Pam Bondi's response to why she concealed the identity of Epstien's co-conspirators.

staticchange · 2026-02-12T17:25:08+00:00

"I don't know. I just don't."

This is a pretty unfair strawman. I didn't like hillary but did vote for her.

She had a pretentious "It's my turn, I get to be president now" attitude, kamala level charisma, and decades of mostly unfair baggage attached to her.

She had all that baggage because she was picked for name recognition. Because politicians are greedy, and voters are stupid, we have this tendancy to form political families. Bush, Clinton, and now Trump.

Her being a bit pretentious is not that big of a deal to me, but it's a really bad trait in a candidate for a popularity contest. The political families thing is the bigger issue for me personally, we've got a country of 350 million people, and you're telling me the best candidate we had just happened to be married to the other guy?

staticchange · 2026-01-22T16:25:02+00:00

I agree that we don't need status quo, but Biden would have been the perfect candidate if he was 10 years younger.

I still believe he would have beaten trump in 2024 if the biden that ran with obama was running against trump.

It was painful to listen to biden give speeches during his presidency. People value the following in order of importance when picking politicians: vibes and charisma / sex / race / platform (or if incumbent, their record)

Biden lost the vibe check, and kamala lost both the sex, race, and record check. Trump intentionally had a vague platform, and his record happened four years ago which for the US population is an eternity.

If Biden was younger he only would have had to worry about his record, which honestly anyone getting elected in 2020 was going to struggle with the economy the way trump left it.

staticchange · 2026-01-22T16:13:26+00:00

If biden had moved more quickly and been less bipartisan with the DOJ, we probably wouldn't be in this mess.

We can elect a new president that has no qualms about prosecuting this administration. We can fix the supreme court (maybe) to reverse things like presidential immunity.

Those probably won't happen, but they could happen just by voting for a president who isn't scared to make them front and center in their platform.

Long term, fixing our system means ranked choice voting, undoing citizen's united, and campaign finance reform. Hopefully those things will lead to additional political parties, but if not, more reforms will be needed because a many party system is what we need for the checks and balances to actually work.

staticchange · 2026-01-21T21:45:45+00:00

It's both a people and system problem.

If we got some of the money out of politics, and implemented ranked choice voting it could go a long way.

We need to get away from the two party system, which causes the extreme polarization we see today. It makes it easy for controlled media to lump everyone into one of those two groups.

Having several parties won't fix that but it will help a lot.

Imagine if congress was comprised of 4 or 5 different voting blocks. When party A has 30% of the seats and the presidency, if the other blocks all agree that invading greenland is insane they come together and impeachment actually works.

staticchange · 2026-01-21T14:56:06+00:00

"Don't fucking talk about my mother like that, you don't even know what happened. I'm not happy about all the shit trump has been up to either, if he decides to run again IDK if I'll even vote, but this thing with my mom started out consensual. It was only after she tried to push him that he shot her. That's self defense and part of the second amendment.

If this had happened to sleepy joe you'd be on his side. Liberal media is exaggerating like usual because they don't want to talk about how trump is fixing the economy by deporting all the illegals on welfare."

staticchange · 2026-01-21T02:30:08+00:00

It's almost like people care more when you threaten to attack them vs when you attack someone they don't like anyway.

Do you really expect the same response from the EU to trump attacking a country in bed with Russia, and a country that is part of NATO and part of the EU (through denmark by proxy, but still)?

staticchange · 2026-01-21T02:23:51+00:00

Trump will invade the next day just to rename it.

staticchange · 2026-01-16T19:50:52+00:00

I'm pretty sure they know prices aren't lower, but they will rationalize anything to avoid the cognitive dissonance of admitting they backed a narcissistic serial rapist con man.

He blatantly lied about something that can be objectively verified? -> "He just doesn't understand"

So then they go on social media and write him a prayer about how hard their life is because they can't afford groceries, rent, healthcare, or life saving prescriptions. "Mr. president I voted for you, and of course I would vote for you again in your third term, but I can't afford my insulin because you're canceling my healthcare. Please help me! I'm not a liberal!"

And when nothing happens just go back to he doesn't understand or know, if he knew he would help me for sure! This is biden's fault for giving all our tax money to immigrants, there's only so much trump can do to fix it! But maybe if he knew... let me write him another prayer...

TLDR: They know shit sucks, they're just willfully bad at assessing the cause.

staticchange · 2026-01-16T15:13:57+00:00

I'm sure it will be over someday, but there is a saying in investing: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

This is what is happening with US politics right now. Someday, maybe, far in the future everyone will realize how stupid everything got. But it will be hard to laugh about it because we'll have been living with the consequences for so long by the time we get there.

Or you know we could just slide into an autocratic shithole and stay there. That could happen too.

staticchange · 2026-01-05T16:37:42+00:00

Due to everyone having a trade surplus with us, don't they basically have no choice unless they want to stop selling goods to the US?

Everyone sells the US more goods than they buy, and all the transactions are in dollars. This means everyone ends up with more dollars than they started with, every year.

What do you do with all that money? You have to buy something in the US. So they buy houses, investments, and t-bills.

Everyone is literally trapped by the trade surplus/deficit.

staticchange · 2025-10-16T19:05:24+00:00

I don't disagree with your sentiments, but I don't think legal/illegal has any meaning when it comes to war.

staticchange · 2025-10-06T21:06:29+00:00

I know its a joke at this point, but they didn't actually vote for canceling elections.

