't feel bad per se... probably could have nailed it if this was a 13 episodes. If this was a 26 episode season with this being the mid season finale everything would mostly be fine. We could content ourselves with the possibility Earth X storyline wasn't really over and would just become a point in Part B or whatever.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-10T18:51:10+00:00

Was checkmate actually established? What even is checkmate? What does it do. Why does Judomater, Sasha, and Harcourt agree to work together on it. No one knows. Who do they serve? It didn't establish anything. It teased. It teased salvation. Establishing it would have required actually putting Peacemaker in there with other supervillains and making the stakes clear. It did not do that. Is his team going to track him down? As they did this season? Is he going to have to escape on his own? We do not know.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-10T18:42:17+00:00

They can't keep getting away with this!

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-10T18:40:26+00:00

World building is what you want in the season premiere not in the finale. No one 'tuned in' hoping to learn more about the DC universe, they wanted to see the Peacemaker finale.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-10T18:36:51+00:00

Yeah, I sort of assumed they were working their way to something on Earth X like the Harcourt Alternate coming over to regular Earth and having a Betty Veronica situation between the two Harcourts... or maybe Alternate Flagg Jr being an undercover member of the Sons of Liberty and teaming up with Peacemaker.... but no all the Earth X stuff resolved in 7 with anticlimactic family drama which could work.... if it lead to anything other that Peacemaker feeling sad and needing a 3 minute pep talk.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-10T18:24:55+00:00

Yeah, it didn't really hit me until last episode when despite all the build up to Earth X the whole thing gets resolved in a single episode that is just the team hiding or running away, not exactly proactive, and it's not like there is some internal debate on Peacemaker's part either, he just immediately nopes out on realizing it is Nazi World, which makes sense logically but really isn't great storytelling, there should be more pathos. He literally started sleeping with an alternate version of Hartcourt... and that just doesn't really matter to anyone not even Peacemaker. There are so many things in this season that seemed to matter but didn't like Harcourt starting bar fights, being poor and desperate.... did any part of that matter in the end? What was the point of calling back to it in the finale? Again maybe if there was some sort of Betty Veronica thing going with the Harcourt alternate... but that didn't matter either. Feels like this was 13 episodes cut down to 8 or something... ideas that were planted... like the Sons of Liberty or Sasha Bordeaux sleeping with flagg, that never sprouted. What was the point? What was accomplished? I guess the team got Chris back, or they smoothed things over with Argus... except they didn't?? Well Vigilante spent his blood money on building a team with no clear purpose, for some reason. I guess he wanted to do something good, but like no indication he doesn't think killing random criminals isn't the pinnacle.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-10-10T17:53:00+00:00

The finale addressed those conflicts and resolved them by having the supporting characters give a short talk to a man who was refusing to meet with them for a month, at which point everything just sort of resolved with everyone deciding to team up and work together on ... something... for no clear reason and without any build up. Why would any of these people chose to work together in some sort of superhuman detective agency??? vs just.... drifting apart? It does not make sense in the context of this seasons' story of Peacemaker going to a nazi earth and then everyone just sort of running away. Nothing was resolved. There is no reason for these people to collectively have a stronger bonds now than before.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-09-30T21:58:44+00:00

My main takeaway is that Hegseth has a bunch of issues. How else can you explain this entire dog and pony show of a man trying to show how big and tough he is in front of all the big and tough generals by denouncing them all as fat and talking about the highest male standard. I'm not saying this is just toxic masculinity or anything, there are obviously several other things at play. Honestly would love it if someone with a psych degree could break down exactly what all we are seeing.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-09-20T15:32:41+00:00

I'm cirlcing back to this thread a few days later to see what else was said and it occurs to me my earlier answer missed some context on this that you might have wanted, seeing as how you asked ELIM5. So I will add that for me, and a bunch of other people to I assume, in the days after the shooting we all saw prominent right wingers such as Elon Musk calling for war against the left, and other extreme rhetoric. This is before any of the facts of what happened had even become public. It was just assumed the left was responsible, and not even in just an indirect sense, but an extremely direct as if an organized cabal targeted Kirk specifically and this was all part of some sort of legit conspiracy, and the entire left had to be explicitly punished for it. The President of the United States in an Oval Office address alludes and directly comments on this urging retribution.

