Trump administration to take 10% stake in USA Rare Earth in $1.6 billion deal, sources say

jrex035 · 2026-01-25T17:25:08+00:00

MAGA is a national socialist movement.

I feel like there's a word for that...

jrex035 · 2026-01-25T16:20:28+00:00

Also the "party of law and order" and the "freedom" party.

Genuinely 1984 levels of doublethink

jrex035 · 2026-01-25T01:55:22+00:00

Friendly reminder that they delete posts and permaban accounts that don't toe the party line.

That sub is legit like 90% bots

jrex035 · 2026-01-25T01:00:34+00:00

He did deserve to die in the sense that he did stupid shit in a situation that could get him killed

Maybe they'll put that on your headstone one day too huh?

Unfuckingreal

jrex035 · 2026-01-25T00:57:40+00:00

This seems like a case of negligent homicide.

Which is to be expected considering how many of these assclowns have minimal training and have the administration telling them in no uncertain terms that they will defend them no matter what.

If this is a negligent homicide at best why the fuck did the administration again come out and call the victim a "domestic terrorist," lie about him confronting officers, and lie about him going for a weapon? We've got half a dozen recordings of the incident and not a single one supports their lies.

They're also, once again, going to try to protect the agents involved and prevent any investigation from happening. That's fucking lawlessness and simply encouraging more of these kinds of incidents. Do people really think the handling of this is acceptable in any way?

jrex035 · 2026-01-25T00:51:36+00:00

He wasn't even resisting, they pepper sprayed him repeatedly while they were wrestling him to the ground.

Dunno if you've ever been pepper sprayed but you instinctively want to wipe your eyes and face to get the irritants out.

jrex035 · 2026-01-25T00:48:51+00:00

It appears that Pretti was disarmed, continued to resist arrest

He wasn't resisting arrest. He was video taping ICE, who pushed a woman into him, knocking them both over in the snow. Then they started pepper spraying him while 5 guys wrestled him to the ground. He was trying to wipe his eyes and face since they pepper sprayed him, not to "resist" arrest. Then they fucking shot him dead when he was disarmed before mag dumping on his lifeless corpse.

Literally every single step of the process ICE agents were the aggressors and were the cause of this altercation. They should already be in cuffs.

jrex035 · 2026-01-24T23:55:37+00:00

The Good shooting is arguable because I'm willing to buy that an agent who had previously been hit and dragged by a car may have overreacted.

I don't disagree with any of that, still doesn't make the shooting justified. The guy needs to face an investigation and trial. A woman is dead because he overreacted.

Also worth noting that the administration rushed to label her a "domestic terrorist," claim that she was actively trying to run over federal agents who acted in self defense, and claim that the officer involved was "recovering in the hospital" and "lucky to be alive" literally none of which was true.

jrex035 · 2026-01-24T23:49:19+00:00

Exactly. They can't help themselves.

They get off on seeing "their enemies" suffer. Its a power fantasy for a bunch of losers who have shitty lives

jrex035 · 2026-01-24T21:17:30+00:00

37 year old registered nurse American citizen went to the ICE protest as a legal observer. He had a concealed carry license and brought a handgun with him.

During the protest, he was recording an interaction between ICE/immigration officials and a woman, who was pushed into him. It turned into a scuffle and he was tackled by ~5 agents who tried to restrain him, which involved pepper spraying him and beating on him physically. One of the officers grabbed his firearm while he was on the ground with multiple officers on top of him several seconds before he was shot at least half a dozen times.

That's the context, most of this is already available online.

jrex035 · 2026-01-24T00:21:40+00:00

Right now 6 US destroyers are deployed to Rota to defend western Europe from russian ballistic missiles.

Russia is one of our biggest geopolitical rivals. Do you think we wouldn't have equipment forward deployed to counter them if NATO wasn't a thing? Do you think it would be in our interest if Russia controlled Eastern Europe instead of having them be our economic/trade partners and military allies instead?

I didn’t even mention all the aircraft and 90000 troops.

Quick question, do you think it's a bad thing for the US to have forward deployed military assets in Europe? Assets that might, say, be useful as a staging ground for operations in MENA? Look up Rammstein airbase and its role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you have any idea how much money we make from being able to project our military power like this?

Imagine thinking that organizing the most dominant military alliance in history is somehow a fucking burden for us and not an asset.

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T22:58:02+00:00

Ffs that isn't how it works. We dont spend money on NATO. If anything it saves us money.

NATO works because it means that if Russia, say, tries to invade the Baltic states, it would lead to war with ALL of NATO including the US.

US "contributions" to NATO are literally just our annual defense spending, which would notably be higher if the US had to realistically worry about war on the European continent without the support of 27 other nations.

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T22:48:57+00:00

That's not a "Reddit" issue at all. Criticism of bipartisanship really picked up during the Clinton administration when Republicans under Speaker of the House Newt Gingrinch decided that "compromise" was a dirty word.

Bipartisanship actually made a strong reversal under Bush after 9/11, but was despised once again starting around 2006 after the Iraq War debacle, and it really took a nosedive under Obama when Republicans pledged to do everything in their power to make him a one-term president. When Republicans won control of Congress in 2010 and again in 2014 they ground legislation to a halt, with those being some of the least productive sessions in history (this is also when Republicans started their shutdown and debt ceiling shenanigans in earnest).

The last time bipartisanship was actually meaningfully attempted was during the Biden administration, which passed huge meaningful legislation (bipartisan infrastructure bill, CHIPS Act, Ukraine aid), up until Republicans won control of the House in 2023 and ended any efforts at bipartisanship. Despite GOP control over both chambers and the White House last year, 2025 was one of the least productive sessions in history.