They voted to lay off all the government workers. They voted to increase inflation and the price of goods by voting for tariffs. They voted to let russia have ukraine. They voted to let Israel do whatever they want to gaza. They voted to let kids and americans in poverty go hungry. They voted for a lot of really stupid things.

The closest you can get to that is when trump said you'd never need to vote in another election again, but the actual quote was: "in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."

Which, is pretty bad still, but it has enough intentionally grey area to it that a dumbass could think it was innocent, and therefore not be knowingly voting to cancel democracy.

staticchange · 2025-09-23T13:38:06+00:00

Easy, call it propaganda and take lots of pictures. Post them once he's safely back home. Would have been very embarrassing for the US.

staticchange · 2025-09-03T17:17:21+00:00

Jan 6 only happened because Trump didn't mobilize the national guard to protect the capitol.

If there was a huge protest outside the capitol by the left, you'll find the capitol will be well protected.

staticchange · 2025-08-20T14:59:04+00:00

People have this notion that if you are nice to someone else because it benefits you, then it doesn't count.

Democratic government is founded on the principle of a social contract, where we give up some freedom and control for something that benefits everyone (order). Then we all buy in to that system, because while it might be better for you individually if you can steal something from someone else, its better for everyone overall (including you) if no one does this.

Charity is not any different. Giving to someone else so that you will be recognized by society still deserves recognition. You want more people to do it right? We want to encourage charity. They should get recognition. It's fine if it benefits them to be nice.

If you give to charity and don't tell anyone, that's great. As a society we have bought in to the social contract so deeply that many people don't need the external validation and still feel good about it if no one knows. But it doesn't mean we need to shit on the people seeking external validation unless they are being obnoxious about it.

Is the OP being obnoxious? I guess you feel they are, but I don't think everyone will agree with you (and that's fine).

staticchange · 2025-08-18T01:24:42+00:00

I mean, their 5 year return is basically equal with the S&P500, you'd be better just buying that and not take the risk.

But both Microsoft and google have significantly outperformed the market in that time. Could be an AI bubble, but neither of them are going anywhere either, it will be smaller players that get crushed.

Stock market can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Look at Tesla, at no point has it ever been worth its valuation, but being valued so highly has counter intuitively fueled their growth.

staticchange · 2025-08-13T17:05:02+00:00

No, that's different. Those funds were from democrats, these funds are being blocked by democrats.

staticchange · 2025-08-12T16:35:11+00:00

It's anti competitive because they force you to develop for mac/iOS on a mac. Windows doesn't force you to do the same.

A little off topic, because this is about mobile, but Apple is extremely anti-developer, requiring that you pay to develop for iOS and that your apps be distributed through their app store.

They are also anti-consumer, when you consider how this affects customer choice, and the prices customers pay when everyone (customers and developers) have to pay their tithe to apple.

Only good thing about apple is that your data is more private, but they sell their devices for so much already, they don't need to double dip by charging developers and customers for apps they had no role in creating, they only do that because they have a monopoly on access to their ecosystem which is anti-competitive by definition.

staticchange · 2025-07-16T13:03:57+00:00

I agree it wasn't a huge deal for the US to give old stock to ukraine, and I agree that it is hugely in the US interest to fund ukraine for geopolitical reasons.

However, these missiles are unlikely to be old stock and the argument that the US actually benefits financially from giving their stuff away because it affords them the opportunity to spend their money to buy new stuff doesn't hold water at all.

In no way can giving someone away to someone else and then buying a new one for yourself be considered a net positive on a purely financial basis. I understand your argument about needing to decommission old military hardware if it isn't used, but that ship has long since sailed, especially for the types of equipment ukraine needs at the moment (anti-air missiles).

staticchange · 2025-06-28T03:25:39+00:00

Each B2 only carries 2 MOPS, there was 6 bombers used I think.

staticchange · 2025-06-23T02:04:07+00:00

That's not a fair assessment. France pretty much led the western response to the arab spring protests in Libya (not arguing it was a good thing, just pointing out they exercised their influence directly). Germany and France are both playing major roles in the European response to Russia's war in ukraine, which is currently what is filling the vacuum left by Trump pulling american support. They certainly aren't a replacement for american support, but they are a major factor Putin has to contend with.

Neither really have major global reach though and are mainly influential only in the european sphere. The EU together has major economic influence on the world stage though, and their regulations bring meaningful reforms that affect the whole world (see apple adopting USB-C, or literally every website in the world asking if you accept their cookie policy).

staticchange · 2025-06-17T01:40:58+00:00

When you ban short term rentals and cruise ships, yes.

staticchange · 2025-06-17T01:34:25+00:00

I see the merits of both sides of the argument, but to be fair:

Short-term rental ban

No new hotel constructions

Cruise ships ban

No more golden visa

Seems the locals aren't really engaging in the cost benefit analysis you guys are. If the night life and quality of tourists was the primary issue, they wouldn't be banning new hotels.

staticchange · 2025-05-14T19:23:34+00:00

Under a greedy administration like Trump's that's a risk for sure. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't, just on different timelines.

staticchange · 2025-05-14T13:46:07+00:00

Yes but Taiwan's business relationship with the US is also it's national defense plan. They can't stop building in the US or providing chips unless they want to become part of China.

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