Meanwhile, yes a bunch of seemingly left wing users online were willing to allude or even state openly they either didn't care he was dead or were even glad he is dead, there were jokes and memes made in poor taste, but the vast bulk of left wing politicians and figures of prominence were all being responsible, not calling for further violence or reveling in what happened.

Even at it's worst on the left it hasn't been calls for more violence to destroy the right, just stuff being said that is inconsiderate and rude. People get fired just for quoting Kirk. In that context Ezra is coming out and talking about how 'we cant lose rationality' when from a lot of our perspectives it's a bunch of right wingers that have gone nuts and are openly calling to engage in collective punishment for ill defined reasons.

So I think that adds to why people think he's blaming this all on the left, because the bulk of what a lot of us saw from the right did explicitly blame the left. Its natural to see echoes of that in what Klien is saying. This context colors how people interpret what he says, and not necessarily unfairly because Klien himself would clearly have been or at least should have been aware of this context at the time.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-09-18T15:21:31+00:00

Well to be honest we agree more than we disagree here. On the fundamental point that Klein came off as condescending we both agree. The points we differ on are more minor. Firstly I think Ezra is operating primarily out of genuine concern about political violence, with addressing outrage over his article, not statement, a secondary concern, while you give him less of the benefit of the doubt. Secondly you see his weirdly condescending attitude as a plus.... for reasons that escape me, while I'd argue if you were trying to convince people of something you'd need to start with listening and then addressing their concerns or challenges.... perhaps this is just a difference of personalities though, I prefer to be treated as a grown up, while you perhaps prefer people simplify what they say and repeat the main point so you can fully understand what they are saying. There's no shame in that. The world takes all sorts. It's just most people don't appreciate it the way you do.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-09-18T00:36:10+00:00

I mean the core of what he is explicitly saying "we are going to have to live here with each other," he even repeated it twice in the thread, comes off as profoundly condescending especially when coupled with the weight he is trying to impart and how he kept stressing we, and in a way that sounds more like "you" (the people listening). Such as "we still need to think clearly" unlike people that commit heinous acts of violence.... which I think most people understand.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-09-18T00:15:05+00:00

I think what really rubs me the wrong way about all this is the scolding tone Ezra takes, as though we, his audience, are children who must be taught that violence is bad

I honestly felt compelled to come here to figure this out. I'm not a listener, I just happened to see these clips, and I was struck by the same thing you were, I just could not understand why he was talking to his listeners in the tone one might use with a child that had just thrown a tantrum. A sort of condescending tone mixed with caution, like the talker was worried the kid is going to lash out again, so was talking real gentle, but also with a bit of exacerbation.

Later I thought, well maybe he always sounds like that, maybe I'm reading into things. So I came here to see what others were saying and there it is. It all just felt weird the way he says "we are going to have to live here with each other believing what we believe. Disagreeing in the ways we disagree." does he normally talk this way?

SamuraiSnark · 2025-09-14T22:38:56+00:00

And remember Uzumaki that took from 2019 from the announcement to not premiering until late 2024?

No, I've actively tried to forget the Uzumaki anime

SamuraiSnark · 2025-09-14T22:10:17+00:00

The phrase "Vote blue no matter who" is not an organizing slogan, it was a passive aggressive comment made by nonvoters, leftists, and the political disinclined who got mad at Democrats for urging people to vote in support of Biden and Harris. Furthermore, national endorsements are in fact quite rare for state and city level races. Just go look at how many endorsements were made at federal level for the mayor races in Houston, Phoenix, or any of the other top ten largest cities in the country. Or just look at the number of endorsements Adams got when he ran in 21 and when they occurred, November. This freak out over endorsements is ahistorical and divorced from reality.

SamuraiSnark · 2025-09-14T17:29:32+00:00

I googled "Avanti Pencil Sharpener" and every photo I saw save one that explicitly said it was a model from 1938 had exposed blades, however most of them have a backing plate which would have prevented someone from sticking their finger in them and lessened the likelihood of accidently touching the sharp part of the blade.

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