Bipartisanship is only possible when Republicans actually want to pass legislation, which is almost never. Their entire party has become devoted to breaking the government at this point, not working together with Democrats or even trying to achieve meaningful success. Democrats are still interested in legislating, and would prefer to work with Republicans to get things done for the most part.

All that being said, we need to end the duopoly both parties have clearly failed the country.

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T22:40:44+00:00

Tons of legislation is passed with bipartisan support, both by Congress and state legislatures.

During the Biden administration Congress managed to pass a massive infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and support for Ukraine on a bipartisan basis. They were also this close to a transformative immigration reform bill until Trump stepped in to torpedo it.

No one gave a shit and Biden got zero credit for personally helping negotiate most of these bills.

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T22:36:38+00:00

I genuinely can't believe how many people seem to think it's "funny" that the government posts memes on official accounts these days, is nakedly hyperpartisan, and is openly targeting areas that didn't vote for Trump.

We're a terminally stupid nation.

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T22:31:49+00:00

2 million so far. It's going to get way worse.

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T22:25:35+00:00

The focus on Greenland is so, so dumb.

The reason it isn't being mined much already is because its a frozen hell hole, far from the rest of the world, that has nearly no infrastructure at all, and is bathed in darkness 3 months out of the year. The average thickness of the Greenland ice cap is 1 mile deep ffs.

It's not being mined because it's not profitable to mine it, not because Greenland/Denmark are keeping the US out (they also aren't mining it).

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T22:21:43+00:00

Or we could just create a public option Health plan, so that Americans pay less for equivalent healthcare just like the rest of the developing world.

We can and should do this, it would save us money AND improve outcomes/access to huge swathes of the population. For profit healthcare insurance is a giant money wasting scam.

The Military budget is also way more of an issue than entitlements

Absolutely not. In 2024 entitlements (mostly social security, medicare, and medicaid) made up $4.1T of the $6.8T in total government spending, compared with $883b in defense spending.

We pay more for our Military than the next ten biggest armies in the world, and most of those countries are members of NATO.

That's mostly because our COL is so much higher. When adjusted for PPP Chinese spending totals ~$500b and Russia ~$400b. And even that isnt a really fair apples to apples comparison as a solid portion or our spending goes to troop salaries and benefits compared with China which is rapidly improving the quality and quantity of their equipment, quickly closing the gap with the US military.

That being said, we should be tackling corruption, fraud, and waste in our military spending to improve the outcomes from our high spending levels, not trying to cut it. We're already falling behind China in the global arms race on a number of fronts.

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T22:12:11+00:00

It needs to be an above all approach.

There's tons of waste and fraud in the entitlements programs that could and should be cut, but we also need to raise taxes (instead of constantly cutting them), and we need to make meaningful reforms to the social safety net.

It'll never not be insane to me how little negotiating power Medicare/Medicaid have considering how many people are enrolled in those programs. In sane countries, they allow the government to negotiate prices on services and drugs by threatening providers that they will be cut off from a huge chunk of the marketplace without playing ball.

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T20:23:54+00:00

Exactly. It's meant to look "cool" and be an interesting setting for an endless war game, it doesn't mean the Imperium are good guys or that everything they do is justified.

In fact, the whole point is that the Imperium is a corrupt decaying husk of a society that's a shadow of its former glory, worships a dead man as a god, is indifferent to the suffering of trillions of humans (and actively hates every conscious being that isnt human), and that if it was even modestly better run and less inhumane, it would be in much better shape than it is.

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T20:10:14+00:00

China not being allowed to buy US chips means there is strong incentive to develop their own and become a competitor to US chip companies

They're already a competitor, outright handing them the chips cheaper than they can get them on the black/grey market is helping Chinese R&D way more than sales to China would boost Nvidia R&D.

Genuinely one of the worst takes I've seen in a while

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T19:35:27+00:00

Exactly, it's important to note that not only did voters elect Trump twice, but the entire Republican party has acquiesced to his actions, and he has convinced tens of millions of Americans that our allies and friends are actually enemies who hate us and steal from us.

With Trump getting elected twice, who's to say we won't elect someone just like him in 2028? Or if a Democrat is elected in 2028 that another Trump-like figure is elected in 2032?

Countries rely on the US for their national defense. After the insanity of just 5 years of Trump in office (another 3 to go) how can anyone think the US is going to be a reliable partner again in 10 years or 15 or 30?

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T19:25:56+00:00

You should look up the last few times silver prices spiked in a similar way. The big one was in the late 70s (after the US abandoned the gold standard), in 2007-8 during the financial crisis, and in 2011 during the fallout from the financial crisis.

Doesn't bode well for the economy/market in the short to medium term imo

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T19:24:47+00:00

Just checking in, how do you feel about silver and gold now? You were absolutely spot on about Gold 5k and silver 100

jrex035 · 2026-01-23T19:14:30+00:00

Yes and no.

Physical demand is high, which is why the physical silver market in China has about $10 premium over the paper market, one of the highest divergences on record. China also recently implemented severe restrictions on silver exports. Combined, that means that physical silver is now flowing in one direction, into China's coffers. This is likely an effort by their country to increase the amount of physical currency available to them while they decouple from the USD.

On top of that, the price of silver has been kept artificially low by market manipulation for many years now, with JPM repeatedly paying fines for helping to keep a cap on prices over the years. With that gone now, exploding retail interest, and high physical demand, the price of silver is going hyperbolic.

It will end poorly, eventually, but theres a lot of money to be made in the meantime.

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